Just below where the locker bottom used to be was a narrow, dirty space. Nestled among dust bunnies and rusted bobby pins was a long, thin silver lockbox. Heart pounding, Emma rifled through her wall et and found the small key she’d uncovered in Sutton’s room. Slowly, she inserted it into the lock.
It fit.
Emma turned the key and opened the box. Inside was a mess of papers. She pulled out the paper on top and looked at the tight, neat handwriting. It was a letter, signed with Charlotte’s name at the bottom. I’m so sorry about everything, Sutton, Charlotte wrote. She’d underlined everything three times. Not only about Garrett, but about how unsupportive I’ve been while you’re having a hard time with you-know-who.
I stared at the note. What did it mean? What kind of hard time was I having, and with whom? A moment slipped through my mind as I remembered Charlotte and me standing outside Holl ier with bags slung over our shoulders, hunching toward each other and speaking in whispers. She knows, Sutton, she does, Charlotte whispered. She’s not a fool. And then she added, You need to think about where your loyalties lie. I tried hard to hold onto the memory for longer, but it slipped away faster than it came.
Emma refolded Charlotte’s message and dug deeper into the box. There was a list from Gabby and Lili of reasons why they should be allowed in the Lying Game, most having to do with their “awesome style and flair for drama.” Next was a German test; all of the answers were filled in and it read TEACHER’S COPY in the top right corner.
Emma dropped it as though it were on fire, paranoid Frau Fenstermacher might barge into the locker room and catch her red-handed.
The dripping noise from the shower slowed to a trickle.
A vent clicked on, and a cough echoed somewhere in the distance. Emma shook off her nerves and kept digging through the notes. She flipped through an old detention slip, a pop quiz with a fat red F on it, and then she came across a dog-eared note written in a slanted, boyish scrawl: Dear Sutton, I’m sorry. I don’t want to be this way with you—this angry. It’s like something inside me is making me. But I’m worried that unless things with us change, I’m going to snap. —T
A chil ran down Emma’s spine. This was from Thayer.
It had to be.
She didn’t know what he was apologizing for, but the letter sounded like a threat and showed just how unstable Thayer was. A lump formed in Emma’s throat as she reread Thayer’s note. She was tired of wondering and guessing. There was only one way to know exactly what the hell was going on.
She had to see Thayer.
18
VISITOR FOR VEGA
The lockup was connected to the police station, though the entrance to the jail was through a separate door, with a different set of guards. Emma hesitated in front of the steel gate, taking heaving breaths. Finally, an overweight, bald guard in a navy uniform and carrying a paperback book strutted up to the door and peered at her. “Help you?” he asked, jingling a set of long, silver keys on his belt. “Visiting hours are almost over,” he continued gruffly.
Emma checked the Cartier watch she’d found in Sutton’s jewelry box. 7:42 P.M. “I’ll just be a few minutes,” she said, forcing her face into the sweetest smile she could muster.
The guard glowered at her. Emma got a glimpse of his book. The cover showed an overly muscled man with a sword strapped to his back, kissing a lithe blonde woman.
When Emma was little, she’d read Harlequin romances like that—they were usually the only types of books on her foster mothers’ shelves. For a while, she’d pretended that a brunette dressed as a pirate on the cover of Shipwrecked and Heartbroken was Becky.
Finally, the guard buzzed her in. He pulled out a clipboard with a sign-in sheet attached. Emma tried to keep her hand steady as she signed SUTTON MERCER under the column marked VISITOR and THAYER VEGA under INMATE. She knew what she was doing was risky, but she had found out as much as she was going to on her own.
Now she needed to hear it from Thayer. And face-to-face in a jail, where they’d be separated by bulletproof glass, was a jail, where they’d be separated by bulletproof glass, was about as safe as this conversation was going to get.
The guard glanced at the name Emma had written, then nodded. “Come with me.” He led her through a heavy steel door and down a long hallway.
A second guard, this one wearing a matching navy uniform with STANBRIDGE printed on a nameplate on his burly chest, waited for Emma in a small, square room separated in the middle by a sheet of thick glass. Emma was happy to see it wasn’t Quinlan—she didn’t feel like dealing with him today. “You’ll sit here,” Stanbridge said, gesturing to a cubicle that faced the glass and was lined up evenly with a cubicle on the other side.
Emma sat on a hard, orange, plastic chair. The two wooden panels that squared her off must have been for privacy, not that Emma needed it in the empty room. Graffiti splashed across the panels in colored marker and ink: CP
LUVS SN. HEARTS 4 EVER. Dates as far back as 5/4/82 were carved into the wood.
A door swung open on the other side of the glass, and Emma flinched, her heart leaping to her throat. There, sweeping through the door, escorted by a pudgy guard with a bowl cut, was Thayer. His skin looked pale and taut against his bones. When he saw Emma, he stopped short.
His mouth tightened at the edges. For a moment, Emma felt sure he’d turn back and retreat through the door. But then the guard put a hand between Thayer’s shoulder blades and gave him a small shove toward her.
Thayer reluctantly stepped forward and settled in the seat opposite Emma. When he picked up the phone receiver on the opposite side of the glass, the orange sleeve of his jumpsuit fell back to reveal a tattoo Emma hadn’t noticed at the precinct. An eagle emblem was inked on the underside of his wrist with the initials SPH printed in tiny letters beneath it. Was this the strange tattoo Madeline had spoken about?