“Bad blood?” Emma said aloud before she could stop herself.
Charlotte looked at her. “Yeah, between him and Quinlan. Remember how that guy spearheaded the Find Thayer campaign? Thayer was like his white whale. He was furious that he couldn’t find him. Everyone’s saying that’s why his punishment is so harsh—and that Quinlan made up the part about how Thayer resisted arrest.” Emma raised her eyebrows. What if that was true?
What if the lawyer could get Thayer out before his trial? She didn’t want to think of what might happen then.
“So Laurel’s pretty pissed at you, huh?” Charlotte asked.
Emma nodded. “She thinks it’s my fault that Thayer’s in jail.”
“Right,” Charlotte said noncommittally, her expression giving nothing away. Emma wondered where she stood on the Thayer debate. While Madeline and Laurel had been out-and-out accusatory of Emma, Charlotte had defended her. And yet, Emma had seen her signing the Free Thayer petition earlier today. Maybe she just wanted to straddle the two sides and not make any waves.
“So how do you think Mads is doing about this whole Thayer thing?” Emma asked casually, popping a strawberry Life Saver into her mouth. “It’s not like she’ll talk to me about it.” Charlotte and Madeline had been hanging out more recently; maybe Madeline had revealed something to Charlotte about Thayer that could help Emma understand his relationship with Sutton.
Charlotte kept her eyes on the road. “She’s not happy, that’s for sure. Apparently her dad’s being an even bigger jerk than usual. Things are tense at home.”
“Do you think she’s … hiding something?” Emma asked, cracking the candy between her teeth.
“About what?”
Good question, Emma thought. She was taking a blind stab in the dark here, trying to grasp at anything. “About Thayer, maybe. About where he was all this time.” Charlotte turned her gaze from the road and gave Emma a long, incredulous look. “I think Mads is wondering the same thing about you.”
Emma swallowed hard, not sure how to answer. Did Sutton know where Thayer had gone?
I had a feeling I didn’t. I wouldn’t have asked Thayer all of those questions about the secrets he was keeping if I had known.
Out the window, two junior-high-age kids skateboarded off a homemade ramp in the driveway next to Madeline’s. Their mom looked on with her arms crossed over her chest and a disgruntled expression on her face.
Finally, Charlotte shrugged. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Madeline was hiding something, though.”
“How come?” Emma asked, trying not to sound too eager.
“Because.” Charlotte put her car in park and rested her
“Because.” Charlotte put her car in park and rested her fingertips on the console between them. “Everyone in the Vega family has secrets.”
Before Emma could ask more, Charlotte got out of the car, adjusted her denim miniskirt, and started up the front walk to the stucco house. Emma got out, too, and followed her to the Vegas’ front door. When Emma raised her finger to press the doorbell, Charlotte said, “No need,” and she rummaged through her black hobo bag. “I have the key.” She tugged a keychain attached to a wonky-looking miniature doll from the bag and pinched a bronze key between her thumb and index finger.
“You have the Vegas’ key?” Emma asked, stopping short.
Charlotte gave Emma a weird look. “Uh, yeah. I’ve had it since eighth grade. I have yours, too—and you have mine, amnesia patient.” She frowned. “You haven’t misplaced my key, have you? My dad will flip. He’ll have to change all the locks.”
“No, I still have it,” Emma covered, even though she had no idea where Charlotte’s key might be. A fault opened in her mind. She thought about the person who’d tried to strangle her in Charlotte’s house a few weeks ago. At first, she’d thought it had been one of Sutton’s friends—the alarm hadn’t been tripped, so whoever had done it was either inside the house from the start or knew the code.
Could Thayer have stolen Madeline’s key to Charlotte’s house? Could he know the alarm code somehow?
“But could you tell me your alarm code again?” Emma’s heart thudded, wondering how far she could push this line of questioning. “It’s something really easy, right? 1-2-3-4?” Maybe Thayer had just guessed at the code and gotten it right.
Charlotte snorted. “What planet are you living on? It’s 2-9-3-7. Just put it in your phone and quit asking me every two weeks. Madeline did and now she never has to ask.”
“Madeline has your alarm code in her phone?” Emma repeated. “That doesn’t seem safe.” Her heart pumped faster. This was huge. Not only could Thayer have stolen Madeline’s key to Charlotte’s house, he could have found Charlotte’s alarm code in Madeline’s phone, too. She thought about the strong hands around her neck in Charlotte’s kitchen. The whisper in her ear that she needed to stop digging. Those hands felt like a guy’s. And that voice might have been the same one that called out to Emma in Sutton’s bedroom Saturday morning.
I wondered if it was true. I thought about the hike we’d taken, the way Thayer easily maneuvered the rockiest trails and steepest inclines, always waiting impatiently for me to catch up. Sneaking into Charlotte’s house or climbing up the rafters at school to drop an overhead light dangerously close to Emma’s head would have been no challenge for him. I thought about myself alone in Sabino Canyon with Thayer the night I died. What if he’d thrown me over the cliff that I’d been coming to with my father ever since I was a little girl?
Charlotte opened the door to Madeline’s house, and they stepped through the foyer. The inside smelled like a mix of potpourri and Mexican cooking, and four pairs of shoes, ranging from Tory Burch flats to Boutique 9 heels, were lined up by the closet. A bunch of photographs sat on a small console table along the wall. One was Mr. and Mrs.
Vega’s wedding photo, another was of a much younger Madeline in a tutu and pointe shoes. Emma frowned, sensing something was missing. The last time she had been here, she’d sworn she’d seen a photo of Thayer on that table, too. Had the Vegas taken it down? Were they trying to remove all evidence of Thayer? Were they embarrassed that he was their son?
Lili appeared at the top of the stairs. “Finally,” she trilled, adjusting the dozen strands of black leather that wrapped her left wrist. “We’re up here.”
Emma and Charlotte stomped up to Madeline’s bedroom. Music was playing loudly, and the flat-screen TV
blared an episode of The Rachel Zoe Project. Madeline, Gabby, and Laurel looked up from their magazines as Emma, Charlotte, and Lili settled in. Old issues of Vogue and W were stacked in mini towers on the wooden floor.
Coffee-colored shades were drawn to expose the Catalina Mountains in the distance. Framed posters of ball erinas in various poses dotted the pale peach walls, along with a snapshot of Madeline and Thayer on a ski trip.
Emma couldn’t tear her gaze away. His deep-set eyes stared out from the photograph, seemingly glaring at her and only her.
Laurel found an issue of Cosmopolitan beneath Madeline’s bed and opened it to an article titled “How to Make Your Man Roar Like a Tiger.” “Who writes these things?” she scoffed, rolling her eyes.
“Wait!” Charlotte leaned over to take a look. “I’m dying to know how to get my man to roar like a tiger!” She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips in a mock-sexy pout.
Laurel shook a bottle of dark green Essie nail polish and stuffed hot pink foam dividers between her toes. “I wonder what makes Ethan Landry roar,” she said mischievously.
Emma’s stomach dropped an inch.
Lili sat up straighter and shot a look at Gabby. Gabby gave a small nod, her eyes widening. “So Gabs and I spent last night brainstorming ideas for our first official prank,” Lili announced. She glanced at Emma deferentially. Of course, Emma thought. She thinks I’m Sutton. She’s about to pitch prank ideas and is waiting for my approval.
It was interesting watching how powerful I was from afar. I remembered how many suggestions I’d shot down, how many get-togethers I canceled when I simply wasn’t feeling up to it, and how many evenings were spent doing exactly what I’d planned. After all, my ideas were the best ones. And everyone knew it.
Emma gritted her teeth, then decided to use Sutton’s power to her advantage. She let out a barking laugh and cocked her head to the side. “Nice try,” she said icily. “But I don’t think the Lying Game is taking suggestions from newbies just yet.”
“Yeah, watch and learn, girls.” Charlotte closed Cosmo and sat up straighter. “So. Does anyone know what Ethan’s into?”
A smile rolled across Laurel’s face. “Sutton knows what he’s into, right, Sis?”
Emma’s throat tightened.
The girls looked at her. “And why would you know what Ethan Landry’s into?” Madeline asked incredulously.
“I don’t know,” Emma snapped, shooting a nasty look at Laurel.
“Sure you do,” Laurel said cheerfully. She plucked a stuffed dog off of Madeline’s bed and cradled it in her arms. “Don’t be so modest, Sis. You know all the dirt.” She turned to the girls. “Sutton just told me this past weekend that Ethan secretly does poetry slams at Club Congress downtown.”
“I never told you that!” Emma cried, heat rising to her chest, racking her brain to remember when she and Ethan had discussed the poetry slam. And then … it hit her. At the park, on Saturday. So Laurel had been spying. But what else had she heard?
“Of course he does poetry.” Charlotte rolled her eyes.
“Every good emo boy does.” She whipped out her phone and loaded up Google. After a moment, she let out a squeal. “Here he is! Ethan Landry, listed as contestant number four on the slam list. We can make an awesome prank out of this!”
Madeline scooted closer. “We could hire people to sit in the audience to boo him or throw tomatoes at him.”
“Or what if we planted a fake editor in the audience?” Lili breathed. “He could say he’s super into Ethan’s work and wants to publish him—but only if Ethan flies out to New York to meet with the publisher. But when Ethan gets there, they’ll say they’ve never heard of him!”
Gabby nodded, her eyes wide. “He would feel like such a loser.”
“Or …” Laurel said leadingly, waggling his eyebrows,
“We can sneak into his house, steal a couple of his poems and post them online under a fake name. Then when he goes to read them, we can hire someone to pretend to be the real author and accuse Ethan of plagiarism. And when he shows that he uploaded the poems two weeks prior to the reading, Ethan will be so humiliated.”
“That’s genius!” Charlotte cried. “We’ll tape the whole thing and put it on YouTube!”
Madeline high-fived Laurel. “Totally brilliant.” Gabby gestured dramatically, like she was giving a Shakespearean monologue, and trilled, “Roses are red, violets are blue, Ethan Landry, prank’s on you!” Laurel turned and eyed Emma. “What do you think, Sutton?”