do whatever it took to prove they’d hurt her sister. She just had to get close enough to find out more.
She swiveled to the computer, clicked the mouse on Sutton’s Facebook status update window, and began to type: Game on, bitches.
Three responses to the status pinged onto the screen almost immediately. The first comment was from Charlotte: A game? Do tell. I’m in! Then Madeline: Me too! And Laurel added: Me three! It’s a secret, right?
Kind of, Emma typed in answer. Except now the prank was on them. And this time it was a matter of life and death.
Chapter 21
UNREQUITED SPYING
“So where do you want to go for dinner?” Garrett asked Emma, guiding his Jeep Wrangler down a hill.
“Um, I don’t know.” Emma bit her pinkie. “Why don’t you pick somewhere?”
Garrett looked shocked. “Me?”
“Why not?”
A glassy, indecisive look swept across Garrett’s face. He reminded Emma of the malfunctioning Tickle Me Elmo doll she had inherited from an older girl her first year in foster care; sometimes the Elmo stared into space and didn’t know what to do next. “But we always go somewhere you like,” Garrett said.
Emma pressed her nails into her palm. If only she could just tell him she couldn’t pick a damn restaurant because she didn’t know any around here. Then she spotted a Trader Joe’s out the Jeep window. “Why don’t we buy some cheese and stuff and have a picnic on the mountain?”
“Great.” Garrett swerved across three lanes of traffic to get to the grocery store parking lot.
It was Saturday night just past 7 P.M., and the sun hung on the horizon. Garrett had shown up at the Mercers’ door a half hour earlier with a bouquet of flowers in his hands and a bouquet of different fragrances on his body—colognes, body sprays, hair gel, the works. There was such a hopeful, eager expression on his face that Emma couldn’t bring herself to call off the date, even though every cell in her body was dying to. She didn’t want to deal with Garrett right now; she wanted to be searching for Sutton’s killer.
After standing in line behind an old lady who insisted on paying with a check, Emma and Garrett finally arrived at Catalina State Park, a shopping bag full of sparkling cider, black olives, crackers, grapes, trail mix, fancy Australian licorice, and a wedge of Brie swinging from the crook of Garrett’s elbow. The air was cool and crisp and smelled like sunscreen. Other hikers bounded up the path. After another few twists and switchbacks, they reached the vista and settled on a big boulder. Emma could see all the way down the mountain. Garrett’s car looked like a toy from up here.
“It’s so nice out tonight,” Garrett murmured, running his hand through his blond hair. He removed his long-sleeved shirt and spread it on the ground as a picnic blanket. His tanned biceps bulged. He twisted the cider bottle open with a satisfying psst.
“Uh-huh,” Emma replied. She stared blankly ahead. There were tumbleweeds in her mind where conversation topics should have been. What did Garrett and Sutton used to talk about? Did they have inside jokes? What brought them together? If only Sutton’s journal had been normal, Emma might’ve actually learned something useful like this.
Sighing, she pulled the crackers, olives, trail mix, and licorice out of the bag. She absentmindedly placed a cracker on the napkin and added two olives for eyes, a trail-mix peanut for a nose, and a piece of licorice for a smile. Thinking of Ethan, she poked Garrett. “Like my new friend?”
Garrett glanced at it for a moment and nodded. “Cute.”
“You want to make a face, too?”
Garrett shrugged. “I can hardly draw a circle in art class.”
Emma popped one of the olive eyes into her mouth. So much for common ground.
But I was kind of glad she didn’t like Garrett. I couldn’t remember exactly why I loved him. I couldn’t recall what it was that made me think of him as damaged, I just knew that I did. And even in death, I wanted him all to myself.
Emma sat back and stared at the horizon, absently touching the scratches on her throat from last night. Tiny red marks lacerated her skin. Her windpipe still ached from the pull of the necklace. She’d taken a bunch of Advils and covered up the scrapes with the Dior foundation she’d found in Sutton’s bathroom, hoping Garrett wouldn’t notice anything amiss. She could still feel the assailant’s hot, stale breath on her