Her shoulders slumping, Emma turned away in defeat. It looked like Dr. Banerjee was skipping town, and with him, her last chance to find out the secret Nisha had died for.
She let herself into the Landrys’ house with Ethan’s key. As she pushed the door open, she wondered if she should have knocked instead. But inside, everything was dark and still. The sounds of a daytime talk show came from under Mrs. Landry’s closed bedroom door, and Emma sighed in relief. She hated to admit it, but running into Ethan’s mom—seeing the startled, nervous look in her mousy eyes—set her on edge.
Emma got a Coke Zero from the fridge and trudged to Ethan’s room. His bed was perfectly made, with hospital corners and everything, his plain white pillows stacked neatly at the top—she’d watched him make it that morning, his lip between his teeth in concentration. His OCD side was kind of adorable. She blushed a little as she settled onto the bed, thinking that she and Ethan had been cuddling here just a few hours earlier.
Propping herself up against the headboard with some pillows, she pulled his laptop onto her legs. She chewed on the end of a lock of hair, then typed “Emma Paxton” into the search field—and regretted it almost immediately. The case was everywhere, and Emma herself was the star of the show. It was like a horrible, nightmare version of the headlines she used to write about herself—only now they were real. Rags to Riches, one news site proclaimed in enormous type, and underneath: Emma Paxton lived in squalor and dreamed of escape. How far would she go to get what she wanted? Every bad picture anyone had ever taken of her was now online, looking somehow sinister. She recognized Clarice’s house in several of them—Travis had obviously been snapping photos of her without her knowledge. One even showed her sleeping, her mouth open and her tank top’s spaghetti strap hanging off one shoulder.
A website called On the Q-T had interviewed Clarice herself. Emma scrolled down the page, full of pictures of her old room and stories about how disturbed Emma had seemed. She told me she was working at a roller coaster, but I heard afterward that she was involved with some kind of exotic dance troupe. She used to flounce around here in short-shorts and halter tops, but I’m so naïve I didn’t realize what was going on.
Emma clicked through link after link, her heart sinking. Not one person seemed to even consider that she might be innocent. A task force called CIT—Coalition of Identical Twins—called her a monster and demanded her immediate arrest. Former classmates from Vegas, most of whom Emma didn’t remember ever talking to, portrayed her as a shady, calculating thug. Another blog interviewed Hollier students who swore up and down that they’d suspected her all along.
Meanwhile, someone at Hollier had put up a Sutton Mercer remembrance page, filled with pictures of Sutton, Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind” playing as background music. A guestbook was already filled with comments from Sutton’s classmates.
I read the page over Emma’s shoulder. Would everyone talk about what a bully I’d been? Would they say I’d deserved what I got? Would anyone even miss me? But most of the comments were superficial. I will always remember how pretty she looked for Junior Prom, someone named wildcat_chick had posted. I had such a crush on her in eighth grade, another comment read, and Remember her sixteenth birthday party? That night made Hollier history! It seemed like no one really knew me underneath my shiny, popular exterior. Then again, I hadn’t exactly let many people see past that part of me.
Emma seemed to realize the same thing. She opened Twitter, certain that she would find something from Gabby and Lili. Sure enough, they’d been commenting on the whole situation.
@LILI_FIORELLO: Calling it now: It’s a prank. This is too crazy to be real.
@GABBY_FIORELLO: Sutton Mercer wouldn’t let herself be taken out by some flimsy black market knock-off bitch.
@LILI_FIORELLO: Joke is getting stale. Cross your heart and hope to die?
And then, a few hours later, simply:
@GABBY_FIORELLO: Sutton, we love you and will miss you forever.
Both of them had changed their user pictures to black squares. Emma’s heart ached. She knew Sutton and her friends had never been touchy-feely, but she also knew that below the surface, they cared deeply about one another. Then she suddenly realized: Gabby and Lili were twins, too. She wondered if they believed the rumors that Emma had killed her own sister. Maybe they were joining CIT at that very moment.
For hours Emma sat bent over the computer, reading story after story and searching for clues. When a car door slammed outside, Emma was shocked to see it was already three. Tiptoeing to the window that looked over the front of the house, she pulled aside a slat in Ethan’s Venetian blinds—and froze.
A cop car had pulled into the driveway, and Ethan was getting out of the passenger door. He paused to say something to the officer in the front—Corcoran again. She recognized the buzzed auburn hair. Then Ethan nodded and walked toward the house.
She met him in the entryway. He looked tired but calm, his backpack slung across one shoulder behind him.
“What happened?” she exclaimed.
“It’s okay.” He went to her, dropping his backpack on the floor next to him. As he straightened back up, she saw a scar on his temple she’d never noticed before, curving out from his hairline. She wanted suddenly to kiss it. “I went in willingly.”
Emma’s jaw fell open. “What?”
“I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. They need to know you’re innocent.” He raised his hand and cupped her cheek in his palm. “I told them I was blindsided by the news that you were really Emma but that I didn’t care. I said that I love you, whoever you are—and that I believed you were innocent.”
His touch on her face made her feel momentarily light-headed. The chill that had swept across her skin when she saw the cop car was replaced by a warm tingle.