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“I’m not trying to make any trouble,” Emma said carefully.
Louisa shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Look, Sutton, I’m not just trying to be bitchy. He’s seriously worse when you’re around. I don’t know what happened between you guys, but these past few months he’s been a total wreck. There’s no way you guys are going to be buddies after all that, okay? Just stay out of his life. You owe him that.”
A chill crawled up Emma’s spine. “He’s been unstable since the breakup?”
Louisa gave an impatient snort. “Since before that. The night before Nisha’s party he came home hysterical at like three in the morning. He wouldn’t tell me where he’d been, but he was hyperventilating and pacing. It took me the rest of the night to get him to calm down.” She sighed. “I thought you guys had broken up, but then you were together at Nisha’s, so I didn’t know what to think.” She gave Emma a tiny, almost apologetic smile. “I’m not saying it’s your fault, Sutton. We both know my brother has problems. But you make them all so much worse. If you really want what’s best for him, you’ll stay far, far away.” And with that, she left.
Emma stood paralyzed in the middle of Garrett’s room, Louisa’s words tossing around in her mind. We both know my brother has problems . . . but you make them all so much worse.
A sick, twisted fear washed over her. The night before Nisha’s party was the night Sutton died. Was his mood frantic because he’d just murdered her in cold blood?
Frustration raged through me. I felt like I was choking on all the things I couldn’t tell Emma. If only I could beam my memories straight into her head. If only I could show her what I knew—that Garrett had been in the canyon with me. That he’d killed me.
I’d kill him myself, but thanks to him, I was less than a shadow: silent, intangible—and helpless.
16
LAW AND ORDER: LONG-LOST TWIN UNIT
Later that afternoon, Emma pulled Sutton’s Volvo into a parking space outside the police station for her interview with Quinlan. Mr. Mercer had offered to meet her there, but she’d told him not to. She’d lied to the Mercers enough already; she didn’t want him to witness this, too.
By now the drab gray building was familiar to her. This was where she’d first tried to report Sutton missing, only to be accused of crying wolf. This, too, was where she’d been brought after she was arrested for shoplifting, when she’d first read Quinlan’s file on her twin.
Every time she’d been there before, a sleepy, muted feeling had permeated the air, almost as if the station were underwater. But now officers strode quickly and purposefully through the labyrinth of desks behind the reception area. Phones jangled from every corner, pitched just slightly off from one another so their tones clashed painfully. A flat-screen TV had been installed on the wall of the waiting area, tuned in to the national news. The sound was off, but the headlines sprang up swiftly along the bottom of the screen. She gave a jolt as she realized that the silver-haired CNN reporter was standing outside Sabino Canyon’s visitor center. His lips moved soundlessly. GIRL’S BODY FOUND WEDNESDAY, said the blocky text under his handsome face. TPD HAS YET TO RELEASE AN OFFICIAL CAUSE OF DEATH.
So it’s gone national, she thought grimly. No wonder the station was looking sharper than usual.
Behind her the door opened and then closed, a blade of sunlight cutting quickly across the room and then disappearing again. She glanced away from the TV and gasped.
Travis Lambert, her old foster brother, stood there looking as smarmy as ever, though he’d obviously tried to dress up. He wore a button-down shirt that bunched around his waist where it was badly tucked in, and he’d shaved off the pathetic little strip of hair on his upper lip.
Next to him was a balding, middle-aged man in a tailored gray suit. He carried a briefcase, swinging it back and forth like it was some kind of weapon. They walked to the reception desk, where a female officer with thin, penciled-on eyebrows sat typing on an ancient-looking computer.
“My client’s here to see Detective Ostrada,” drawled the man with the briefcase. The officer gave them a skeptical, unimpressed look, then picked up a phone receiver and hit a button.
“Ostrada? The witness you requested is up here.”
Emma took a few steps backward and sat on the low bench in the waiting area, trying to look like just another citizen waiting to talk to a cop. Stay calm, she ordered herself. He hasn’t seen you. And even if he does see you, you’re Sutton Mercer. You have no idea who the hell he is. She softened her gaze so that she could look as though she were staring into space while keeping Travis in her periphery. The last thing she wanted was to make eye contact.
The officer hung up the phone and stood up. “You can follow me,” she said, sounding like she didn’t really care if they did or didn’t. She opened the gate that separated the reception desk from the rest of the station, and the lawyer stepped through.
Travis lingered for a moment, his hand on the gate. Go on, Emma urged him. Straight through the gate and out of my sight. But instead he pivoted slowly, his pupils flaring with recognition when his eyes landed on the bench. Emma fought to keep her face neutral, to act like he was just someone a girl like her wouldn’t have the time of day for. She was Sutton Mercer now—not poor, powerless Emma Paxton, with a whole journal titled Comebacks I Should Have Said. She pretended to be captivated by a poster on the wall over his head with McGruff the Crime Dog peering suspiciously over the lapel of his trench coat.
