The Lying Game Complete Collection - Sara Shepard Page 0,112

upset because you and Char seem to be really close lately,” she said in a pinched voice, trying to sound petulant and jealous. “Am I being replaced as your BFF?” She eyed Madeline’s tall ballet-dancer frame, clad in skinny cargo pants and a gray dolman-sleeve sweater, hoping she’d take the bait.

Madeline’s finely drawn features tightened. “Char and I have always been friends.”

“Yeah, but something has changed between you two,” Emma goaded. “You seem tight now. Does this have to do with the night before Nisha’s party? I know you were together, Mads.”

Madeline stopped short in the hall, letting students stream around them. A vein at her temple pulsed. “Would you lay off about that night?”

Emma blinked. A fire raging in her belly fueled her forward. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

“But . . .”

“Just leave it, Sutton!” Madeline turned and blindly pushed through the nearest door, which led to the school library.

Emma shoved her shoulder against the library door and followed Madeline inside. Kids hunched over homework at long, wide desks. Computer screens glowed behind a wall of glass. The big room smelled like old books and the disinfectant spray-cleaner Travis used to huff.

Madeline disappeared down one of the back aisles.

“Mads!” Emma called, sweeping past a low shelf of atlases and encyclopedias. “Mads, come on!”

The librarian put her finger to her lips. “Quiet!” she ordered from behind the checkout desk.

Emma hurried past posters of the Twilight and Harry Potter series, which gave her a tiny twinge of longing. Becky used to read Harry Potter to her, making up the voices for each of the characters and wearing a dingy black velvet cape she’d picked up at a garage sale after Halloween. Emma had loved being read to; she didn’t care that the cape kind of smelled like mildew.

Emma turned down the aisle Madeline had veered into. Madeline had stopped at the very end of the row, next to a bunch of copies of The Riverside Shakespeare. Her long, dark hair cascaded down her back, her posture ramrod-straight.

All of a sudden I had a sharp, distinct memory of Madeline standing in that same taut but wounded pose. We were in her bedroom, and there was a commotion coming from down the hall, muffled voices gaining in volume. I’d heard tiny gasps, as though she was trying to stifle tears.

“Mads?” Emma whispered. Madeline didn’t answer. “Come on, Mads. Whatever I said, I’m sorry.”

Madeline whipped around and stared at Emma with red-rimmed eyes. “Look, I called you first, okay?” Her voice caught, and she pressed her lips together. “You didn’t answer. I guess you had more important things to do.”

She sniffed and took a choked breath. “The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know. I always jump when you tell me to jump, but it would be nice if you reciprocated sometimes. I called Charlotte next, and she stayed with me all night. So yeah, of course we’ve been tight lately. Satisfied?”

Steeling her jaw, Madeline swept past Emma as though she were a faceless student clogging up the library aisles.

“Mads!” Emma protested. But Madeline didn’t stop. She stormed through the doors and out into the hall.

Everyone in the library turned and stared at Emma. She ducked back into an aisle and leaned against a stack of books. Madeline was hiding something big, but it wasn’t what Emma thought. There was no faking the reaction Madeline just had. Whatever she’d dealt with the night Sutton went missing was her own issue, something completely divorced from what had happened to Sutton. Madeline was busy that night. Innocent. And now, because they were together, Charlotte likely was, too.

Relief washed over me, hard and fast. I wanted to cheer aloud. My two best friends were actually my best friends—not my murderers.

A series of shrill beeps sounded as the librarian scanned books for a scrawny red head. Emma turned to leave, but her knee caught the corner of a copy of The Riverside Shakespeare and knocked it to the floor. The book splayed open, its paper-thin pages full of highlights and notes from kids who didn’t seem to care that it was a library book. A line from Hamlet caught Emma’s eye, sending a chill up her spine.

One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.

It made me shiver, too. Charlotte and Mads were in the clear, but my killer was still out there—smiling, watching, lurking, waiting.

Chapter 13

Never Underestimate the Power of Snooping

“She’ll be good, Mom,” Laurel begged. “I promise. Please let her go?”

It was