She dropped Ethan’s hand and asked him to grab her a Sprite. Then, she stepped away from the stream of partygoers and pulled Sutton’s iPhone from her clutch: ONE
MISSED CALL.
There was a number she didn’t recognize in the call log along with a voicemail alert. Emma caught Ethan’s eye across the room and motioned that she’d be right back.
Then she negotiated her way through the sweaty crowd toward the back of the house, where it was hopefully quieter.
She rounded a corner into the kitchen, where liquor bottles lined the counter along with half-eaten bags of Fritos and abandoned plastic cups. A girl with short black hair poured tequila and margarita mix into a blender and pressed a button, sending the contents whirling. The shril buzz of the blender and the sweet smell of lime filled the kitchen and followed Emma down a dark hallway. She trailed her fingertips along the wall to get her bearings and ducked into a back room. Moonlight spilled through an open window to ill uminate dark wooden floors and long windows. There were only two objects in the room: a long, cracked mirror propped up in the corner and a small doll with marble eyes sitting on the windowsill. Emma turned away from the doll, an eerie feeling washing over her.
Pressing the voicemail icon, she lifted Sutton’s phone to her ear. A loud voice boomed through the speaker.
“hello. This message is for Sutton Mercer. It’s Detective Quinlan. I need to speak to you. Please call me at this number—it’s my cell. I’ll have it on me all night. It’s urgent, so call me as soon as you get this.”
An emergency? Emma’s fingertips prickled. She gripped the phone, ready to dial the number, when a loud crash sounded outside the room. She jumped and turned around. Bass reverberated through the house. Laughter echoed off the walls. Even though she was alone, it was still too loud for her to have a real conversation. She let herself out of the room, glancing once more at the eerie, glassy-eyed doll, and headed for the back door.
The back of the house boasted a patio that butted up to the mountains. There was a small trail at the edge of the property; Emma walked toward it, wanting to put as much distance as possible between herself and the loud party.
Twigs and dried leaves cracked beneath her feet. She scrolled through Sutton’s phone and selected the most recent missed call.
Quinlan answered on the first ring.
“This is Sutton,” Emma said shakily.
“hello, Miss Mercer.” Quinlan’s voice was tight. “I thought you should know that Thayer posted bail. We had no choice but to release him.”
“What? ” Emma gasped. “When?”
“A few hours ago.”
Her heart was pounding so fast she was sure it was going to explode from her chest. Thayer had been on the loose for a few hours? “Did Mr. Vega change his mind?” Did Madeline know? Why wouldn’t she have said anything?
“It wasn’t Mr. Vega,” Quinlan said.
“Who was it?” Emma demanded, passing the wooden sign that marked the beginning of the trail.
There was a long pause. Emma listened to breathing on the other end. “Look,” Quinlan finally said. “I noticed how freaked out you were about Thayer in the station the other day. If there’s anything you want to tell me about him, any reason you might be afraid of him, you should speak up now. Normally I don’t believe a word you’re saying, but I know you’re either hiding something or are truly scared of something. Which is it, Sutton?”
Emma ran her tongue over her teeth. If only she could tell Quinlan the truth. If only he’d believe her.
“After months of hiding, he resurfaced in your bedroom, Sutton,” Quinlan went on. “If there’s any reason he might want to hurt you, we can protect you.” Emma shut her eyes. Protection was what she wanted most in the whole world. But Quinlan wouldn’t believe her if she told him the truth. He would think she was making it up.
Or, worse, if he bought the story that she was Sutton’s twin, he’d think she was the murderer. “I’ll be fine,” she mumbled.
Quinlan’s breath caught on the other end. “Okay,” he said after a pause. “Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind.” The line went dead.
Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled. Emma’s fingers trembled as she stuffed the phone into Sutton’s clutch. Had she just made a huge mistake? Should she have told Quinlan the truth, now that Thayer was on the loose?
Snap.
Emma whipped around, suddenly on alert. She’d wandered so far onto the trail during her talk with Quinlan that she was surrounded by darkness. She couldn’t see the house anymore. She spun in every direction, trying to make sense of which way she needed to walk to get back to the party. The wind whistled through the desert brush.
“hello?” she called out. Silence. She took a step in one direction, then another. “hello?” All sound had fall en away. It was like she was in the middle of nowhere.
A hand landed on the back of her shoulder. Emma froze, her body going cold. All at once, she realized her mistake in wandering out there alone in the darkness. It was Thayer. It had to be. He’d come back to hurt her, just like he’d hurt her sister. She hadn’t been listening to his messages carefully enough. She hadn’t been playing along.
“Sutton,” a voice whispered.
The hiss of my name echoed over and over in my head. All at once, I felt the same bright, snapping sensation and familiar tingle. Another memory was coming, maybe the final piece to what happened to me that terrible night. I surrendered to the vision, letting it take me away.