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Ms. Rigby surveyed the shelves for a moment, then found what she was looking for. “The Devil’s Playground,” she said cheerfully. “It’s about criminal insanity. It’s a good read, and it should give you a good place to start your research if you’re interested in that sort of thing.”
Emma liked Ms. Rigby, but it was a little chilling to hear her talk about violent insanity as if it was a source of entertainment. “Um, great.”
“The school board obviously doesn’t let us keep anything too disturbing in the library, so you might also check the university. They’ll have tons of stuff.”
The librarian returned to her desk, and Emma looked back at the shelves. She grabbed a few more books and went to a table hidden behind the science fiction section, a little out of sight of the front desk.
She started to leaf through the first book. It contained lots of pictures, from woodcuts of the Salem witch trials to before-and-after pictures of lobotomies in the 1960s. She flipped to the index and ran her finger down the list of entries, unsure what she was even really looking for. Then she remembered something the nurse had said in the hospital: It looks like a total psychotic break.
She found the entry for psychotic break and flipped to the page indicated. Psychosis is marked by a complete removal of the patient from reality, it said. Delusions, hallucinations, disordered thinking or behavior, and poor impulse control are all indicators of a psychotic break. Then the book went on to describe a bunch of serial killers with names like the Night Slasher and the Dallas Axe Killer who had received instructions from the voices in their heads to kill and kill again. They murdered people they loved. Parents. Sisters. Children. All because a voice told them to.
Emma’s stomach turned. Becky had been taken to the hospital because she’d pulled a knife on someone. Had a voice commanded her to do that? What might she have done if the security guards hadn’t intervened?
“Good reading?”
Thayer stood over her, his dark hair falling shaggily into his hazel eyes. Emma slapped the book shut and placed it at her side, face down. A book on criminal psychosis didn’t seem like typical Sutton Mercer reading material.
Thayer flopped down across from her, and suddenly a package of Twizzlers manifested itself in front of her nose. The sweet strawberry smell made her mouth water. “For you!”
“These are my favorite!” Emma exclaimed, taking a large bite of the sticky, sugary candy. Emma had always kept a package of the candy in her purse back in Nevada, hiding it from foster siblings with personal-space-and-property issues. “How did you know?”
His brow crinkled. “Because I used to bring them to you every day?”
Emma smiled at the thought that she and Sutton had the same favorite candy. So much about their lifestyles seemed so different, but maybe there had been some tastes they’d shared after all.
“What are you reading, anyway?” Thayer asked. He grabbed at the book and let out a low whistle of surprise. “Whoa. You have a dark side I didn’t know about.”
“Is that why you’re here? To find out about my dark side?” Emma asked.
Thayer nodded. “Obviously. I’m stalking you.”
Emma felt her cheeks getting warm under Thayer’s gaze. He thinks he’s looking at Sutton, not me, she reminded herself. A tickle of curiosity stirred in the back of her mind. Thayer had seemed so unhappy and brittle when she first met him, and it still surprised her to see this friendly, sweet side of him. Then she remembered something and cleared her throat.
“Do you remember that day at the fair when you won me the big Scooby-Doo?” she asked.
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “How could I forget? I only threw rings at bowling pins for three hours to get the stupid thing.”
“Laurel reminded me about it the other day,” Emma said softly. “It was really … sweet.”
Thayer frowned. “You said it was stupid. You said carnival animals were full of lice.”
“Oh please, I loved it,” Emma murmured. For a moment she imagined herself as Sutton, receiving the stuffed animal, rolling her eyes to keep her diva reputation intact but later laying her cheek against the cheap plush toy and smiling at the thought of Thayer. She felt sure that her sister had secretly swooned over the gesture.
An image came to me of the Scooby-Doo sitting on my bedspread. Thayer and I had loved each other so intensely, but we’d only been together a short time. It just wasn’t fair.
Thayer reached across the table for Emma’s hand. For a split second she let him curl his fingers around hers—but then she pulled quickly away.
He flushed. “Sorry,” he said. “Old habits die hard.”
She was spared having to say anything else when Celeste, idly shuffling a deck of cards, emerged from behind a bookshelf. She was wearing a green lace jacket over a short, shapeless gray dress, and a large purple stone on a lanyard hung around her neck. The rings on her fingers glittered as she played with the cards. She stopped when she saw Sutton and Thayer. “Helloooo,” she said, drawing out the word.
“What do you want?” Emma asked, frowning. She wasn’t in the mood to hear more about her damaged aura today.
Celeste smiled at Thayer, her expression looking like it was somehow filtered through a soft-focus camera lens. “I don’t know if I’ve met you. Are you Sutton’s boyfriend?”
Thayer coughed and glanced at Emma awkwardly. “I’m Thayer,” he said, holding out his hand.
Celeste didn’t shake it. She slid next to Thayer and looked at Emma unblinkingly. “Sutton,” she said finally, “I think I’ve been sent here to give you a message.”
