“So unreal.” As Madeline slung her arm around Emma’s shoulders, there was a lift in Emma’s chest. For a moment, she’d actually forgotten the situation she was in.
They cruised to the upper floor, arm in arm. At the top of the escalator, Emma spied the top of a familiar dark head on the level below and stopped cold. A girl stood outside Fetch, the high-end pet store, browsing a table of squeak toys and studded leashes. She craned her neck upward, as if she sensed someone staring at her. Nisha.
Madeline eyed Nisha, too. “I heard she’s next,” she whispered in Emma’s ear. “We’re going to get her tomorrow.”
“Get her?” Emma frowned.
“Charlotte thought of something brilliant. We’ll pick you up at seven-thirty tomorrow morning. Be ready.”
Nisha gave the girls a final look, then tossed her hair over her shoulder and walked in the other direction. Be ready? Emma wondered. For . . . what? She gazed questioningly at Madeline, but Madeline’s eyes were obscured behind her new Gucci sunglasses. All Emma could see was her own reflection staring back at her, looking more confused than ever.
She wasn’t the only one. Something about Madeline’s voice put me on edge. I had a feeling that whatever they were going to do to Nisha was going to be . . . trouble. But both Emma and I would have to wait until tomorrow to find out exactly what it was.
Chapter 15
THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
The following morning, Charlotte’s SUV roared to the curb in front of the Mercers’ house, nearly taking out a trash can. Laurel scuttled into the backseat fast. Madeline handed her a giant Starbucks cup. “Thanks again for letting me in on this,” Laurel gushed.
“You had some good ideas with this one,” Charlotte murmured while typing on her BlackBerry. “You deserve some credit.”
Emma climbed in behind Laurel. Madeline handed her a hot coffee, too, though Emma didn’t remember giving her an order. She took a sip and winced. It was black with Splenda, yechh. Twins must not share the same taste buds. “What’s this all about, anyway?” she asked.
Charlotte waved the little stirring straw that had come with her latte at Emma. “Don’t you worry about a thing. It’s our turn, Sutton. This is for you.”
Charlotte turned out of Sutton’s neighborhood, passing the park where Emma and Ethan had played tennis. “It’s all timed perfectly,” she said in a low voice. “I’ve been watching Nisha since Monday.”
“And you set up everything last night?” Madeline was wearing her new Gucci sunglasses. The sunlight caught the gold frames and sent reflections around the inside of the car.
Charlotte nodded. “You girls are going to love it.” She wheeled around and peered at Laurel. “And you talked to . . . you know?”
“Yep.” Laurel giggled.
“Perfect.”
Within minutes, they were pulling into a space in the school parking lot. School didn’t start for another half hour, so the bus lanes were empty and the boys’ soccer team, who practiced both before and after school, were still galloping on the field. The girls grabbed Emma’s arms and pulled her through the courtyard and a side door. The hallways were deserted. Posters for student council elections flapped in the air-conditioned breeze. Big swirls from the janitor’s mop gleamed on the floor.
The locker room was deserted, too, smelling like a mix of powdery deodorant and bleach. Each sports team got its own wide aisle. Girls kept the same sports locker from year to year—Emma had opened Sutton’s designated tennis locker on the first day of practice and found a few things still inside, including a shiny nylon jacket that said HOLLIER TENNIS on the back.
As they rounded the corner to the tennis team’s bank of lockers, Madeline stopped short. “Whoa.” Laurel covered her mouth with her hand.
Emma peered around them and nearly cried out. Papers lay scattered over the floor and on the benches. Red liquid covered a couple of doors and lockers. There was a tape outline of a body on the floor, with a big splattering of red stuff—blood?—near the head. Yellow police tape strung around the outline said CRIME SCENE: DO NOT CROSS.
Emma’s vision began to narrow. She took a big step back. Could it be? She thought of the note again. Sutton’s dead. Maybe someone had found Sutton’s body . . . here. Maybe the snuff film had taken place in a field nearby. The killer had dragged Sutton into the locker room and deposited her here for someone to find. And if they’d found Sutton, what would that mean for Emma?
I tried to imagine my body lying on the cold locker room floor, blood seeping out of my head, my eyes fluttering closed. Had this been it? Had someone dumped me here? But the locker room setting didn’t match the flickers I’d already had about my death—the screams, the darkness, the knife at my throat. Something seemed off about the whole thing. Then I noticed Laurel’s small, nervous smile behind her hand.
“Psst.” Charlotte yanked them into the shower room. The floor was shiny and wet, and someone had left a big bottle of Aveda shampoo on a built-in shelf in one of the stalls. Charlotte peeked around the doorway and gestured for the girls to do the same. A few girls on various teams passed the tennis lockers, doing a triple take at the crime scene. An angular cross-country runner took a picture of it with her phone. An Asian girl saw it and immediately turned around and went the other direction. When Nisha appeared at the far end of the hall, Charlotte squeezed Emma’s hand. “Let the games begin.”
A cold, clammy feeling of understanding washed over Emma. But before she could say anything, Charlotte put her finger to her lips. Shhh.