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“Why don’t you run up to his room and see if you can find it?”
Emma felt a pang of guilt at how easily the woman suggested it. “You don’t mind?”
“Not at all. If you’re brave enough to enter that mess, you have my blessings.” Vanessa opened the front door with another laugh. Emma followed her into an entryway with cherry-wood parquet flooring and antique bronze light fixtures. The window over the door was a stained-glass image of the sun coming up over the mountains, and the light filtering through it cast an orange glow over the room. She stared around for a moment. This wasn’t what she’d expected Garrett’s house to look like at all. The decorations were luxurious and eccentric. Garrett had always seemed so bland to her.
Then again, she clearly didn’t know anything about Garrett at all.
Emma turned and gave Vanessa her best impress-the-adults smile. “Thank you so much. I’ll just be a minute.”
“Take your time, sweetie.” Garrett’s mother enclosed her in a quick hug that smelled like jasmine perfume and potting soil. Emma’s heart ached a little. Vanessa reminded her of her best friend Alex’s mom, who’d always treated her like family.
She gave Garrett’s mom another little wave and took the steps two at a time, her heart picking up speed. The stairs opened onto a landing that looked over the living room. The high, slanting ceiling was made of red tin, stamped with an elaborate vine pattern. Creepy ambient music seeped out from under one of the closed bedroom doors. A large collage hung on the door at eye level—it looked like the artist had ripped up pictures of fashion models and then pieced them back together into surreal, alien forms, some with animal bodies, others with machine parts replacing arms or eyes. Emma thought it was safe to assume that was Louisa’s room. The room after that was a blue-and-yellow tiled bathroom—and the one after that, she guessed, would be Garrett’s. She tentatively cracked the door and peered inside.
Bingo.
Vanessa hadn’t been exaggerating. Garrett’s room looked like a bomb had gone off in it. His dark green bedspread slumped half on the bed, half on the floor. Dirty clothes were strewn around on every square inch of the floor, and a pervasive smell of sweaty socks filled the air. PowerBar wrappers and empty Gatorade bottles collected on every surface. Pictures of soccer players and Italian race cars were tacked all over the walls, and a jock strap dangled from the little gold figurine topping an MVP trophy on his desk.
Emma’s eyes darted uncertainly around the room. If Garrett were hiding something about the murder, where would it be—and what would it be? She opened his desk drawers, sorting through unorganized piles of paper clips, highlighters, and thumbtacks. There was evidence of his current romance with Celeste, in the form of a chunk of violet quartz next to his computer—Emma assumed it was for focusing his chi or something like that. A photo of Celeste sitting on a swing and gazing off into mid-distance sat behind it.
A few picture frames lay facedown on the desk, where they’d been knocked over by a hastily flung windbreaker. She picked them up and turned them over—and as she did, her heart started to slam against her chest.
In one, Nisha beamed at the camera in tennis whites. And in the other, Sutton gave her best movie-star pout from a lounge chair, dressed in a jade-green bikini and a flowered sarong.
The frames shook in her hands. Why would he have these here, on his desk, after both girls had broken up with him?
I stared at the pictures. What did he think about when he looked at them? Did he relive what he’d done to us? Did he tell himself that I’d deserved it for hurting him? A shiver moved through me as I looked at my own coy smirk, frozen forever in time.
Emma set the pictures back where she’d found them. She suddenly felt a lot less safe than she had a moment before. She backed toward the door, stumbling over a stray hiking boot on the way.
As she turned to go, she kicked an orange prescription bottle with the tip of her toe. A few pills rattled inside. She frowned, stooping to pick it up.
It was Valium.
Time froze. She stared at the crisp black print on the label until the letters didn’t make sense, until they looked like a jumble of alien signs. Detective Quinlan’s voice floated back to her. The examiner found extremely high amounts of diazepam in her bloodstream. Nisha hadn’t had a prescription. But Garrett did.
“What are you doing in here?”
The voice cut through Emma’s thoughts like a knife. She jumped, throwing the bottle to the floor, and looked up to see Garrett’s sister in the doorway.
Louisa wore cut-off jean shorts, bright green tights, hiking boots, and a large black T-shirt that draped off one shoulder. Her dyed-black hair was cut in a shaggy bob, and she wore dozens of black jelly bangles on her arms. She stood in the doorway, looking both curious and mildly annoyed. Emma hadn’t even heard her open the door.
“Oh . . . uh, hi, Louisa,” she stammered, fastening a bright smile on her face. “Long time no see.” Louisa raised an eyebrow. Emma swallowed. “Your mom let me in. I thought I’d left a sweatshirt here, but I don’t see it. I mean, I don’t know how I could find it in this mess.” She gave a nervous laugh, but Louisa didn’t smile.
The younger girl gave her a long, steady look. Emma squirmed. She felt like she was being memorized for a police lineup. But finally Louisa spoke.
“You should stay away from Garrett.”
Emma blinked. There was no malice in Louisa’s voice—just a blunt matter-of-factness. But her brow was crumpled in a worried frown.
