Thayer turned, too, and lifted his hand in a half-wave. Emma smiled back, but Ethan’s hand tightened on Emma’s protectively.
Emma turned to him. “Look, I know you don’t like him,” she said in a low voice. “But he’s not dangerous. There’s no way he could have killed Sutton. He was in the hospital all night, remember?”
Ethan looked like he had more to say on the topic, but he let out a sigh instead. “Yeah,” he said grudgingly. “I guess. So where does that leave us? Is there anyone we suspect right now?”
Emma’s gaze shifted to Laurel, who was peering at Emma over the menu. “Remember how I thought Laurel was at Nisha’s the night Sutton disappeared?”
“Yeah, for the tennis team sleepover,” Ethan said, nodding.
“Well she wasn’t. At least not for the whole time.”
Ethan’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you sure?”
Emma drummed her fingertips on the bench’s wrought-iron armrest. “Laurel is the one who picked Thayer up the night he was hit with the car. She’s the one who drove him to the hospital. She couldn’t be in two places at once. And if she lied about that…”
Ethan leaned forward, a light coming on in his eyes. “You think she dropped Thayer off at the hospital, then went back to the canyon to kill Sutton?”
“I hope not. But I can’t rule her out if I don’t know where she actually was. I need to find out if she went back to Nisha’s or if she was out all night.” She fidgeted with the hem of Sutton’s black cotton miniskirt. “I’ve spent more time with Laurel than anyone else since I got to Tucson, but I don’t completely understand her. One second, she’s sweet. And the next, she acts like she wants to kill me.”
“You’ve told me yourself that things between Sutton and Laurel seemed…strained.”
Emma nodded. “I know. Mrs. Mercer talked to me about it last week. She said Laurel’s always been jealous of me—I mean, of Sutton.” Emma shook her head slightly. The longer she play-acted her sister, the fuzzier the line became where Sutton ended and she began.
Ethan glanced across to Pedro’s, where Laurel and Thayer were sharing a basket of tortilla chips. “Maybe. But from the outside, at least, it seemed like Sutton might have been jealous of Laurel, too. After all, Laurel is the Mercers’ biological daughter. It always seemed like being adopted made Sutton feel a little…lost. I saw her in the library at school once poring over a book on genealogy. The look on her face…” Ethan hesitated. “Well, I’d never seen Sutton Mercer look sad before.”
A swell of vulnerability hit me like wave. I had no memory of that, but ever since I’d woken up at Emma’s place in Las Vegas, I’d felt a deep, familiar ache that had nothing to do with being dead. I’d always known I was adopted, and my parents had told me over and over that I was special because they’d chosen me to be their daughter. But the thought that my real mom hadn’t wanted me made me feel adrift and empty, like a piece of me was permanently missing.
But how had Ethan, whom I’d barely known, seen through me like that? Was I more transparent than I thought?
“I guess Laurel had what Sutton never could—a biological family,” Emma said softly, knowing exactly how her twin felt. When she was five years old, her and Sutton’s birth mother, Becky, had left her at a friend’s house…and never come back.
Emma sighed deeply. “Laurel just seems so angry. She was able to keep a lid on it until Thayer showed up in Sutton’s room and Mr. Mercer called the cops on him. But now that he’s back, it feels like she’d do anything to keep him away from the girl he thinks is Sutton—the girl Laurel knows he loves.”
“What’s the saying? That people kill for money, love, or revenge?” Ethan asked, rubbing his hands together as a cool breeze blew through the courtyard. “Maybe she wanted to get rid of the competition.”
“Well, she certainly accomplished that. It looks like they’re on a date.” Emma glanced across the courtyard again. Thayer rested a hand on Laurel’s shoulder. She fed him a chip loaded with guacamole, then shot another self-satisfied smirk in Emma’s direction. Emma wondered what happened to Caleb, Laurel’s boyfriend as of yesterday. Laurel probably didn’t even remember his name.
I followed Emma’s gaze back over to my little sister. Thayer was now giving his order to the waitress, his posture easy and natural. Laurel watched him adoringly, hugging the pale pink sweater-wrap that engulfed her tiny frame. I narrowed my eyes. I recognized that sweater. It, like Thayer, was mine.
Maybe my mom and Ethan were right—maybe Laurel wanted everything that was mine. And maybe, just maybe, she had killed me to get it all.
2
TO GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE WE GO
The following evening, Emma turned into the Mercers’ neighborhood, groaning as her feet pushed the pedal.
“The pain,” she grumbled. They’d just had the worst tennis practice ever—it had involved a five-mile run before a grueling scrimmage and drills—and she could barely move her legs. Why couldn’t Sutton have just been a couch potato?
Laurel sat in the passenger seat, scrolling through her iPhone and ignoring Emma’s comment, even though she had to be in agony, too.
“So did you have a nice date with Thayer last night?” Emma couldn’t help but ask.
Laurel looked up and gave her a saccharine smile. “Yes, as a matter of fact. It was really romantic—I think we might even go to the Harvest Dance together.”