Never Have I Ever

Mrs. Mercer looked like she was about to faint. “What kind of consequences?”

“We’l just have to wait and see what the boutique wants to do,” Quinlan answered. “They could issue a fine, or they could pursue a harsher punishment, especial y because Sutton has shoplifted before. She might get community service. Or jail time.”

“Jail?” Emma’s head whipped up.

Quinlan shrugged. “You’re eighteen now, Sutton. It’s a whole new world.”

Emma shut her eyes. She’d forgotten that she’d just passed that milestone birthday. “B-but what about school?”

she muttered, a bit stupidly. “What about tennis?” What she real y wanted to ask was What about the investigation?

What about finding Sutton’s killer?

The door squeaked as Quinlan pul ed it open. “You should have thought about that before you stuffed that purse under your shirt.”

Quinlan held the door for Emma and the Mercers, and they exited into the parking lot. No one spoke. Emma was afraid to even breathe. Mrs. Mercer guided Emma by the elbow toward her waiting Mercedes with a PROUD HOLLIER

TENNIS MOM sticker on the bumper.

“You’d better pray that boutique drops the charges,” Mrs. Mercer growled through her teeth as she slid into the driver’s seat. “I hope you’ve learned something valuable from al this.”

“I did,” Emma answered quietly, her mind spinning with everything she’d read in the file. She’d found a new motive, new leads, and a dangerous situation that would make even the most loyal friends furious.

Chapter 9

Daddy’s Little Girl

The ride home from the police station was fil ed with a stony, implacable silence. The radio remained off. Mrs. Mercer didn’t even complain about the aggressive driver who merged in front of her. She stared straight ahead like a wax figure in Madame Tussauds, not looking at the girl she thought was her daughter slumped in the seat next to her. Emma kept her eyes on her lap, picking at the skin around her thumbs until a tiny red drop of blood slipped across her skin.

Mrs. Mercer pul ed the Mercedes into the driveway behind her husband’s Acura, and everyone trudged into the house like prisoners on a chain gang. Laurel leapt up from the leather couch in the living room as soon as the door swung open. “What’s going on?”

“We need a minute with Sutton. Alone.” Mrs. Mercer flung her handbag onto the coat and umbrel a stand that stood guard at the front door. Drake, the family’s Great Dane, bounded up to greet Mrs. Mercer, but she swished him away. Drake was more lovable doofus than guard dog, but he never failed to put Emma on edge. She’d been afraid of dogs her whole life after a foster parent’s chow chow used her arm as a chew toy when she was nine.

“What happened?” Laurel’s eyes were wide. No one answered. Laurel tried to meet Emma’s gaze, but Emma just studied the massive spider plant in the corner.

“Sit down, Sutton.” Mr. Mercer pointed to the couch. A glass of sparkling water sat on a wood coaster on the mesquite coffee table, and an upended copy of Teen Vogue lay on the floor. “Laurel, please. Give us some privacy.”

Laurel sighed, then tromped down the hal . Emma heard the soft sucking sound of the refrigerator door opening in the kitchen. She perched on the suede wing chair and stared helplessly around the room at the southwest chic design—lots of desert-y tans and reds, a zigzag Navajo blanket thrown over the leather couch, a white fluffy shag rug that was amazingly clean, despite Drake’s big and often-muddy paws, and a wood-beamed ceiling with several slowly rotating fans. A Steinway baby grand piano stood by the window. Emma wondered if Sutton and Laurel had taken lessons on something so exquisite. She felt another twinge of envy that her identical twin had been cared for so lovingly, given everything she wanted. If fate had dealt her a different hand, if Becky had abandoned Emma as a baby instead of Sutton, maybe Emma would’ve had this life instead. She definitely would’ve appreciated it more.

I felt the same flare of annoyance I always got whenever Emma passed judgment on me. How could any of us truly appreciate our lives if we had nothing else to compare them to? It was only after we lost something, after a mother abandoned us, after we died, that we realized what we were missing. Although that raised an interesting question: If Emma had lived my life, would she have died my death, too? Would she have been the one who’d been murdered instead of me? But as I bitterly mul ed this over, a sinking feeling told me that my death had somehow been my fault

—something I had done, the result of a choice Emma might not have made. It had nothing to do with fate. Mrs. Mercer paced back and forth, her high heels clicking on the stone floor. Her face was drawn and her gray streak looked more prominent than ever. “First of al , you’re going to work off this punishment, Sutton. Chores. Errands. Whatever I ask you to do, you’re going to do it.”

“Okay,” Emma said softly.

“And second of al ,” Mrs. Mercer went on, “don’t think you’re leaving the house for two weeks. Unless it’s for school, tennis, or community service, if that’s what they decide to give you. Let’s hope that’s what they give you.”

She paused by the piano and placed a hand to her forehead, as though the thought made her woozy. “What do you think col eges are going to say about this? Did you even think about the consequences, or did you just grab whatever it was from that store and run?”

Laurel, who’d clearly been lurking, appeared in the doorway, an unopened bag of Smartfood popcorn in her hands. “But Homecoming is next week! You have to let Sutton go. She’s on the planning committee! And then there’s the camping trip after.”

Mrs. Mercer shook her head, then turned back to Emma.

“Don’t try to sneak out either. I’m having someone put outside locks on your windows. I know you’ve been sneaking out that way. Yours, too, Laurel.”

“I haven’t been sneaking out!” Laurel protested.

“I noticed footprints al around the flower beds this morning,” Mrs. Mercer snapped.

Emma pressed her lips together. The footprints outside Laurel’s room were hers. She’d fled through Laurel’s window during her birthday party, right after she’d found the unedited version of the snuff film that showed Laurel, Madeline, and Charlotte pranking Sutton. But Sutton wouldn’t have admitted to trampling the flowers, and now, neither would she. Maybe she was becoming more like her twin than she realized.

Mrs. Mercer fumbled through her bag to answer her buzzing phone. She pressed the tiny device to her ear and disappeared down the hal . Mr. Mercer checked his beeper, too, then turned wearily to Sutton. “I have a chore for you right now, actual y. Get changed and meet me in the garage.”

Emma nodded obediently. Let the punishment begin. Ten minutes later, Emma had changed into a T-shirt and a worn pair of jeans—wel , as worn as a pair of Citizens of Humanity jeans could be—and was standing in the Mercers’ three-car garage. It was lined with shelves ful of rakes, shovels, cans of paint, and extra bags of dog food. In the middle of the big concrete room stood an old motorcycle with the word NORTON written in script on the side. Mr. Mercer squatted by the bike’s front wheel, inspecting the tire. He wore white protection pads on his knees.

When he saw Emma, he stood up halfway and gave her a nod.

“I’m here,” Emma said, feeling a little sheepish. Mr. Mercer stared at her for a long few beats. Emma braced for a lecture, but instead, he just looked sad. Emma wasn’t sure what to say. Disappointment was something she was used to feeling herself, but she’d never been on the receiving end of it. She’d always tried to be whatever her foster parents required of her—a nanny, a cleaning lady, and once, even a massage therapist. Never had she intentional y made trouble.

Mr. Mercer turned back to the bike. “This place is a mess,” he final y said. “Maybe you can help me toss stuff out and put everything back where it’s supposed to be.”

“Okay.” Emma pul ed a large black trash bag from a box on a nearby shelf.

She looked around the garage, surprised to see that she and Mr. Mercer might have a bit in common. On the wal was a tattered poster of a flame-burst Gibson Les Paul, one of Emma’s favorite guitars from when she’d gone through her I-want-to-be-in-a-band phase. There was also a framed reprint of Emma’s favorite incorrect newspaper headline, DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN. And to the left of the racks of car-detailing equipment and weed kil er was a smal shelf that held ragged, wel -loved crime-fiction paperbacks, many of which Emma had devoured, too. She wondered why they weren’t on the built-in bookshelves in the main house. Was Mrs. Mercer ashamed that her husband wasn’t into literary fiction? Or was it a dad thing to keep his favorite possessions in his own space?

Emma had never met her own father. When she was in kindergarten, a bunch of kids’ dads came into class and talked about what they did for a living; there was a doctor, a guy who owned a musical instrument shop, and a chef. Emma went home that day and asked Becky what her dad did. Becky’s face drooped, and she blew cigarette smoke through her nose. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Can you tel me his name?” Emma tried, but Becky wouldn’t answer. Shortly after that conversation, Emma went through a phase pretending that various men they met on their endless travels—Becky could never hold down a job for long—might secretly be her father. Raymond, the gas station cashier who slipped Emma a few free Tootsie Rol s with her purchase. Dr. Norris, the ER doctor who stitched up her knee when she fel on the playground. Al, a neighbor in their apartment complex who waved to Emma every morning. Emma pictured one of these men scooping her up, swinging her around, and taking her to the local Dairy Queen. But it never happened.

A barrage of moments came to me: my dad and me sitting at a table at a blues club, listening to a band play. My dad and me on a mountain trail, binoculars to our faces, watching birds. Me fal ing off my bike and running inside, searching for my dad to comfort me. I had a feeling my dad and I had had a special bond at one point in our lives. Suddenly, in light of what Emma went through, I felt lucky to have al those memories. But now my dad didn’t even know I was gone.

Emma leaned over the motorcycle, inspecting it careful y.

“Why is the shifter on the wrong side?”

Mr. Mercer blinked at her, as if Emma had suddenly started speaking Swahili. “Actual y, it’s not. This is a British bike. Before 1975, the gearshift was on the right side.” He laughed uncomfortably. “I thought your interest in cars stopped with 1960s Volvos.”

“Oh, wel , I just read something about it,” Emma covered. One of her foster families, the Stuckeys, had a car that constantly gave them trouble, and the responsibility had somehow fal en to Emma to figure out how to fix it. She’d befriended the mechanics at the local gas station, and they’d taught her how to change a tire, check for oil, and replace various fluids and parts. The owner of the place, Lou, had a Harley, and Emma hung around him while he fixed it up, helping out now and then. Lou took a shine to her and started to cal her Little Grease Monkey. If she ever wanted an apprenticeship as a mechanic, he said, his door was wide open.