Then a hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. She shrieked, instinctively stepping back, but the hand clenched tighter around her. And then she saw who it was.
Thayer.
Dark shadows hung under his eyes, which shone with a manic gleam. He stood looking down at her, still holding her arm in a tight grip, and Emma was suddenly and painfully aware how much taller and stronger he was.
“You need to tell me the truth,” he hissed. “Now.”
Emma looked around frantically, but no one saw them. The bell for class rang inside.
“Let go of me, Thayer,” she said sternly.
Thayer’s eyes narrowed, but he dropped her arm suddenly, as though she’d been on fire. “I know you’re not Sutton,” he said. He took a deep, ragged breath, running his hands through his hair like a man possessed. “You’re the twin, aren’t you? You switched places with her. I don’t know why or how. But I knew you weren’t her. I’ve known it since the first time I saw you.”
Thayer. Part of me wanted Emma to reach out and touch him, so that I could feel him, if only for a second.
But she just flipped her hair and stared at him coolly, doing her best to mask her racing heart. “Thayer, you’re being crazy. I never even met Emma.”
At that, Thayer let out a cry—something between a snarl and a scream—and grabbed the front of Emma’s shirt, yanking her forward. The muscles in his neck were rigid. “Tell me the truth,” he growled, his breath hot on her face. Emma whimpered, trying to pull out of his grip, but he wouldn’t let go. “Don’t lie to me! What did you do to her?”
“Thayer, stop it!” I yelled uselessly. “She’s trying to help me.” But I was powerless—powerless to talk to him, powerless to soothe him. I could only stand and watch.
Tears welled up in Emma’s eyes. For a moment, Thayer’s face was a grotesque mask, twisted in rage, but when he saw that she was crying, something in his expression shifted. He let go of her shirt so abruptly she stumbled. Then he was pacing back and forth in a short, tight course, like a panther searching for its prey.
Emma hugged herself, trembling uncontrollably, and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Thayer’s hands were clenched into fists, and every movement he made seemed tense with barely controlled power. But when he stopped and turned back to her, the anger had melted away, leaving nothing but anguish.
“Please,” he whispered. He took a step forward, but stopped when he saw her flinch. “I just need to know. Is she—” He choked on the word. “Is she dead?”
Thayer’s hazel eyes searched her face with desperate longing, moving over her features, trying to find the girl he loved inside them. Emma’s heart twisted in her chest. She wished she could tell him how trapped she felt. How deep her own grief ran. How sorry she was to have hurt him. But a cruel, nagging voice recited the threat in her mind. Sutton didn’t do what I told her, and she paid for it . . . Keep up the game, or Nisha won’t be the only person you care about who dies for your sake.
Garrett had already tried to hit Thayer with her car. If he killed Thayer, she would never forgive herself.
Summoning every ounce of Sutton Mercer coolness she had left, Emma leveled a steely glare at the boy in front of her.
“How dare you?” she asked, her voice as sharp and cold as glass. Thayer opened his mouth to say something, but she talked over him. “My sister died in that canyon. Everyone at school is looking at me like I’m a freak. And now you accuse me of taking her place in some kind of sick Parent Trap plot?” She pulled herself up to her full height, poking a finger at his chest savagely. “Are you high? Or just jealous? You’d love it if I were Emma, because that would mean I hadn’t really dumped you for Ethan at all. Well, guess what? That’s exactly what happened. You were gone. I fell in love with Ethan. End of story. What you and I had is over . . . and maybe we shouldn’t bother trying to be friends if you’re going to be so cruel.”
Thayer’s hand fell limply away from her, and he stood there dazed, like she’d slapped him. She fought the urge to reach out to him, to take it all back, her throat burning with every word. Hurting him was the only way to keep him safe. She picked up her purse and turned to go back into the school.
“Hey, Emma?”
And before she could stop herself, she paused.
“I thought so,” he said in a low voice.
Emma turned, desperate to say something, anything, to fix her mistake—but Thayer was already gone.
I’d been waiting all these months for someone to realize Emma wasn’t me. But now that it had finally happened, all I felt was cold, sick dread.
Because what Thayer knew could kill him.
14
EAT YOUR HEART OUT, NANCY DREW
Emma found Ethan on his way to German class. “Thayer knows,” she whispered urgently. Ethan stopped short, his jaw working soundlessly for a moment.
“What? How?” he finally asked, his voice low. She pulled him toward an alcove behind a potted plant. A large picture window looked out over the soccer field.
She bit her lip. Thayer had suspected ever since he’d kissed her at Charlotte’s party. Ethan knew about the kiss—he’d caught them—but she didn’t want to bring it up again.
“He called me Emma, and I reacted,” she admitted, shame washing over her anew. “I’m such an idiot.”
“No, you’re not,” Ethan said fiercely. Emma gazed into his dark blue eyes, where anxiety vied with something else—a fierce vigilance, maybe. And even though she knew that Ethan couldn’t really protect her if the murderer was determined to kill again, his solid strength was comforting. She felt her muscles slowly unclench, calmed by his presence.
Emma sighed and leaned her head against Ethan’s shoulder. “I mean . . . he doesn’t have a way to prove it. But what if he catches me in a lie? What if he figures something out?”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “The only way he could know for sure is if he did it. I still say he’s suspicious.”
She shook her head impatiently. “Thayer was on his way to the hospital when Sutton died. There’s no way he could have gotten back to the canyon with a broken leg. He was probably high on painkillers by that point anyway.”
Ethan gave a noncommittal snort, which she took to mean “Okay-fine-he-has-an-alibi-but-I-don’t-have-to-like-it.” She opened her mouth to tell him how desperate Thayer had seemed to know the truth, how he really just wanted to know if it was the girl he loved at the bottom of that canyon, but before she could speak, Ethan’s gaze shifted. He was staring at something out the window.
“Look!” he hissed. She turned to look where he was pointing.
Garrett and Celeste had appeared on the soccer field. Emma couldn’t hear a word through the glass, but it was obvious they were shouting at each other. Celeste kept shaking her head no, her long blonde braids dancing around her head. Garrett’s face was an ugly red, screwed up in rage. He shook his hands violently in front of her, looking like he wanted to strangle her.
I knew that expression. I knew that face. It surprised me, how familiar it suddenly was. New memories floated hazily to the surface. I remembered his mood swings, his bad temper. I remembered him punching a locker and leaving a dent in the metal, walking away from me in a rage. I remembered how his fingers left spots of blood on the clean linoleum behind him.
“Wow,” Emma breathed. They both watched as Celeste threw one hand up dismissively, then turned to walk back toward the school. Garrett stood staring after her for a long moment, his chest heaving with anger. Then he turned away and stormed off across the field, toward the small cedar grove that separated campus from the busy street beyond.