When he saw Emma, he stood up halfway and gave her a nod.
“I’m here,” Emma said, feeling a little sheepish. Mr. Mercer stared at her for a long few beats. Emma braced for a lecture, but instead, he just looked sad. Emma wasn’t sure what to say. Disappointment was something she was used to feeling herself, but she’d never been on the receiving end of it. She’d always tried to be whatever her foster parents required of her—a nanny, a cleaning lady, and once, even a massage therapist. Never had she intentional y made trouble.
Mr. Mercer turned back to the bike. “This place is a mess,” he final y said. “Maybe you can help me toss stuff out and put everything back where it’s supposed to be.”
“Okay.” Emma pul ed a large black trash bag from a box on a nearby shelf.
She looked around the garage, surprised to see that she and Mr. Mercer might have a bit in common. On the wal was a tattered poster of a flame-burst Gibson Les Paul, one of Emma’s favorite guitars from when she’d gone through her I-want-to-be-in-a-band phase. There was also a framed reprint of Emma’s favorite incorrect newspaper headline, DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN. And to the left of the racks of car-detailing equipment and weed kil er was a smal shelf that held ragged, wel -loved crime-fiction paperbacks, many of which Emma had devoured, too. She wondered why they weren’t on the built-in bookshelves in the main house. Was Mrs. Mercer ashamed that her husband wasn’t into literary fiction? Or was it a dad thing to keep his favorite possessions in his own space?
Emma had never met her own father. When she was in kindergarten, a bunch of kids’ dads came into class and talked about what they did for a living; there was a doctor, a guy who owned a musical instrument shop, and a chef. Emma went home that day and asked Becky what her dad did. Becky’s face drooped, and she blew cigarette smoke through her nose. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Can you tel me his name?” Emma tried, but Becky wouldn’t answer. Shortly after that conversation, Emma went through a phase pretending that various men they met on their endless travels—Becky could never hold down a job for long—might secretly be her father. Raymond, the gas station cashier who slipped Emma a few free Tootsie Rol s with her purchase. Dr. Norris, the ER doctor who stitched up her knee when she fel on the playground. Al, a neighbor in their apartment complex who waved to Emma every morning. Emma pictured one of these men scooping her up, swinging her around, and taking her to the local Dairy Queen. But it never happened.
A barrage of moments came to me: my dad and me sitting at a table at a blues club, listening to a band play. My dad and me on a mountain trail, binoculars to our faces, watching birds. Me fal ing off my bike and running inside, searching for my dad to comfort me. I had a feeling my dad and I had had a special bond at one point in our lives. Suddenly, in light of what Emma went through, I felt lucky to have al those memories. But now my dad didn’t even know I was gone.
Emma leaned over the motorcycle, inspecting it careful y.
“Why is the shifter on the wrong side?”
Mr. Mercer blinked at her, as if Emma had suddenly started speaking Swahili. “Actual y, it’s not. This is a British bike. Before 1975, the gearshift was on the right side.” He laughed uncomfortably. “I thought your interest in cars stopped with 1960s Volvos.”
“Oh, wel , I just read something about it,” Emma covered. One of her foster families, the Stuckeys, had a car that constantly gave them trouble, and the responsibility had somehow fal en to Emma to figure out how to fix it. She’d befriended the mechanics at the local gas station, and they’d taught her how to change a tire, check for oil, and replace various fluids and parts. The owner of the place, Lou, had a Harley, and Emma hung around him while he fixed it up, helping out now and then. Lou took a shine to her and started to cal her Little Grease Monkey. If she ever wanted an apprenticeship as a mechanic, he said, his door was wide open.
I smiled. Now there was a career path. But it impressed me how resourceful she was. It was like Ethan said the other night: Nothing seemed to overwhelm her.
“Thayer had a Honda bike, right?” Mr. Mercer said. “You didn’t ride on it with him, did you?”
Emma shrugged, her skin prickling at Thayer’s name. Emma had found out last week that Laurel and Thayer had been best friends, and that Laurel had a not-so-secret crush on him. But she’d also discovered that, at the very least, Thayer had liked Sutton.
I tried desperately to remember what Thayer meant to me. I kept seeing flashes of the two of us standing in the school courtyard, Thayer grabbing my hands and saying something in an apologetic voice, me wrenching my hands away and spitting something back at him, my words flinty and abrasive. But then the memory dissolved.
Mr. Mercer sank down on an overturned milk crate.
“Sutton . . . why did you steal today?”
Emma ran her fingers over the shifter. Because I’m trying to solve your daughter’s murder. But al she said was “I’m real y sorry.”
“Was it because of . . . everything at home?” Mr. Mercer asked gruffly.
Emma blinked, turning to face Mr. Mercer.
“Meaning . . . ?” Suddenly, a new list began to form in her mind: Things That Are Awkward About a New Family You Don’t Know but Are Supposed To. Heart-to-heart conversations with a dad she’d only met two weeks ago would be first on the list.
Mr. Mercer’s face folded into an exasperated, pleasedon’t-make-me-explain expression. “I know it’s a lot to take in. I know you’ve gone through a lot of . . . changes.”