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Emma straightened to full height. “My name is Sutton Mercer.”
“Good for you,” the woman said, unimpressed.
Emma wound a piece of hair around her finger, feeling like an idiot. “Um, I was supposed to meet Raven Jannings here. And it seems she’s gone already. So I was just wondering if she’d left anything.”
The woman’s expression suddenly softened. “Raven?” She glanced up at an oversized clock that hung above the entrance to the kitchen. “You’ve just missed her.”
Emma’s throat went dry. “She was here?”
“Yes.” The woman nodded. “And you were supposed to meet her?”
“That’s right.”
I waited, breathless.
The woman held Emma’s gaze for a moment, as if deciding if she was telling the truth, then reached under a stack of twenties in the register and pulled out an envelope. “She left this for you.”
Emma’s stomach fluttered. “Thank you,” she said, grabbing it from her. She looked around, feeling eyes on her back. The teenagers at the booth were staring at her. So was an old man at the counter. This place was entirely too public to examine whatever Raven had left. She had to go.
She shoved open the door and felt the humid, post-rain air swallow her body. Once she was in Sutton’s car again, she tore open the envelope, her fingers shaking. Inside was a note with a Polaroid photo pinned to the top. At first, when Emma looked at the face, she blinked hard, certain that something had misfired in her brain. The quality wasn’t perfect, but Emma recognized the narrow face, the slanted nose, the high cheekbones, and the jet-black hair. She turned on the overhead light and stared harder, but the features were the same. It couldn’t be.
I gawked, too, and my mind sparked and expanded. A new memory pieced together, and I found myself zooming back in time.
31
A FATEFUL GOODBYE
My father’s SUV tears across the earth, kicking up rocks and roots and cactus spines. I trip over mini hills and stray plants, wheeling my way into the darkness. What if my father has completely snapped? Things have been so tense lately, but I never realized it could come to this.
The moon passes behind a cloud and my eyes start to play tricks on me. Gnarled branches twist into phantomlike shapes. I take a sharp right, and just when I think I’m going to escape him, my foot smashes against a rock and I go flying. I fling out my hands to break my fall. Blood pounds in my ears. I can feel my skin stinging from where I’ve cut myself and I know I’m bleeding. I bite my lip to keep from sobbing.
My father pulls the car up beside me. “Sutton!” he says from the open window. “Are you all right?”
My palms and knees are on fire as I push from the ground and try to steady myself. A bird squawks in the air above us. The only other sound I hear is the wind whistling over the dirt and between the cacti. I suddenly feel very exposed—and trapped.
“Why are you running from me?” my dad cries. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel. “And where is Thayer?”
I blink at him. You know where Thayer is, I want to say. But the look on his face is surprisingly innocent and worried.
I step back an inch or two, confused.
“Did Thayer leave you out here alone?” My father sounds shocked.
The more I look at him, the more confused I feel. Despite the layer of dust on his clothes and the worry lines on his forehead, he looks like my dad again, not some crazed maniac. And his confusion seems genuine. Is it possible it was someone else? But who would try to hurt Thayer?
“Um…” I don’t know whether to tell my dad what happened. Suddenly I’m not even sure what did happen.
My dad sighs. “I’m not going to say it again. Get in the car, Sutton. It’s dangerous out here at night. You could get hurt.”
Exhaustion overcomes me, and I walk around the side of the car and let myself in. As we slowly drive back down the hill, I realize I wasn’t far from the main road at all. I can see the neighborhood across the street from the canyon easily now. Ethan Landry sits on his front porch, fiddling with his telescope and probably hoping to catch a better view of the full moon. Science geeks are into that kind of thing. Next door all of the girls on the tennis team are on Nisha’s lawn, secretly smoking cigarettes. I feel a pinch of guilt—I was supposed to be there tonight for our back-to-school team sleepover. Instead, I’d chosen Thayer. And look where that got him.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “Why did you chase us?”
My dad looks frustrated. “I wanted to tell you the truth. Except you ran away before I had the chance.”
“The truth about…what?”
“About the woman I was with,” my dad says. His body looks stiff as he arches forward and grips the wheel.
I whirl around to face my father. My pulse ratchets up as I put the pieces together. This was why Thayer had dragged me away from the overlook and practically pushed me down the trail. My dad was with another woman up in Sabino Canyon. Someone who wasn’t my mother.
“Another woman?” I squeak.
“I can explain, Sutton,” my dad says. “It’s not how it looks.”
But I know exactly how it looks—and what it is. Sabino Canyon is the perfect place to carry on a secret affair: It’s super-romantic and very private. That’s why I’d brought Thayer here tonight. “You’re cheating on Mom,” I spit. “What more is there to explain? I don’t need to know the gory details, like what kind of freaking lingerie your trashy mistress prefers.” My fingers curl on the door handle.
