The Lying Game. Sara Shepard
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and Emma Star family looked pretty much like this: an attractive, happy family, a nice house, a good life. If she cut her own head out of a snapshot and pasted it on Sutton’s body, the picture would look no different. Yet her story was as opposite from this as could be.
There were a few YouTube clips on the Facebook page, and Emma clicked on the first one. Sutton stood on what looked like a lush green golf course with Madeline and Charlotte. Everyone knelt down and vigorously shook canisters in their hands. Slowly, silently, they spray-painted designs on a large rock. WE MISS YOU, T, Madeline’s message said. Sutton’s message said NISHA WAS HERE.
“Where’s Laurel?” Charlotte asked.
“A thousand bucks says she’s too scared,” Sutton murmured on the screen. Her voice was so familiar it made Emma’s throat catch.
Emma clicked on the other videos. There was one of Sutton and her friends skydiving, another of them bungee jumping. A whole bunch of videos showed one of the girls walking around the corner unaware, and the rest of them ambushing her and making her scream. The last video was titled “Cross my heart, hope to die.” It opened with Madeline pirouetting into a pool at night. As soon as she hit the water, she started to flail. “Help!” she screamed, her dark hair plastered against her face. “I think I broke my leg! I . . . can’t . . . move!”
The camera wobbled. “Mads?” Charlotte cried out.
“Shit,” someone else said.
“Help!” Madeline continued to flail.
“Wait a minute,” Sutton’s voice called haltingly. “Did she say it?”
The camera zinged to Charlotte, frozen midstep. She held a red-and-white life preserver in her hands. “What?” she asked dazedly.
“Did she say it?” Sutton said again.
“I-I don’t think so,” Charlotte squeaked. She clamped her lips together and dropped the life preserver on the deck. “Very funny. We know you’re faking, Mads,” she yelled, annoyed. “Such a bad actress,” she said under her breath.
Madeline stopped splashing. “Fine,” she panted, paddling for the ladder. “But I had you going for a minute. Char looked like she was going to pee her pants.” Everyone cackled.
Whoa, Emma thought. So this was what they did for fun?
I was a little freaked, too.
Emma searched the rest of the Facebook profile for any references to the weird strangling video Travis had found, but there wasn’t a single mention. The only semi-spooky thing she found was a scan of a black-and-white flyer that said MISSING SINCE JUNE 17, a boy’s face grinning back at her. THAYER VEGA, it said in block letters under the photo. Emma clicked back to the names on Sutton’s profile picture. Madeline’s last name was Vega, too.
Finally, she clicked on Sutton’s Wall. Sutton had written a post just a few hours before: Ever wish you could run away? Sometimes I do. Emma frowned. Why would Sutton want to run away? It looked like she had everything.
I had no idea, but that post told me tons. If I’d written it only a few hours before, it meant I hadn’t been dead for long. Did anyone even know I’d been killed? I looked at the rest of my Wall that was visible on the screen. No RIP, Sutton notes or plans for a Sutton Mercer memorial. Maybe no one knew then. Maybe no one had found me? Was I lying in a field somewhere, my necklace still at my throat? I gazed down at my shimmering body. Even though no one else could see me, every so often I could just make out a tiny flicker of myself—a hand here, an elbow there, a pair of terry-cloth shorts and yellow FitFlops. I didn’t see any blood. My skin wasn’t blue.
Just as Emma was about to close up the computer, some more posts on Sutton’s Wall caught her eye. Can’t wait for your b-day party! Charlotte had written. It’s going to be sick! Emma’s birthday was coming up, too. She checked Sutton’s Info tab. The birthday listed was September 10, the same as Emma’s.
Her heart pounded. That was some coincidence.
I felt scared and hopeful and confused, too. Maybe it was real. Maybe we were twins.
After a moment, Emma opened a new window and logged into her own Facebook page. It looked paltry and pathetic next to Sutton’s—her profile picture was a blurry close-up of herself and Socktopus, and she only had five friends: Alex, an old foster sister named Tracy, Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, and two of the cast members from CSI. Then she found Sutton’s page again and clicked on the button that said SEND SUTTON A MESSAGE. When the window appeared, she typed: This will sound crazy, but I think we’re related. We look exactly the same, and we have the same birthday. I live in Nevada, not too far from you. You’re not by any chance adopted, are you? Write back or call if you want to talk.
MESSAGE SENT! the screen announced. Emma stared around the quiet room, the small fan on the desk blowing warmish air in her face. After the possibly life-altering thing that had just happened, she expected the world to have miraculously and drastically transformed—a leprechaun to dance through the open window, Clarice’s kitschy terra-cotta patio sculptures to come to life and start a conga line, something. But there was still the long, jagged crack in the plaster in the ceiling and the blotchy, M-shaped stain on the carpet near the closet.
The little clock in the corner of the laptop screen clicked from 10:12 to 10:13 P.M. She refreshed her Facebook page. She peeked out a slit in the dusty blinds at the night sky and found the Mom, Dad, and Emma stars. Her heart rollicked in her chest. What had she done? She reached for her phone and dialed Alex’s number, but Alex didn’t pick up. YOU THERE? she texted Alex, but there was no response.
The traffic on the highway grew sparse and whispery. Emma let out a long sigh, thinking of what came next. Maybe she could move back to Henderson, live in Alex’s spare room, and pay rent to Alex’s mom. She’d work full-time—perhaps night shifts at the twenty-four-hour Target near Alex’s house—and somehow finish high school, too. Maybe she could even intern at the local newspaper on the weekends. . . .
Bzzzzzzz.
Emma’s eyes popped open. Out the window, the moon had climbed high in the sky. The clock on the side table said 12:56 A.M. She’d dozed off.
Bzzzzzzz.
Her phone was flashing. She stared at it for a long moment, as if she was afraid it might leap up and bite her.
There was an envelope icon on the screen. Her heart churned faster and faster. Trembling, she clicked OPEN. Emma had to read the Facebook message four times before the words really sunk in.
OMG. I can’t believe this. Yes, I was totally adopted. But I never knew you existed until now. Can u meet me at the hiking base of Sabino Canyon in Tucson 2morro at 6 PM? Attached is my cell number. Don’t tell anyone who you are until we talk—it’s dangerous! See you soon!
Love, Sutton (your twin)
Of course, there was one problem with that note: I didn’t write it.
Chapter 4
REUNION INTERRUPTED
Late the following afternoon, Emma staggered off a Greyhound bus, her green duffel in tow. Heat radiated off the parking lot in waves; the air was so stifling that she felt like she’d just stepped into the barrel of a giant hair dryer. To her right were small adobe homes and a purple-stucco yoga studio for men called hOMbre. To her left was a large, crumbling building called the Hotel Congress, which looked haunted. Posters for upcoming concerts plastered the front windows. A couple of hipsters loitered on the street, smoking cigarettes. Beyond that was what looked like a shop for dominatrix hookers; whip-wielding mannequins in catsuits, fishnet stockings, and thigh-high boots filled the front windows.
Emma spun around again and faced the Greyhound bus station. TUCSON DOWNTOWN, said a low-slung sign out front. After hours of sitting on a bus next to a guy with a devil beard and a serious addiction to jalapeño-flavored Doritos, she was finally here. She was tempted to run up to the large Greyhound on the sign and give it a big, wet kiss, but then her phone vibrated in her pocket and she