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The Twitter Twins idled at the gate for a moment, wrinkling their noses. Then Lili shrugged and said something to Gabby that Emma couldn’t hear. The two of them smiled, and Gabby threw the vehicle into reverse. Both girls gave Emma a three-finger wave as they pul ed away.
Emma waited a few beats for her heart to slow down. Then she turned to the impound worker. “I’m here to pick up my car,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Come in here.” The worker led Emma to the building inside the lot. “I need your driver’s license and credit card.”
Emma handed over Sutton’s license from her wal et. The worker typed something into a dusty keyboard and stared at the screen. A wrinkle formed on his brow. “Sutton Mercer?” he repeated. “1965 Volvo?”
“That’s right,” Emma said, remembering the details from Sutton’s police file.
The man gave her a long, suspicious look. “It says here that you picked up this vehicle nearly a month ago.”
Emma blinked. “What?”
“It’s right here. You signed it out on the morning of August thirty-first. The fine was paid in ful .” He twisted the monitor to show Emma the screen. She stared at a scan of the car’s release form. There, at the bottom, next to the X, was Sutton’s signature.
A memory bloomed in my mind: I had been here before. I remembered the leaky Bic pen that I used to sign the release forms. I remembered hearing my phone ring and feeling a jolt of happiness. But before I could get a look at the screen, the vision tunneled and blinked off. Emma stared at Sutton’s signature, that swooping S, the humps of the M. It was another clear link to what Sutton was doing the day she died, but it felt like her investigation had taken a huge left turn. Why hadn’t Sutton told anyone she’d signed out the car that day? And where was Sutton’s car now?
The man cleared his throat, breaking Emma from her thoughts. “This is your signature, right?”
Emma’s tongue felt like it was made of lead. She wasn’t sure how to answer. Should she say it wasn’t and report the car stolen? But what if she did that and then the police found Sutton’s body in the trunk? As soon as that happened, Emma would be arrested—without any other evidence, she was the most likely suspect in her sister’s murder: the unlucky twin trying to escape a life of poverty.
“Uh . . . I guess I made a mistake,” she croaked. Then she backed out of the little booth and into the blinding sunset.
The worker stared after her, shaking his head and muttering under his breath about how every kid was on drugs these days. As Emma walked out of the lot, figuring she’d cal a cab to take her back to the Mercers’, a flash to the right caught her eye. A figure ducked behind an abandoned old Burger King on the other side of the chainlink fence. Even though Emma had only seen a glimpse, she was almost positive the figure had dirty-blonde hair like the Twitter Twins.
They were watching my sister for sure. The only thing I didn’t know was what they were planning next.
Chapter 22
Tweet, Untweet
Just hours before Homecoming, the doorbel rang at Charlotte’s house. Emma left her Diet Coke on the kitchen counter and padded through the hal to get it. She opened the door to find an older, spiky-haired, tattooed woman in a black tutu, ripped CBGB T-shirt, and worn motorcycle boots. She looked like a cross between the Bride of Frankenstein and a coked-up Courtney Love.
“Hey, sweetie!” the woman at the door cried, breaking Emma from her thoughts. She grabbed Emma’s arms and kissed her on both cheeks, leaving behind vampy red lipstick prints. Emma wasn’t sure if she should assume the woman knew Sutton, or if this was just the way she greeted everyone. She played it safe with a cool smile. We’d met before—I was sure of it. A memory slithered through my mind: the woman and Charlotte’s mother talking in hushed voices in the kitchen. You know I’ll kill him if it’s true, Charlotte’s mom had said. But both of them straightened and smiled when I entered the kitchen, gushing with smal talk about how fashionable I looked and if I thought they could pul off denim leggings, too. (The answer, for both, was a groaning “no.”)
The woman sauntered into the kitchen and plopped two giant makeup cases down on the farmhouse table. “Okay, ladies!” she croaked in a two-packs-a-day voice. “Let’s get you gory and gorgeous for Homecoming!”
Madeline, Charlotte, and Laurel cheered. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The idea was to primp at Charlotte’s, take dozens of sexy, Facebook-worthy pictures in their Hal oween dresses, and then their dates would pick them up in a stretch limo a half hour before the dance. Wel , everyone else’s dates—Emma hadn’t bothered to ask anyone after Ethan. She tried to play it off like going stag was the cool thing to do; Sutton probably would have. Emma stil had a lot to learn about me. The only place I went stag was the bathroom.
Charlotte’s mother clonked into the kitchen on raffia wedges and gave the makeup artist an air kiss. With her perky boobs, giant Chanel sunglasses, and grass-green Juicy Couture minidress, Charlotte’s mom didn’t look like the rest of the mothers in suburbia, even in Sutton’s upscale Tucson neighborhood. “Ladies, you remember Helene, my makeup guru,” she said, chomping gum between her shiny veneers. “You’re in excel ent hands with her.” She slung a studded bag over her shoulder and grabbed her Mercedes keys from the telephone table.
Helene pouted. “You’re not staying to watch the magic?”
Mrs. Chamberlain glanced at her pink diamond-studded watch. “Can’t. I’ve got an appointment for a Brazilian in ten minutes.”
