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“A light fel from the rafters and almost hit you,” Madeline said in a shaking voice. “It was crazy—it almost landed on your head!”
Emma squinted, remembering the blurry figure above her. The warning in white chalk. Her heart began to race, thudding so hard against her chest she was scared Madeline and the nurse could hear it. “Did you see someone standing over me when I was lying on the ground? Someone writing something on that chalkboard?”
Madeline narrowed her eyes. “What chalkboard?”
“Someone wrote something,” Emma insisted. “Are you sure it wasn’t Gabby? Lili?”
An expression Emma couldn’t read flitted across Madeline’s face. “I think you need to rest some more. Gabby and Lili were on the stage when the light fel . The custodian said it was just a freak accident—those lights are super-old.” She patted Emma’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry to do this, but I have to get back to the auditorium—Charlotte wil have my head if I’m not there to help direct the caterers.” Madeline stood. “Just take it easy, and I’l check on you when the party’s over, okay?”
The bul etin board on the back of the door swung back and forth as Madeline pul ed it shut behind her. The nurse murmured that she’d be back in a moment, too, and slipped out another door. In the silence of the tiny room, Emma shut her eyes, leaned back against the cot’s rockhard pil ow, and exhaled. Don’t you think you should take your place now, Sutton?
Gabby had said just before the ceremony began. You’re at stage left, right? And then Lili had run back upstairs for her iPhone, right where the light was fastened. And then . . . crash. The light hit exactly where she was supposed to be standing.
“Emma?”
Emma opened her eyes to see Ethan hovering over her, his dark eyebrows furrowed with concern. He was dressed in a worn olive-green T-shirt, dark-wash jeans, and black Vans that looked as though they’d been through a wood chipper. She felt the heat of his body as he stepped closer. He took her hand, then glanced away, as if unsure whether touching her was okay. Emma hadn’t been alone with him since the art opening—since she’d rejected him. She sat up quickly and smoothed her hair. “Hey,” she croaked.
Ethan let go of her hand and dropped down on the black office chair Madeline had just occupied. “I heard a crash backstage. Next thing I know, people were cal ing your name. What the hel happened?”
A shudder ran through Emma’s body as she told him about the light and the note on the chalkboard. When she was finished, Ethan stood up halfway, his arm muscles taut as he held his body inches above the chair. “Is the message stil there?”
“No. Someone erased it.”
He sank onto the chair again. “There were a ton of people backstage as soon as the crash happened. Someone would’ve seen al that, don’t you think?”
“I know it doesn’t make sense. But there was someone there. Someone wrote that message.”
He gave her the same look Madeline had. “You’ve been under a lot of stress. Are you sure it wasn’t a dream?”
“It didn’t feel like a dream.” Emma pul ed the nurse’s blanket tighter around her, feeling sweat from her palms melt into the rough wool. “I think it was the Twins,” she said. She hushed her voice and told Ethan about what Charlotte and Madeline had said about Sutton doing something to Gabby that landed her in the hospital. Then she told him about the pil bottle Gabby had removed from the bag. “It was something cal ed Topamax. I’ve seen Gabby popping pil s before, but I always thought it was a party thing. Do you have your phone? I need to Google it.”
“Emma,” Ethan said, urgency in his voice. “Someone just told you to stop digging.”
Emma sniffed. “I thought you didn’t believe me about the board.”
“Of course I believe you—I just hoped it wasn’t true.”
Ethan’s eyes burned a dark blue under the florescent lights.
“I think it’s time we put an end to this.”
Emma ran her hands down the length of her face. “If we stop, that means whoever did this to Sutton wil have gotten away with murder.” Then she swung her legs over the tiny cot. Blood prickled through her body as she rose to her feet.
“What are you doing?” Ethan exclaimed, watching her make her way to the filing cabinets along the wal .
“Gabby’s medical history wil be on file with the school if there’s any type of problem,” Emma whispered. She yanked open the file cabinet marked E–F and ran her fingers over the worn manila folders until she found FIORELLO, GABRIELLA.
Heels clacked along the hal way, and Emma froze, listening as they grew louder and then faded as they passed the nurses office. Emma pul ed out Gabby’s folder and saw that it was crisper than the others, as if it hadn’t done the time to earn worn edges. She thumbed through the contents and let out a low whistle. “Topamax, Gabby’s medicine? It’s to treat epilepsy.”
“She has epilepsy?” Ethan narrowed his eyes. “I feel like I would’ve heard about that.”
Emma kept reading. “It says the disease was dormant until July, and that ‘an incident triggered the first seizure.’”
She raised her eyes to Ethan. “The train prank was in July. What if Sutton caused her epilepsy?”
“Jesus.” Ethan’s face paled.
Emma slipped the folder back into the drawer and guided it shut with her hip. “The Twitter Twins must have been beyond furious—maybe even angry and crazed enough to plan Sutton’s murder.”
