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“So, all those pictures of me we found in the storage unit—you took those?” she asked.
He nodded. “At first I was trying to find your mom. I knew Sutton was adopted. I still remember when she had to read her family tree report in ninth grade, how upset she got.” His gaze went distant again as he stared off into his memories. “She was so beautiful that day—she was one of those girls who looked even prettier when she cried.”
Emma suppressed a shudder. “So you started looking for her birth mom.”
“Yeah. I started investigating the Mercers and almost right away realized Becky must have been their daughter. I hacked the hospital records—and that was when I realized there were two of you.”
“Hospital records are really hard to get,” Emma said. She tried to sound impressed, maybe even a little admiring, but inside was nothing but cold, metallic terror.
He warmed to her tone easily, though—as if he fed on her approval. His eyes brightened as he spoke.
“It was pretty easy from there. I found all your information online. I made a few trips to Vegas to check you out, make sure I had the right girl. I even rode the roller coaster one day. I walked right up to you and bought a ticket.”
Emma stared at him, trying to conjure up an image of him at her kiosk. It seemed impossible that she wouldn’t have noticed him—for months now she’d been staring at him every day, preoccupied by how cute he was, obsessed with the curve of his lips, the curls in his hair. But then, all that time, she hadn’t seen him for what he really was—a murderer.
“As soon as I realized how crazy Becky was, I knew she wasn’t going to be the romantic present I’d hoped her to be.” He chuckled, then glanced at her and sobered. “But you? You were perfect. I couldn’t wait to tell Sutton all about you. You were the proof of how much I loved her—more than Thayer or Garrett or anyone else. None of them could give her a sister.” He sighed. “She would’ve been so excited to know I could lead her to you, if she’d just listened to me. But things didn’t go right, and I had to use you a different way.”
Emma swallowed. “What about those e-mails on Travis’s phone?”
He gave a crooked grin, unable to hide his satisfaction. “Fake. I had that file doctored up for weeks and was just waiting for a chance to use it. I did send him the link, but I didn’t have to promise him anything. Guys like that are so predictable. I knew he’d show it to you.”
She nodded. A heavy feeling of resignation settled on her—one by one, all the pieces of the puzzle were coming together with implacable finality. Even as her heart thrashed in her chest like a frightened bird, a sickly, dull weight pressed down on her. Ethan had thought of everything. All along, he’d had the reins. “And you knew about the video because you’d walked in on the prank happening. You knew it had to be on Laurel’s computer, and you hacked it. Just like you hacked Charlotte’s alarm codes to break in and give me back the locket.” She licked her dry lips. Her hand felt like wood in his, but she squeezed it softly, her eyes still on the knife shining in the moon. “That’s pretty brilliant, Ethan.”
She knew right away she’d said the right thing. He blinked in surprise, a flush of pleasure tinting his cheeks, and she remembered what the psychiatrist had written, about how Ethan couldn’t keep from bragging about his crimes. “And what about Nisha?”
Again his expression fluttered, like he was fighting some feeling that lingered at the back of his mind. “I didn’t have a choice. I knew she’d found those records. After you told me you’d seen them in the hospital, I had a feeling she’d go looking for them. That Monday she was acting weird when she got in from her volunteer shift—usually she at least said hi when she saw me out on the porch, but this time she wouldn’t even look at me. Just scurried into the house with her manila folder clutched in her hands. I called the hospital to ask if they could fax my records to a new shrink, and they told me then the records had gone missing.” He shrugged sadly. “She was going to ruin everything. So I spiked her water bottle with my mom’s Valium. Then it was just a matter of giving her a little push.”
A little push. I shuddered, imagining Nisha rolling slowly into the pool. Imagined her lungs filling with water. Imagined her opening her eyes and staring through the rippling blue at the figure standing overhead, watching her die.
“You two were going to ruin everything,” he said. His eyes narrowed, and he stared at Emma like she’d just said something wrong. She flinched at the sudden mood swing. “I had everything taken care of, but you had to keep digging.” He raised the knife high overhead, his teeth bared like a lion’s. Emma cringed, waiting to feel the blade on her flesh. But instead he drove it into the ground, giving a frustrated grunt. “You had nothing when you came here. I saw what was in your bag. One stuffed animal and some threadbare clothes? Oh, and the journal. Page after page after page of how sad you were, how much you wanted a family, how poor Emma Paxton was so alone. How you wanted a boyfriend.” Emma stared at him. Her heart shriveled in her chest, as if some disease were ravaging it to ash. Ethan’s eyes blazed. “I gave you everything you ever wanted. You should be thanking me!”
Emma kept her face very carefully still, holding back the tears and the pain that threatened to burst through at any moment. “You can’t kill me,” she whispered. “If you do they’ll know I didn’t kill Sutton. They’ll figure it out, and they’ll come find you. You need me. I’m your cover.”
