Never Have I Ever

bottoms, grateful she was wearing opaque, black cotton boy shorts underneath. Tiptoeing to the edge, she lowered her body into the pool, the cool water slipping over her skin inch by inch. She pushed off from the wal and did a couple of breaststroke pul s underwater. Her camisole bil owed out beneath her like an inflated parachute. When she came up for air, Ethan had stopped in the center of the pool. The golden lights reflected off his cheekbones, showing off his slicked-back hair, angular face, and broad, golden shoulders. Ethan caught her eye and smiled back, but Emma quickly looked away. She didn’t want him to think she was staring.

“This was a good idea,” Emma said, twisting around to float on her back.

“Told you.” Ethan paddled toward the diving board. “I have a confession to make,” he said a moment later, his strong arms cutting the water. “I’m a serial pool crasher. When I was younger, I used to sneak into my neighbor’s pool al the time.”

“Wel , I’m a pool-crashing virgin,” Emma said, hoping the night was dark enough that Ethan couldn’t see her blushing at the word virgin.

“I always wanted my own pool.” Ethan reached up and grabbed both sides of the diving board. “My parents never went for it. My mom thought I’d be one of those kids on the news who drowned.”

It occurred to Emma how little she knew about Ethan’s life. “What are your parents like?”

Ethan shrugged. “They’re . . . wel , my mom’s a chronic worrier. And my dad’s . . . absent.”

“He’s gone?” Maybe the two of them had something in common.

Air slowly escaped Ethan’s lips. “Not exactly. He just travels a lot. His work means everything to him. He got an apartment in San Diego that’s close to his company’s main office, and he’s there more than he’s home. He probably likes being away from us.”

“You shouldn’t joke about that.”

One of Ethan’s shoulders rose. It looked like he was going to say something more, but then he shook his head forceful y as if to erase the thoughts and dropped from the diving board. “Did you have a pool when you were growing up, Emma?”

Emma laughed, kicking her legs faster as she tread water. “A foster kid with a pool? I was lucky if I had a clean bathtub. But I hung out at public pools a lot. When I was younger, a social worker got me into free swimming lessons.”

“That’s nice.”

“I guess.” It would’ve been nicer if Becky had taught her to swim. Or if one of her foster moms had bothered to come and watch her lessons. Emma used to look to the bleachers when she was in the water, thinking she might see someone for her there, but she was always disappointed. Eventual y, she stopped looking altogether.

“Do you have a favorite pool game from when you were growing up?” Ethan asked.

Emma thought for a moment. “I guess Marco Polo.” They used to play it at the end of swimming lessons.

“Wanna play?” Ethan asked.

Emma giggled, but Ethan’s face was serious. “Uh, sure,”

she said. “Quietly.” She shut her eyes, spun around in the water a few times, and whispered, “Marco!”

“Polo!” Ethan answered back, his voice low. Emma drifted toward his voice, sticking her arms straight in front of her.

Ethan snickered. “You look like the undead.”

Emma laughed, but it felt wrong somehow. What if Sutton’s body was floating somewhere just like hers was right now?

An image of cold, dark water raced through my mind. Waves lapped a body wrapped in soaked clothing. I couldn’t get close enough to make out the figure lying facedown on the riverbed. Could it have been me lying there, left for dead?

Emma halfheartedly swam toward Ethan’s voice, trying to shake off the feeling of dread that had bloomed in her stomach. Her hands swiped air.

“I’m the Marco Polo master,” Ethan teased. It sounded like he was now in the shal ow end. “So did being a foster kid suck?”

Emma cleared her throat. “Pretty much,” she said, squeezing her eyes tighter. “But since I’m eighteen, I guess it’s over. Marco!”

“Polo,” Ethan answered, now sounding on Emma’s left.

“It’s also over because you’re here, living Sutton’s life. And once we figure this out, you can go back to being Emma again.”

Emma swished her fingers through the cool water, considering this. It was hard not to think about what might happen to her after Sutton’s murder was solved—if it was solved. She wanted more than anything to stay here, to get to know the Mercers as herself, but what if they kicked her out once they discovered she’d been impersonating their dead daughter?

Ethan broke the silence. “I don’t know how you got through years of foster care and turned out so . . . normal. I’m not sure I would.”

“Wel , I kind of disappeared into my own head.” Emma skimmed through the water, focused on the sound of Ethan’s low voice. “Made up a world of my own.”

“Meaning . . . ?”

“I kept journals and wrote stories. And I created a newspaper.”

“Real y?”

Emma nodded, her eyes stil closed. “It was sort of . . . the Daily Emma. I would take pictures and write down stuff that happened to me as if it were a top story on the front page. You know, ‘Girl Cooks Yet Another Lentil Loaf for Hippie Foster Parents.’ Or ‘Foster Sister Breaks Emma Paxton’s Prized Possession Just ’Cause She Feels Like It.’ It helped me cope. I stil compose headlines in my head, sometimes.”

“How come?”

Emma wiped water from her face. “I guess it makes me feel . . . significant. Like I’m good enough to be a headline on a front page—even if it’s my own made-up newspaper.”

“I went into my own little world, too,” Ethan confessed. “I used to get picked on al the time when I was younger.”

“You were picked on?” Emma wanted to open her eyes and stare at him. “Why?”

“Why does anyone ever get picked on?” Ethan’s voice cracked. “It was just something that happened. Except instead of writing newspapers, I drew mazes. First, they were pretty basic, but eventual y I made them more and more complicated until even I couldn’t solve them. I would get lost in those mazes. I imagined that they were a garden labyrinth I could disappear into forever.”

Suddenly, she felt fluttering kicks underwater. She thrust her hand out, touched skin, and opened her eyes. Ethan was wedged in the corner near the built-in hot tub. Before Emma knew what she was doing, she touched a little shaving cut on Ethan’s chin. “Does it hurt?”

Ethan blushed. “Nah.” Then he grabbed her waist and pul ed her closer. Their legs col ided and Emma felt the friction between their skin. She stared at Ethan’s dewy lips, the droplets of water on his eyelashes, the smattering of freckles scattered across his shoulders.

Crickets chirped. The mesquite trees sighed in the wind. Just as Ethan leaned closer, Sutton’s necklace caught the moonlight and sent a glimmer across the surface of the pool.

The water suddenly felt like ice on Emma’s skin. This was al happening too fast. “Um . . .” she muttered, turning and swimming away.

Ethan twisted awkwardly, too, wiping water from his face.

“Ugh!” I screamed at them. Talk about frustrating!

Emma moved to the ladder. “We should probably get out.”

“Yeah.” Ethan pushed out of the pool. He looked at the flower beds and the cone-shaped bird feeder that hung from a birch tree—anywhere but at Emma.

They stood wet and shivering and almost naked on the deck. Emma wished she could think of something to dispel the tension, but her mind felt blank and waterlogged. A deep groan made her turn. Lights shone through the slats in the fence. A car idled on the street. Emma grabbed Ethan’s arm. “Someone’s here!”

“Shit.” Ethan tucked his shoes and clothes under his arm and ran barefoot to the back of the block fence. Emma shimmied into her pajama pants, wrung out her camisole, and ran after him. He gave Emma a boost, then climbed over himself. On the other side of the Paulsons’ backyard was a dried-out creek bed fil ed with random sticks and rocks, tumbleweeds, and overgrown cacti. The Mercer house was to the left, but Ethan veered right.

“I should get home,” he said.

“You walked here?” Emma asked, surprised.

“Jogged, actual y. I like jogging at night.”

The car’s engine idled on the street. Emma squinted in the darkness. The desert went on forever. “Are you sure you’l be al right?”

“I’l be fine. Catch you later.”

Emma watched Ethan until she could no longer see the reflective patches on the back of his sneakers. Then she fol owed the path to Sutton’s backyard, crept close to the edge of the fence, and emerged onto the driveway next to Laurel’s Jetta. When she looked over, she ful y expected to see a car in the Paulsons’ driveway, maybe even Mr. Paulson prowling around the property with a basebal bat. But the driveway was empty. The newspapers lay in the exact same spots they’d been an hour before. No lights were on inside the house either.

A cold, slimy realization washed over Emma’s skin. The car didn’t belong to the Paulsons at al . Whoever had been idling there, watching them, had been someone else entirely.

Chapter 11

Nothing Like a Threat at 2 A.M.

A few minutes later, Emma scampered up the front walk of the Mercers’ house. The tree outside Sutton’s bedroom window didn’t have a low enough branch to climb back up, so the only way she could get back inside was through the front door.

The key was under a large rock beneath a desert hackberry tree, just as it had been the first night Emma had entered the Mercer home. She slid it into the lock, praying that the Mercers hadn’t set an alarm tonight. The lock turned. Silence. Score.

The door swung open easily, and Emma scuttled inside. The AC was on ful blast, and goose bumps warped her damp skin. The glass panes over the family portraits glimmered in the pale streetlight. Detective Quinlan’s card sat on the console table by the door, just where Sutton’s mother had left it that afternoon. Emma cupped her palm over her wrist and remembered what it had felt like when Ethan rested his fingers there. She shut her eyes and leaned her head against the wal .

What was wrong with her? I wanted to ask. Why hadn’t she kissed him?

Creak. Emma froze. Was that a footstep?

Creak. Creeaaaak. A shadow appeared at the end of the hal . Feet tapped the floor, getting louder and louder, until Laurel stepped into the light. Emma jumped back and suppressed a scream.

“Whoa!” Laurel held up her hands. “Someone’s jumpy!”

She stared closer at Emma. “Why are you al wet?”

Emma glanced down at the soggy camisole clinging to her skin. “I just took a shower,” she said.

“In your clothes?”

Emma walked into the powder room and dried her face with a sea-green hand towel. When she glanced at her reflection, she saw Laurel watching her in the mirror. Had Laurel seen her and Ethan in the pool? Had she heard their conversation? Was she the one who’d turned the headlights on them?