The already hot upholstery in Laurel’s car burned Emma’s shoulders and the backs of her legs as she climbed in and hung up the phone. Her fingers shook as she pushed the key into the ignition. A motor growled, and she looked up. A bus chugged under the porte cochere, a big sign that said LAS VEGAS on the windshield. People threw their luggage in the lower compartment and climbed aboard.
Then a small clicking sound made her stiffen and turn. The backs of her ears burned. It felt like someone was staring at her. She looked around. The old men on the bench had vanished. On the street, traffic had come to a standstill. A neon green Prius that said DISCOUNT CAB honked. A red hatchback with a big dent in the fender idled behind it, and a black pickup revved its engine impatiently behind that. In front of them all, a silver Mercedes crept slowly past the bus station. Emma stared hard at its gleaming hood ornament. Through the tinted windows, Emma could just make out that the driver was looking at something in the bus station parking lot. Her.
I squinted hard to see who it was, but I couldn’t make out a face.
The green cab honked once more, and the Mercedes driver faced forward again and rolled through the light. Emma watched the car until it vanished over the hill. Only after it had disappeared from view could she exhale. But her jittery paranoia was for good reason.
After all, whoever killed me was watching her every move.
Chapter 17
NEVER HAVE I EVER
Later that evening, Laurel drove one-handed while twisting her long blond hair into a messy bun at the nape of her neck. She steered the car up a steep, undulating road toward Charlotte’s house, a hidden estate tucked away on a high road halfway up the mountain, nestled into the desert rock.
Emma took it all in as Laurel pressed the intercom button outside the gates of Charlotte’s house and waited. A voice buzzed through the speaker a few seconds later. “It’s Laurel and Sutton!” Laurel called into the microphone. A latch clicked, and the gate slowly swung open.
A slate-paved path unfurled before them. A lush green lawn surrounded them on either side, complete with saguaro cacti, flowering trumpet bushes, and creosote plants. In the middle of the circular driveway was a stone fountain filled with naked stone cherubs. Beyond that stood the house itself, a massive adobe mansion of floor-to-ceiling windows and skylights. A brass bell hung from a tower over the massive front door. Several horses grazed behind a split-rail fence to the left, and a shiny silver Porsche waited outside a five-car garage.
Laurel glanced at Emma as she shifted into PARK at the end of the long circular drive. “Thanks, for, like, not being weird about me coming tonight.”
Emma brushed her hair out of her face. “It’s cool.”
Laurel leaned on the steering wheel. Dark lashes framed her eyes. “You’ve been a little . . . different this week. Are you on a new diet or something?”
“I’m not different,” Emma said quickly.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing.” Laurel pulled the keys out of the ignition. “Except for your crazy-ass car theft. And how you took off in the parking lot the first morning of school.” She shot Emma a crooked smile. “And, okay, one or two other things, too.”
“I like to keep everyone guessing,” Emma mumbled, ducking her head. While she didn’t want Laurel to give her the third-degree about her odd behavior, it was kind of nice that Laurel had noticed that her sister wasn’t exactly acting like herself.
The girls walked up a shiny path that led to the front door and rang the bell. Two deep strikes of a gong sounded, and a woman with a bright smile greeted them. She wore gray ultra-skinny jeans that left nothing to the imagination, a long striped shirt Emma had seen in the window of Urban Outfitters, and silver heels with cutouts at the toes. A pair of white Ray-Ban Wayfarers perched on her head and diamonds the size of chickpeas glittered in her ears. She had golden, lineless skin, rich blond hair, and bright eyes the color of the Caribbean. Emma looked at Laurel, wondering who this person was. An older sister home from college?
“Hi, Sutton,” the girl said. “Hey, Laurel.” She nodded appreciatively at Laurel’s striped Madewell duffel. “Love the bag.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Chamberlain,” Laurel chirped.
Emma almost swallowed her gum. Mrs. Chamberlain?
I was pretty astonished, too. I couldn’t remember her at all.
“Guys!” Charlotte called from the top of the stairs. Laurel and Emma gave Mrs. Chamberlain parting smiles—she had an expectant look on her face, almost like she wanted to be invited up to hang out with them—and climbed the winding double-staircase lined with splashy, Jackson Pollock–style paintings.
Charlotte pushed through two double doors to a bedroom twice the size of Sutton’s—and a gazillion times the size of anything Emma had ever lived in. Madeline and the Twitter Twins already sat on a striped rug in the center of the room, munching from a bowl of pretzels and sipping Coke Zeroes.
“We were just telling Lili and Gabby about the Nisha prank.” Madeline pulled up her off-the-shoulder blouse so that it wasn’t showing half her bra.
“Not that we hadn’t already heard, of course,” Lili piped up, flicking a piece of lint off one of her Avril Lavigne–like fingerless gloves.
“Maybe one of these days you’ll let us help you with one of your pranks,” Gabby added, readjusting the grosgrain-lined headband that held back her long blond hair. “We have tons of killer ideas.”
Charlotte sat down and grabbed a handful of pretzels. “Sorry. The Lying Game is limited to only four members. Isn’t that right, Sutton?” Again she looked to Emma, as though Emma made the final decisions.