Emma rummaged through Sutton’s bag until she found her pink iPhone. With trembling fingers, she called up the video site Travis had shown her. “There’s a video of someone strangling her. Maybe you can figure out where this is.”
The site’s main page finally loaded. Emma typed SuttonInAZ in the Search Window. After a moment, a new page appeared: NO MATCHES FOUND. “What?” Emma squeaked. She stared pleadingly at the cops. “This is a mistake. The video was here two days ago, I swear!”
Quinlan grunted. Before Emma knew what was happening, he reached out and grabbed the beige bag from her shoulder. He pulled out Sutton’s blue Kate Spade wallet, undid the snap, and unveiled the license in the clear windowpane slot in the front. ARIZONA, the license said at the top in blue letters. Sutton had grinned for the camera, her makeup perfectly done and not a hair out of place. Emma fleetingly thought of her own driver’s license photo, which had been taken in a badly lit DMV without air conditioning the day after she’d had emergency wisdom teeth extractions. Her hair stuck to her forehead, her makeup had begun to leak down her face, and her cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk’s. She sort of looked like a greasy Shrek.
Quinlan tick-tocked the wallet back and forth in front of Emma’s face. “Says here you’re Sutton Mercer. Not some girl named Emma.”
“That’s not mine,” Emma said weakly. She felt like the bird that had gotten trapped in Clarice’s closed garage a few weeks earlier—frantic and helpless. How was she going to make anyone believe she wasn’t Sutton . . . when she looked exactly like her? A realization struck Emma: The killer was watching her while she waited for Sutton. Maybe it was the killer who had lured her here? How long had Sutton been dead? After all, if there was no missing girl, there was no crime.
She gestured to the note. “Can’t you at least dust it for fingerprints?”
He stood back, crossed his arms over his chest, and gave her an are-you-kidding-me? look. “I would think a girl who’s had her car impounded wouldn’t be making trouble for herself. We can add to those fines, you know.”
“But . . .” Emma trailed off helplessly. She had no idea how to reply. The blond cop’s phone rang, and he lunged to answer it. A cop wearing a brown cowboy hat burst through the front doors and marched to one of the interrogation rooms.
“Here.” Detective Quinlan tossed the note and Sutton’s wallet into Emma’s lap with a look of disgust. Then he brought his face close to Emma’s. “I’m taking you back to school now. If I catch you in here again, I’m going to lock you up for a night. See how you like it then. Got it?”
Emma nodded.
Quinlan guided Emma out the door and across the parking lot. To Emma’s horror, he unlocked the back of the squad car and gestured to the backseat. “In you go.”
Emma gaped at him. “Seriously?”
“Uh-huh.”
She balled up her fists. Unbelievable. After a moment, she climbed into the back of the cop car, where the criminals sat. It smelled like a mix of puke and evergreen air freshener. Someone had written ASSHOLE on the faux-leather seat.
Quinlan swung into the front seat and turned the key in the ignition. “I’m running over to Hollier,” he said into the CB radio attached to the center console. “Be back in a sec.” Emma slumped down in the seat. At least he didn’t turn on the siren.
As Quinlan made a left out of the lot, Emma’s new reality slowly began to take shape. It had been easy—even fun—playing Sutton at a party. But she wanted to meet Sutton, not take over her life. And although she’d always wanted to investigate a crime, she’d never imagined she’d be part of something like this. But if no one would believe her—and if Sutton’s family and the police didn’t, who would?—Emma didn’t have much of a choice. It was up to her alone to figure out what exactly was going on.
But she wasn’t actually alone. I considered once again why I was here with Emma, watching her every move, hovering behind her as she took over my life, hung out with my friends, and kissed my boyfriend. Old Mrs. Hunt, our spooky neighbor with too many cats, once told me that ghosts lingered in our world when they had unfinished business that prevented them from moving on to the next. Maybe that’s why I was here, too—to solve my own murder.
Chapter 11
WATCH OUT FOR DEVIL CHILD!
Ten minutes later, Emma stood in the girls’ bathroom on the first floor of Hollier High. The pink-tiled room smelled like Ajax and stale cigarettes. Thankfully, there were no feet underneath the stall doors or other girls crowded at the sink.
She stared at her tearstained face in the streaky mirror. There were circles under her eyes, worried wrinkles in her forehead, and red blotches on her cheeks and chin, which always appeared when she cried. She tried to smile, but her mouth just snapped right back into a frown. “Pull yourself together,” she scolded her reflection. “You can do this. You can be Sutton.”
She had to, at least until she figured out a way to get someone to believe her, anyway. She’d pulled it off the night before, sure, but that had been before she’d known what was going on.
Grief coursed through her again, sending a new flood of tears down her cheeks. She grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser. How many times had Sutton used this bathroom? How many times did she peer into this mirror? How would she feel about Emma taking her place?
I wasn’t sure, to be honest. How could Emma figure out who killed me . . . as me? It seemed impossible. And yet . . . Emma was the only one apart from my killer who knew I was dead. She was the only chance I had.