A hand clapped around Emma’s shoulder, and she jumped and twisted around. Stanbridge gazed at her sternly. “Visiting hours are over now, miss.” Emma nodded numbly and followed him out of the room. I trailed behind her, electrical impulses snapping and flashing inside me. Something about seeing Thayer—and that guard clapping a hand on Emma’s shoulder—made a few doors unlock in my mind. I smelled the dust and desert flowers of Sabino Canyon. I felt the cool air on my bare skin. I felt that hand clap around my shoulder—maybe Thayer’s hand. Maybe right before he killed me.
Once again, I was zooming backward into my past …
19
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
I twist around and see Thayer’s face. It is his hand on my shoulder, and he doesn’t look happy. He clamps down hard, his fingers gripping the soft skin above my collarbone.
“You’re hurting me!” I scream, but his other hand claps over my mouth before I can call for help. He yanks me back from the edge of the cliff, jerking my body against his chest. My fingers claw at his arms and my feet kick frantically against the ground. My elbows stab at his ribs. I’m fighting like a wild animal, but I can’t get away from him. He’s too strong.
“What are you—” My voice is muffled beneath his hand. I finally manage to free myself from his grip and spin across the hardscrabble path away from him. But he advances toward me again, arms outstretched. My mind spins. I rack my brain for anything I can say to calm him down. What have I done to make him so angry? Is it because of what I said about Garrett? Or how hard I pushed him to tell me where he’s been the last few months?
“Thayer, please,” I start. “Can’t we just talk about this?” There is fury in Thayer’s eyes. “ Be quiet , Sutton.” And then he lunges at me again. I try to scream, but it comes out like a strangled yelp as his hand smacks over my mouth again. His sneakers scratch against the dried leaves below our feet and his muscles flex as he pulls me against him. His breath is hot on my ear. Blood pools in my feet, and a sense of dread crawls across my body.
Suddenly, a scream sounds loud and clear in the distance. It’s hard to tell whether it’s human or animal.
Thayer turns in the direction of the shriek, momentarily distracted. His grip loosens just enough for me to bite the inside of his palm. I taste his salty sweat as I sink my teeth into his skin.
“Jesus!” Thayer screeches. He rips his hand away, trying to catch his balance. I take off, my legs hot with adrenaline. Dirt crunches beneath me and leaves crack as I pound the earth. I fly across the trail, my hair wild and my arms pumping. A branch slices across my cheek, thin as paper and just as sharp. I can feel wetness on my skin.
I’m not sure if it’s tears … or blood.
Things have been tense between Thayer and me before, but I’ve never seen him like this.
A rush of cold air slaps my body as I push forward. I hear Thayer’s footsteps, and I can tell he’s gaining ground. I’ve traveled this path so many times, though, and the darkness gives me an advantage. I press on through the brambly mesquite trees and brush. Behind me, there’s a crash of Thayer’s body colliding with a tree or a rock. I hear him swear under his breath, cursing me.
I cut a sharp right around the boulder where my father and I used to stop for water breaks. “Sutton!” It’s a man’s voice, but the rocks must distort it, because it doesn’t quite sound like Thayer’s. I continue forward, my lungs burning, the tears running down my face, my heart thudding with fear.
I dart around a massive tree branch that blocks the path and scramble down the steep incline, heading for the trickle of water that passes for a creek—the only body of water in the canyon. I press my heels into the dirt to steady myself as I slip farther into the ditch. My hands reach for something—anything—to grab hold of, and land on a gnarled root along the creek bed. I reach the bottom and spring to my feet, taking off in the direction of the parking lot. I’m close. I just need to make it to my car.
I sprint down the trail toward the lot. I nearly wipe out when my feet slam the gravel. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see my beloved car. Skidding across the lot, I fumble inside my purse for the keys. My fingers close around the heavy, round Volvo keychain, but I’m shaking so badly that it flies out of my hands, landing with a jingle near the front tire. “Shit,” I whisper.
“Sutton!” a voice booms.
I turn to see Thayer emerge from the clearing. He’s barreling toward me, his hands clenched into fists, his shoulders rigid. I shriek. Time stands still. My limbs won’t move. I scramble for my keys on the ground, but there isn’t time. I turn to bolt just as his arms wrap around me.
His fingers dig into my flesh.
“No, no!” I scream. His skin burns against mine.
“Thayer, please!”
“Believe me,” Thayer whispers in my ear. “This is hurting me more than it’s hurting you.” I feel him dragging me toward the thick woods next to the parking lot. But before I can see what happens next—
my last moment, surely—the memory explodes like a bomb, leaving me with nothingness.
20
BLOOD DOESN’T LIE
Thirty minutes later, Emma got out of a cab in front of Ethan’s house. It had begun to pour, a bizarre phenomenon for Tucson. It made the air smell like ozone and wet asphalt.
The gravel in his front yard glinted under the moon.
Emma dashed across the grass, avoiding raindrops, and rapped on the white door. She leaned her ear close to the wood until she heard footsteps pad down the hallway inside. The door swung open to reveal the foyer. Ethan’s pale blue eyes widened at the sight of her. His dark hair was disheveled, like he’d been sleeping.
“Emma?” he asked, carefully stepping forward and touching her shoulders. “What happened?”
“I needed to see you.” Emma glanced over her shoulder. “Can I come in?”
Ethan stepped aside. “Of course.”
Emma shut the door behind her and collapsed into Ethan’s arms. The weight of everything that happened with Thayer pressed down on her until her head fell into her hands. She sobbed for a good five minutes, her nose stuffing up, tears burning her eyes. Ethan rubbed her back the whole time.
I was happy my sister had someone to comfort her. If only I had someone like that. I was the one who’d just seen that horrible memory, after all — I was the one who’d been brutally murdered by someone I loved. It felt like my insides had been hollowed out. The Thayer I’d picked up at the bus station seemed nothing like the madman he’d become by the end. How could I have been so stupid as to have gotten mixed up with him?
After Emma’s sobs turned to whimpers, Ethan led her through the kitchen and curved around the breakfast bar. A cluster of take-out menus covered the sand-colored granite.
Two cans of Coke sat on the long wooden table next to an empty pizza box. The stilted dialogue of a true-crime show sounded from the living room. He kicked open his bedroom door and flipped on the light. “Here, sit,” he said to Emma, gesturing to the bed. “Tell me what’s going on.” Emma’s legs felt numb as she sank onto the dark blue comforter. She grabbed a quilted pillow and hugged it to her chest. “I saw Thayer,” she started, glancing at Ethan nervously.
Predictably, Ethan’s face clouded. “In jail? I told you not to!”
“I know, but I—”
“Why didn’t you listen?”
Tears flooded Emma’s eyes again. She didn’t need a lecture right now. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she said defensively. “I needed answers. And he gave them to me.
He told me he was the only one who knew who I really was.”
“He said that?” Ethan’s eyes widened.
“Uh-huh.” Emma nodded. “He talked about the letters he sent me, too. He must have meant the note that was on Laurel’s car, the message on the chalkboard at the pep rally. He did it, Ethan. I know it.”
Ethan placed his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry.” Then Emma pulled Thayer’s note to Sutton from her pocket and unfolded it. “I found this today,” she said, passing the paper to Ethan.
He grimaced as he read the letter. When he finished, he folded it neatly and handed it back to her. “Whoa. It’s like he basically confessed that he might hurt her unless things changed between them.”
“I know. And then … he did hurt her.” I shivered at Emma’s words, the memory once again spiraling in my mind. But where had Thayer taken me? It had to have something to do with my car, right? There was blood on it, after all —surely my blood. If only I could have seen the rest of the memory. I felt like the puzzle was almost complete, save for that missing piece.
“Every time I’ve seen him, he’s looked at me like he knows I’m not Sutton,” Emma whispered. “Thayer must have killed Sutton and lured me here,” she said softly. “And think about it. Since he was missing, he never had to be anywhere at any given time. He would have been able to slip around Tucson easily, spying on me, leaving me notes, threatening me.”
“You’re right,” Ethan said softly. “It would have been easy for him.”
“He’s got me where he wants me. If I say one word against him, he’ll tell the cops who I am. And then they’ll blame me for Sutton’s death. This is playing out exactly as you said it would.” She shut her eyes and started to sob again. “He told me that his lawyer is working hard to get him out of jail by next week. That could be in a matter of days! What am I going to do?”
“Shhh,” Ethan whispered. He took Emma’s hand and rested it against his jeans. “It’s okay,” he whispered.
“Thayer is still locked up. You’re still safe. There’s still time to prove what he did. I’m here with you, okay? I’m not going to let you go through this alone. I’ll keep you safe.” Emma laid her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“And I don’t know what I’d do without you. If something happened to you …” Ethan broke off, his voice cracking. “I couldn’t bear it.”
It was such a relief just to hear those words. Emma swallowed a sob and smiled gratefully at Ethan. Her lips were about to touch his when she noticed a leather journal next to the bed. It was open to a page near the back and neat letters formed short verses, like a poem. Suddenly, the guilt flooded back. The prank. Laurel had asked her to steal his work. She winced, then pulled away from him.
“I need to tell you something else,” she said.
“Something you’re not going to like.”
Ethan cocked his head. “Of course. You can tell me anything.”
Emma stared at Ethan’s hands entwined with hers, hating what she had to do next. But she had to warn him.
She took a deep breath. “Sutton’s friends are planning this prank on you. It has to do with your poetry reading.” Ethan shrank back. “What? ”