Cross My Heart, Hope To Die

But I don’t know either, I thought sadly.

Emma scrubbed angrily at her skin with a pink loofah, trying to wash away the memory of the nightmare. By the time she’d dried her hair and decided on fire-engine red skinny jeans and a white T-shirt, she was feeling a little better, though the dream still clung to the back of her mind like a piece of cellophane. She trotted downstairs to the kitchen, hoping that a glass of orange juice and some breakfast might help clear her head.

Mrs. Mercer sat at the table, sipping a cup of tea and reading the wedding section like she did every lazy Saturday morning. Mr. Mercer was finishing the dishes while Laurel dried them and put them away.

“There you are,” Mrs. Mercer said, glancing up over her reading glasses. “I was just about to knock and see if you were moving.”

“We saved you a waffle,” Laurel added, sliding a plate toward Emma.

Laurel and I had always had a tacit agreement not to talk about carbs or calories on Saturday mornings, when our parents would make pancakes or French toast or my mom’s special cream cheese blintzes. Emma smiled and reached for the syrup.

“We thought we’d go to the farmers’ market after breakfast,” Mr. Mercer said. “I’ll throw together a ratatouille tonight if I can find some decent vegetables.”

Emma took a bite of her waffle, considering. She had wanted to go straight to the hospital today to find Becky’s records. But after the nightmare she’d just had, she didn’t think she could face it quite yet. The sun shone in through the window, and a crisp fall breeze ruffled the curtains. It was a beautiful day for a family excursion. “Sure,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

Half an hour later, the family piled into the SUV. Mr. Mercer turned the radio to a fifties station as he drove along the back roads toward the market. The weekly Tucson farmers’ market was in a stone plaza adjacent to an old, mission-style church. Eucalyptus trees perfumed the air, and a fountain splashed musically at the center. Booths covered in checkered picnic cloths were overflowing with fresh produce—zucchini and summer squash, apples and oranges and pears, a rainbow of bell peppers. A young couple with a double stroller stood outside a carpenter’s booth, examining the hand-painted wooden toys on display. The line for the organic coffee shop across the courtyard snaked almost to the church steps.

Mr. Mercer immediately approached a man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt selling tomatoes on the vine and began haggling over prices. Mrs. Mercer sampled various eco-friendly cosmetics, chatting happily with the saleswoman, who reminded Emma a bit of an older, friendlier version of Celeste with her all-linen outfit and her stacks of rings.

“We shouldn’t have had breakfast,” Laurel said, eyeing a booth of mini crackers and cheeses. Emma examined a jar of fresh olive tapenade, thinking back to her picnic with Ethan. The memory made her smile. “Um, hello? Earth to Sutton?” Laurel said, waving her hand in front of Emma’s face. “What planet are you on?”

“Just thinking about Ethan,” Emma confessed.

“Cute.” Laurel nudged her playfully. “So I was wondering, can I borrow your liquid eyeliner for the party tonight? I want to do a retro cat-eye thing.”

“Of course,” Emma said. “Are you taking anyone to the party?”

“Yeah, Caleb and I are trying again,” Laurel said, turning pink. “I kind of dropped him when Thayer came back. But I told him that was all over.”

“He seems really sweet,” Emma offered. Laurel and Caleb had started dating right before Halloween, and Laurel had been really into him—until Thayer reentered the picture.

“He is.” Laurel smiled. “I’m glad he forgave me.”

“I wish Ethan would get over the whole Thayer thing, too,” Emma said, hoping it wasn’t too weird to talk about this with Laurel. “I really do want to be friends with Thayer, but whenever I talk to him, it feels like I’m sneaking around behind Ethan’s back.”

Laurel adjusted the gold tennis bracelet on her wrist. “That’s because you and Thayer can’t be friends,” she said matter-of-factly. Emma blinked. “Oh, come on,” Laurel pressed. “Just because you first dated him as a prank doesn’t mean we don’t all know that you two were crazy about each other. And Thayer’s still in love with you. Those kinds of feelings … they don’t go away easily. Maybe ever.”

Emma shook her head, sputtering. Sutton had first dated Thayer as a Lying Game prank? That was news. “You’re crazy. Thayer’s not still in love with me.”

“Whatever you say.” Laurel reached for a plastic bag and filled it with a few pomegranates. Emma looked away, out across the plaza, so she wouldn’t have to meet Laurel’s eyes.

And that was when she saw a woman with wild black hair, too-skinny arms, and a threadbare T-shirt sitting on a park bench on the other side of the plaza. Becky. A large family passed in front of Emma, and by the time they moved past, Becky had vanished.

Without thinking, Emma jumped to her feet, threw her purse into Laurel’s arms, and took off into the crowd. She passed a man wearing bright purple suspenders selling homemade ice cream in flavors like salted caramel fudge and ginger pear, then tore through a group of teenagers.

“Hey, watch it!” A girl riding a bike with yellow streamers swerved to avoid Emma, but Emma barely even flinched.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, still turning frantically around, trying to see where Becky had gone.

There. She was walking toward the farthest row of booths. Her sneakers were held together with duct tape and didn’t match. Her hair was in pigtail braids, just how she used to do Emma’s hair before school every morning. Emma felt a pang in her chest. Becky looked so helpless—and innocent. Could she really be capable of murder?

Emma pushed through a group of college girls in front of a vegan candy booth, almost stepping into the open guitar case of a stubble-chinned street performer. “Mom!” she yelled. Several women looked her way but then turned back when they realized it wasn’t their daughter yelling. “Becky!”

Emma knew this was her last chance. She broke free from the crowd, running past an upscale pizza restaurant and a gallery that sold Hopi artwork, almost colliding with Becky from behind. She grabbed her mom’s arm and yanked her back.

“What are you …” The question died on her lips. The woman Emma had stopped was only a few years older than herself. She had a safety pin through her nose and deep purple shadow on her eyelids. Her T-shirt advertised a band called the Pukes, and up close Emma could see tattoos through the cigarette burns in the fabric.

She let go of the stranger’s arm.

“I’m so sorry. I thought you were someone else,” Emma muttered.

“Clearly,” the woman said, her voice ragged with hostility. “Keep your hands to yourself.”

Emma turned dazedly away in time to see Laurel running to meet her. The punk girl swore under her breath and stalked away.

“Who was that?” Laurel asked when she’d caught her breath.

“It was … I thought it was Rose McGowan.” Emma stood numbly in place. “I wanted to get her autograph.”

Laurel gaped at her in disbelief. “Why would Rose McGowan be wandering around the Tucson farmers’ market in November?”

“Well, obviously, she wasn’t,” snapped Emma. Her throat ached and she felt as if she was choking—it took her a minute to realize she was fighting back a sob. She took her purse back from Laurel. “Come on, we’d better get back.”

She turned on her heel and strode back to the plaza without another word. Laurel chased after her.

“I think you’re cracking up,” Laurel muttered.

Emma was starting to agree with her. She put her hand in her purse and felt the outline of the hospital key card. Nightmare or no, she had to act. If she sat around waiting any longer to see what Becky might do, she’d end up going crazy herself.

She had to keep it together. Her life depended on it—and any hope I had for justice depended on it, too.

25

FILE M FOR MURDER

Emma stepped off the elevator into the psych wing that afternoon for the third time. This time, though, she had a plan. She’d stopped on the basement level first, using Nisha’s passkey to get into the laundry so she could borrow a volunteer’s uniform. The only one she could find was a size too small, so it looked more like a naughty nurse costume, the red-and-white fabric clinging to her curves. She’d tied her hair back in a tight bun and wiped away all her makeup in the hope that the nurses wouldn’t recognize her as the girl who’d caused so much trouble earlier that week. Last but not least, she put on a pair of black-framed reading glasses she’d found on Mr. Mercer’s bedside table. If it worked for Clark Kent, it’d work for her.

None of the nurses reacted as she passed the station, barely even glancing up from their filing and typing. The ward was as quiet as ever, a silence heavy with drugged sleep and barely suppressed panic. Emma heard a voice in one of the bedrooms chanting a children’s rhyme. “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes …” The person trailed off into garbled laughter, or maybe it was sobs. Emma couldn’t tell. She forced herself not to walk too quickly away from the sound. She was supposed to look like she belonged here.

The now familiar pulse of the ward’s emotions thudded dully around me. It felt like quicksand, pulling me down. I hovered close to my sister, clinging to her thoughts and feelings, trying to stay afloat.

As she passed the common room, she saw the same blank faces angled toward the television set, the same dark-haired woman rocking herself violently in the corner. Mr. Silva sat in the armchair he’d occupied two nights earlier. His eyes met hers and narrowed suspiciously. She held her breath, half expecting him to get out of his chair, to come toward her sniffing like a dog.

But after a moment, he turned back to the television set, his black eyes losing focus. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and kept moving.

Around a few more corners she found it: a wooden door labeled RECORDS. She swiped her card against the reader and heard the lock click. Glancing up the hallway to make sure no one had noticed, she slid in and shut the door behind her.

The light fluttered on, revealing a narrow closet filled with dusty metal cabinets reaching from floor to ceiling. Carefully typed alphabetic labels were affixed to the front of each drawer. Emma took a moment to listen to the room’s deep silence, her blood pounding in her ears. For better or worse, she was moments from finding out the truth about her mother.

She traced her fingers over the letters on the cabinets until she found a drawer labeled L–N. She gave the drawer a firm tug. It didn’t budge.

Then she noticed the LED screen blinking on the top of the cabinet. PLEASE ENTER CODE, read the message. She stared blankly at it. What was it Nisha had said? My mother’s birthday is September seventh. Emma reached a trembling finger up to type 0907 on the keypad. The drawer slid smoothly open.

Inside, it bulged with files, each one packed with documents, forms, and even photos. Emma scanned the labels quickly, trying to get her bearings in the dense forest of alphabetized folder tags. Her eyes darted over a particularly fat file. Then she did a double take. Her gaze shot back to the file. “Landry,” she whispered.