Hide and Seek: A Lying Game Novel

“I want to be with you,” she said to Ethan after a long beat. “Not as Sutton. As me. I’m afraid that will never happen.”

“Of course it will.” Ethan cupped her chin in his hands. “All this will be over some day. Whatever happens, I’ll be there for you.”

Emma felt such a rush of gratitude that tears came to her eyes. She moved closer to Ethan, her hip pressing against his. She felt fluttery again as she gazed into his lake-blue eyes and smelled his woodsy aftershave. Ethan leaned in until his lips were a breath away from hers. She was about to kiss him when she heard a familiar laugh.

Emma’s head snapped up. “Is that…?” Two figures were being seated on Pedro’s outdoor patio. One had blond hair and wore a pink sweater, and the other had on baggy pants and walked with a limp.

“Laurel and Thayer,” Ethan whispered grimly, then made a face. “Well, there goes my idea for dinner afterward.”

Laurel shook back her golden hair and slipped her arm through Thayer’s. She did it casually, and for a moment, Emma wondered if Laurel didn’t see her. But then Laurel’s eyes cut across the street directly to Emma. A tiny hint of a smile appeared on her face. Not only did she know Emma was there, but she was squeezing Thayer’s arm for Emma’s benefit.

Bitch, I thought. Laurel had resented my secret relationship with Thayer for a long time. I’m sure she’d been waiting for this moment forever.

Thayer turned, too, and lifted his hand in a half-wave. Emma smiled back, but Ethan’s hand tightened on Emma’s protectively.

Emma turned to him. “Look, I know you don’t like him,” she said in a low voice. “But he’s not dangerous. There’s no way he could have killed Sutton. He was in the hospital all night, remember?”

Ethan looked like he had more to say on the topic, but he let out a sigh instead. “Yeah,” he said grudgingly. “I guess. So where does that leave us? Is there anyone we suspect right now?”

Emma’s gaze shifted to Laurel, who was peering at Emma over the menu. “Remember how I thought Laurel was at Nisha’s the night Sutton disappeared?”

“Yeah, for the tennis team sleepover,” Ethan said, nodding.

“Well she wasn’t. At least not for the whole time.”

Ethan’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you sure?”

Emma drummed her fingertips on the bench’s wrought-iron armrest. “Laurel is the one who picked Thayer up the night he was hit with the car. She’s the one who drove him to the hospital. She couldn’t be in two places at once. And if she lied about that…”

Ethan leaned forward, a light coming on in his eyes. “You think she dropped Thayer off at the hospital, then went back to the canyon to kill Sutton?”

“I hope not. But I can’t rule her out if I don’t know where she actually was. I need to find out if she went back to Nisha’s or if she was out all night.” She fidgeted with the hem of Sutton’s black cotton miniskirt. “I’ve spent more time with Laurel than anyone else since I got to Tucson, but I don’t completely understand her. One second, she’s sweet. And the next, she acts like she wants to kill me.”

“You’ve told me yourself that things between Sutton and Laurel seemed…strained.”

Emma nodded. “I know. Mrs. Mercer talked to me about it last week. She said Laurel’s always been jealous of me—I mean, of Sutton.” Emma shook her head slightly. The longer she play-acted her sister, the fuzzier the line became where Sutton ended and she began.

Ethan glanced across to Pedro’s, where Laurel and Thayer were sharing a basket of tortilla chips. “Maybe. But from the outside, at least, it seemed like Sutton might have been jealous of Laurel, too. After all, Laurel is the Mercers’ biological daughter. It always seemed like being adopted made Sutton feel a little…lost. I saw her in the library at school once poring over a book on genealogy. The look on her face…” Ethan hesitated. “Well, I’d never seen Sutton Mercer look sad before.”

A swell of vulnerability hit me like wave. I had no memory of that, but ever since I’d woken up at Emma’s place in Las Vegas, I’d felt a deep, familiar ache that had nothing to do with being dead. I’d always known I was adopted, and my parents had told me over and over that I was special because they’d chosen me to be their daughter. But the thought that my real mom hadn’t wanted me made me feel adrift and empty, like a piece of me was permanently missing.

But how had Ethan, whom I’d barely known, seen through me like that? Was I more transparent than I thought?

“I guess Laurel had what Sutton never could—a biological family,” Emma said softly, knowing exactly how her twin felt. When she was five years old, her and Sutton’s birth mother, Becky, had left her at a friend’s house…and never come back.

Emma sighed deeply. “Laurel just seems so angry. She was able to keep a lid on it until Thayer showed up in Sutton’s room and Mr. Mercer called the cops on him. But now that he’s back, it feels like she’d do anything to keep him away from the girl he thinks is Sutton—the girl Laurel knows he loves.”

“What’s the saying? That people kill for money, love, or revenge?” Ethan asked, rubbing his hands together as a cool breeze blew through the courtyard. “Maybe she wanted to get rid of the competition.”

“Well, she certainly accomplished that. It looks like they’re on a date.” Emma glanced across the courtyard again. Thayer rested a hand on Laurel’s shoulder. She fed him a chip loaded with guacamole, then shot another self-satisfied smirk in Emma’s direction. Emma wondered what happened to Caleb, Laurel’s boyfriend as of yesterday. Laurel probably didn’t even remember his name.

I followed Emma’s gaze back over to my little sister. Thayer was now giving his order to the waitress, his posture easy and natural. Laurel watched him adoringly, hugging the pale pink sweater-wrap that engulfed her tiny frame. I narrowed my eyes. I recognized that sweater. It, like Thayer, was mine.

Maybe my mom and Ethan were right—maybe Laurel wanted everything that was mine. And maybe, just maybe, she had killed me to get it all.

2

TO GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE WE GO

The following evening, Emma turned into the Mercers’ neighborhood, groaning as her feet pushed the pedal.

“The pain,” she grumbled. They’d just had the worst tennis practice ever—it had involved a five-mile run before a grueling scrimmage and drills—and she could barely move her legs. Why couldn’t Sutton have just been a couch potato?

Laurel sat in the passenger seat, scrolling through her iPhone and ignoring Emma’s comment, even though she had to be in agony, too.

“So did you have a nice date with Thayer last night?” Emma couldn’t help but ask.

Laurel looked up and gave her a saccharine smile. “Yes, as a matter of fact. It was really romantic—I think we might even go to the Harvest Dance together.”

“What about Caleb?”

Laurel blinked, caught off guard. “Caleb and I never were exclusive,” she said after a moment.

Emma sniffed. It certainly looked that way at the Homecoming Dance, she wanted to say.

“Why do you care, anyway?” Laurel snapped, turning back to her phone. “Now that you have Ethan?”

Emma flinched at the disgusted way Laurel said Ethan’s name. Sutton’s friends had seemed pretty accepting of him, Laurel especially. She’d been the one who’d encouraged her to come clean with their friends about their romance. But was that an act? Or, if Laurel had killed Sutton, was it a secret wink-wink, nudge-nudge as if to say, I know you’re not my real sister. I know you never cared about Thayer.

“No, I don’t care,” Emma said tightly. “I was just making conversation.”

But I cared. What if Thayer did like my sister? Would he do that to me? Then again, he probably figured I’d abandoned him for Ethan. If only he knew the truth.

Emma turned up the Mercers’ driveway. The sun was setting behind their two-story adobe home, a home Emma had gawked at when she’d first laid eyes on it. She still had trouble accepting that she actually lived here. The orange rays glinted off Mr. Mercer’s Range Rover. Next to it was a gleaming black Cadillac Emma had never seen before. Its California license plate said FOXY 70.

“Whose car is that?” Emma asked, turning off the ignition.

Laurel gave her a funny look. “Uh, Grandma’s?” she said in a duh voice.

Heat rose to Emma’s cheeks. “Oh, right. I knew that. She just hasn’t been here in a while.” She was used to covering for her I’m-not-Sutton gaffes by now, not that she felt any more graceful about it. And, of course, Grandma Mercer would be yet another person Emma had to fool into believing she was Sutton.

Laurel was already climbing out of the car. “Sweet,” she said, tossing a lock of honey-blond hair over her shoulder. “Dad’s grilling.” And with that, she slammed the door.

Emma pulled up the parking brake. She’d forgotten Mr. Mercer’s mom was flying in for his fifty-fifth birthday party, which Mrs. Mercer had been frantically planning for the past few weeks. So far, she’d arranged the caterers, organized a band, pored over the guest list, micromanaged the seating arrangements, and dealt with dozens of other details. Grandma was here to help, too.

With a deep, fortifying breath, Emma climbed out and lifted her tennis bag from the trunk. She followed Laurel along a stone path that led to the Mercers’ backyard. A woman’s gravelly, throaty laugh cut through the air, and as soon as Emma turned the corner, she saw Mr. Mercer standing at the grill, holding a tray of skewered veggies. Next to him was a well-preserved older woman holding a martini. She was pretty much what Emma pictured when she imagined a Grandma Mercer: poised, classy, elegant.

The woman’s face broke into a cool smile when she saw the girls. “Darlings.”