“Have you heard from Becky?” she asked tentatively.
“No,” he said, his voice low. He looked ahead into the darkness. “I want to try to get word to her, but who knows where she is by now? And maybe it’s better that she doesn’t know. What would it help? She lost track of Emma so long ago. It might be best if she never learns what happened to her.”
The idea put a lump in Emma’s throat. Becky hadn’t been in her life for thirteen years, but the idea that Emma could die and Becky would never even know it made her feel small and alone. She could have suffered terribly every single day since Becky had left her—she could have died hundreds of times over, and Becky wouldn’t have had a clue. She’d never realized it before, but now that she did, the thought sat hard and cold over her heart.
I knew how Emma felt. Every single time I watched my adopted father put an arm around her shoulders, I was sure that would be the time he realized that she was an impostor. That he’d finally see that I was gone. It wasn’t jealousy, exactly—I didn’t begrudge Emma that love—but the world had moved forward, and no one had noticed that the girl living my life wasn’t even me.
Emma played with the zipper pull on her jacket, her voice suddenly small. “Dad, did you suspect? Before Becky told you, I mean? Did you ever think there might have been two of us?”
Mr. Mercer turned to look at her, his lips twisted in thought. “No. But then again, you yourself were such a surprise it was hard to know what to think. Becky was only eighteen when she came home with you. We hadn’t seen her for more than six months. We hadn’t even known she was pregnant, and then all of a sudden she rang the doorbell with you in her arms. It was just before Thanksgiving, and you were only a few months old.” A fond smile curved across his face. “You were such a sweet baby. And tiny, impossibly tiny. Becky told us you’d been several weeks premature—of course, now we know that your size was because you were a twin.” His voice caught for a moment, then he recovered. “We loved you from the moment we saw you. We would have loved both of you, if only we’d known.”
Emma nodded. “Mom’s taking this really hard, isn’t she? The news about Emma?”
They were passing under a streetlight, and in its lurid yellow light she could see the deep shadows in Mr. Mercer’s face. “Of course she is. We both feel terrible. Sutton, Emma was just like you at the beginning. Thinking about how difficult things were for her is hard, because it’s so easy to imagine you in her place. It could just as easily have been you that Becky kept secret from us. And now . . . well, it’s too late to do anything for Emma. And that breaks your mother’s heart, and mine.”
As they turned a corner, headlights lit up behind them. Emma glanced around to see a midsized Audi, creeping slowly in their wake. She drew in her breath, instantly on edge. “Let’s go this way,” she said, lacing her arm through Mr. Mercer’s and tugging him down a side street. Drake’s tags jingled as he trotted along ahead of them. She wanted to see if the Audi would follow them. Sure enough, the headlights turned, too.
“Is that someone you know?” Mr. Mercer asked, glancing over his shoulder. She pulled him ahead, walking faster. She passed a mailbox with tinsel garlands wound up the pole and hung another right. Who did she know with an Audi? It was hard to see in the dark, but it looked white. Or maybe silver . . .
“Silver,” I whispered, suddenly knowing who the car belonged to. I’d been in that car almost every day last summer.
Garrett, Emma thought, only a moment behind me. Her heart pounded as the car crept closer. Garrett had picked her up in that car the night he’d taken her out for their picnic. She clutched Mr. Mercer’s arm. “We need to go home,” she muttered urgently.
“What’s wrong, Sutton?” he said, trying to look behind them at the car. “Who is that?”
“Just trust me. Keep walking.” She pulled him along behind her, cutting across a corner lawn now to keep as far from the car as she could. For a moment she thought about bolting, but then she realized it would do no good—Garrett would be able to catch them. He’d already run someone over in a car once; if he wanted to do it again, there’d be nothing to stop him.
With a sudden roar of the motor, the car lurched around the corner after them, angling its nose to block their path. Drake barked furiously. Next to her, Mr. Mercer tightened his arm through hers. She shuddered as the door flew open and braced for Garrett in all his rage, ready to push Mr. Mercer down and stand in front of him, if she had to.
But it wasn’t Garrett. It was a skinny, pointy-chinned man wearing a denim jacket and a shabby brown knit scarf. He wore wire-frame glasses, and he was fiddling with a digital audio recorder as he approached them.
“Ted and Sutton Mercer?” A shameless grin spread across his face. “Care to give me a statement for The Real Deal Magazine?”
Mr. Mercer looked outraged. He straightened himself to his full height and hugged Emma to his side with one arm. “You almost ran us over!”
The reporter’s grin didn’t falter. “Just trying to get your attention. Come on, pops, don’t you want your side of the story to be told?”
Emma’s temper flared. “Not by some hack from a second-rate gossip rag.”
The man laughed out loud. “I’ve already heard it all, sweetheart. Save your insults for the fat girls at school.”
Drake hadn’t stopped barking. Now he gave a low, threatening growl.