Don’t run away from your ride when you’re stuck in the wilderness at midnight, I think. The hair on the back of my neck tingles.
It could be a wild animal. Or it could be the maniac who stole my Volvo and ran down Thayer. He could be back for more.
I hold my breath and listen. Far away, a police siren wails.
Then, there it is again, the same sound I heard before: leaves stirring, crunching underfoot. I stand up slowly, my heart in my throat. Carefully, I step toward the path that will lead me back to the park’s entrance.
That’s when my eyes catch movement in the trees. Something rushes toward me. I turn on my heel and sprint up the path before I can see what it is. My body is sore from everything that’s happened during this long, awful night. I can hear my pursuer behind me, crashing through the bushes. My shin slams straight into something—I don’t see what—and I fall on my hands and knees. I scrabble at the dirt feebly, trying to get back to my feet. But behind me I can hear my pursuer getting closer. I roll over just in time to see someone detach from the shadows and step into view.
It’s a woman. When she sees me, she stops and stares, breathing hard. Her black hair looks almost blue in the moonlight. Her face is pitted and sunken, her eyes deep holes in her skull. She wears a dirty waitressing uniform with a tear at the hem. She steps toward me and I crabwalk backward, the dirt stinging my hands. When I turn around, I realize I’ve backed myself against the canyon rock. I have nowhere to run.
“Wait,” the woman says, extending one of her hands toward me. When she gets close, I see that her eyes aren’t black like I thought, but bright, oceanic blue. There’s an eerie, predatory expression on her face, too—as if she knows I’m trapped and she likes it.
“Hello, Sutton.” Her voice is soft and gravelly, and as causal as if we’d talked a thousand times before. “I’m your mother. Becky.”
And then the memory collapses in on itself, and I’m left with nothing at all.
8
WHO ARE YOU?
Emma clutched the doorframe of the hospital room, her eyes locked on Becky’s, the sound of her mom’s voice saying her name echoing in her mind over and over. Emma. Emma. Emma.
Becky recognized her. In one glance, she had seen what Sutton’s friends and family could not—that Emma was not Sutton. Emma wanted to believe it was because Becky was her mother, the person who knew her best. Only, Becky didn’t know her best; Becky hadn’t known her for thirteen years. But that could only mean …
Our brains asked the same question at the same time: Did Becky know Emma couldn’t be Sutton because she’d done something to me?
I tried to squeeze one more moment from the memory I’d just recovered, to stay in it just a little longer, but nothing came. All I could see was Becky walking toward me out of the darkness. I didn’t know what it meant, but the expression on Becky’s face that night in the canyon left me chilled to the soul. But what kind of woman could kill her own daughter?
“Emma,” Becky whispered again. One of her front teeth was chipped, lending her smile a witchy look. Her arms spasmed at her sides.
Emma stepped away and shook her head, remembering that she wasn’t Emma, not here. “N-no,” she said. “I’m not Emma.”
Mr. Mercer put his hand on Emma’s shoulder. “Honey, this is Sutton. Remember? I sent you pictures. This is your daughter.”
“Yes, my daughter.” All of a sudden, Becky’s twitching turned into all-out writhing. Her feet kicked off the blankets, knocking over a small dinner tray next to the bed with a loud clatter.
The nurse nodded, and two enormous, linebacker-sized orderlies stepped into the room. For the first time, Emma noticed the stained leather restraints attached to the railings on the hospital bed. An orderly with a low ponytail leaned over the bed and pinned Becky down by her shoulders, while the other, whose hair was cut military-style, deftly tightened the leather straps around her arms and legs. They worked efficiently and quietly, as though Becky was a piece of furniture they were securing to a truck bed. Becky’s eyes darted back and forth, and her mouth opened and closed like a fish’s.
Emma swallowed hard, full of both pity and fear for the woman who’d abandoned her all those years ago—and who might have hurt her twin.
“Emma!” Becky wailed.
“My name’s not Emma,” Emma insisted, her voice loud and clear. “I’m Sutton.”
“You’re Emma!” Becky’s voice climbed higher and higher. She sounded almost as if she were pleading. “Emma! Emma, Emma, Emma, Emma …” Fat tears streaked down her cheeks.
Mr. Mercer leaned in. “Who’s Emma, Becky? Can you tell us?”
Becky just shook her tear-streaked face back and forth violently. Her whole body trembled and strained against the ties.
Her vacant expression triggered one of Emma’s last memories of her mom. At her preschool graduation, which Becky had missed, Emma won a good citizenship award for keeping her desk cleaner than anyone else’s. She’d tagged along with the families of her classmates to get ice cream afterward and had tried to pretend she didn’t hear the other parents’ whispers of “irresponsible” and “not all there.” She’d gotten mint chocolate chip, which was Becky’s favorite flavor, to help pretend that her mother was with her. Later, when she let herself into their motel room with the key she kept on a Hello Kitty lanyard in her backpack, Becky was in bed staring at the ceiling. Emma carefully put away her backpack and shoes in the closet. She crawled into bed next to her mother and nestled at her side. Becky stared at her as if she’d never seen her before.