“Great work, Nisha,” Mrs. Gil iam cooed as she passed the glazing table, where several students were painting their pottery in earth tones. Nisha Banerjee, who was Sutton’s cocaptain on the tennis team, turned around and smirked triumphantly at Emma. Her eyes flashed with pure hate, which sent a ripple of fear through Emma’s chest. It was clear Nisha and Sutton had some seriously bad blood between them—Nisha had been giving Emma the evil eye ever since she stepped into Sutton’s life.
Looking away, Emma positioned a gray clay blob in the center of the wheel, cupped her hands around it, and slowly let the wheel turn until she had a bowl-like shape. Laurel let out a low whistle. “How do you know how to do that?”
“Uh, beginner’s luck.” Emma shrugged like it was no big deal, but her hands trembled slightly. A headline popped in her head: Master Pottery Skills Expose Emma Paxton Posing as Sutton Mercer. Scandal! Emma had taken pottery back in Henderson. She’d spent hours using the wheel after school; it was a welcome alternative to going home to Ursula and Steve, the hippie foster parents she’d lived with at the time, who didn’t believe in bathing. The NoSuds rule applied to them, their clothing, and their eight mangy dogs.
Emma sliced her hand through the bowl and let out a fake sigh of disappointment when it col apsed. “So much for that.”
As soon as Mrs. Gil iam disappeared into the kiln, Emma eyed Madeline and lifted her foot from the treadle. Madeline and the others stil made the most sense to be Sutton’s kil ers. But she had no proof.
Wiping her hands on a towel, she pul ed out Sutton’s iPhone and scrol ed through the calendar feature. “Uh, guys?” she said. “Does anyone know when I had my last highlights appointment? I forgot to put it in my calendar and I want to make a note for when I need to go in next. Was it . . . August thirty-first?”
“What day was that?” Charlotte asked. She looked exhausted, like she hadn’t slept at al the night before. She mashed her hands way too hard into the clay, turning the bowl she was making into a soupy pancake.
Emma tapped on the phone again. “Uh . . . the day before Nisha’s party.” The day before Mads kidnapped me at Sabino Canyon, thinking I was Sutton. Or maybe knowing I wasn’t Sutton. “Two days before school started.”
Charlotte glanced at Madeline. “Wasn’t that the day we
—”
“No,” Madeline snapped, shooting Charlotte an icy glare. Then she turned to Emma. “Neither of us know where you were that day, Sutton. Someone else wil have to cure your amnesia.”
Fluorescent light gleamed over Madeline’s porcelain skin. Her eyes narrowed at Emma, as though chal enging her to drop the subject. Charlotte glanced from Emma to Madeline, looking suddenly alert. Even Laurel’s back was stiff in front of them.
Emma waited, knowing she’d hit on something and hoping someone would tel her what it was. But when the tense silence persisted, she gave up. Take two, she thought, reaching into her pocket and wrapping her fingers around the silver train charm. “Whatever. So I was thinking it’s time for a new Lying Game prank.”
“Cool,” Charlotte murmured, her eyes focused back on the spinning lump of clay in front of her. “Any ideas?”
Across the room, a girl washed her hands at the sink, and a loud crash sounded from the kiln. “The prank where we stole my mom’s car was awesome.” She remembered seeing a video of the girls doing just that on Laurel’s computer. “Maybe we should do something like that again.”
Madeline nodded, thinking. “Maybe.”
“Except . . . with a twist,” Emma went on, saying the words she’d rehearsed the night before in Sutton’s bedroom. “Like, we could leave someone’s car in the middle of a car wash. Or drive it into a swimming pool. Or abandon it on the train tracks.”
At the word tracks, Charlotte, Laurel, and Madeline tensed. A hot, sharp pain streaked through Emma’s gut. Bull’s-eye.
“Very funny.” Charlotte slapped her clay down with a thwap.
“No repeats al owed, remember?” Laurel hissed over her shoulder.
Madeline swiped the back of her hand across her forehead and glared at Emma. “And are you hoping the cops come again, too?”
The cops. I tried my hardest to force a memory to the surface. But that flash I’d gotten about train tracks had faded into dust.
Emma looked at Sutton’s friends, her mouth feeling cottony dry. But before she could assemble her next question, feedback screeched through the PA system.
“Attention!” spoke the tinny voice of Amanda Donovan, a senior who read the daily announcements. “It’s time to announce the winners of the Homecoming Hal oween Dance Court, voted in by Hol ier’s talented boys’ footbal , soccer, cross-country, and vol eybal teams! It’s in two weeks, ghosts and goblins, so get your tickets today before they sel out! My date and I already have!”
Madeline’s lips pursed in disgust. “Who could Amanda possibly be going with? Uncle Wes?”
Charlotte and Laurel snickered. Amanda’s uncle was Wes Donovan, a sportscaster who had his own Sirius radio show. Amanda name-dropped him so often during morning announcements that Madeline swore they were secret lovers.
“Please join me in warm congratulations to Norah Alvarez, Madison Cates, Jennifer Morrison, Zoe Mitchel , Alicia Young, Tinsley Zimmerman . . .”
Every time a name was cal ed, Madeline, Charlotte, and Laurel pantomimed a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down.
“. . . and Gabriel a and Lilianna Fiorel o, our first Homecoming Court twins ever!” Amanda concluded. “A warm congratulations, ladies!”