The Lying Game Complete Collection - Sara Shepard Page 0,134

stood up halfway, his arm muscles taut as he held his body inches above the chair. “Is the message still there?”

“No. Someone erased it.”

He sank onto the chair again. “There were a ton of people backstage as soon as the crash happened. Someone would’ve seen all that, don’t you think?”

“I know it doesn’t make sense. But there was someone there. Someone wrote that message.”

He gave her the same look Madeline had. “You’ve been under a lot of stress. Are you sure it wasn’t a dream?”

“It didn’t feel like a dream.” Emma pulled the nurse’s blanket tighter around her, feeling sweat from her palms melt into the rough wool. “I think it was the Twins,” she said. She hushed her voice and told Ethan about what Charlotte and Madeline had said about Sutton doing something to Gabby that landed her in the hospital. Then she told him about the pill bottle Gabby had removed from the bag. “It was something called Topamax. I’ve seen Gabby popping pills before, but I always thought it was a party thing. Do you have your phone? I need to Google it.”

“Emma,” Ethan said, urgency in his voice. “Someone just told you to stop digging.”

Emma sniffed. “I thought you didn’t believe me about the board.”

“Of course I believe you—I just hoped it wasn’t true.” Ethan’s eyes burned a dark blue under the florescent lights. “I think it’s time we put an end to this.”

Emma ran her hands down the length of her face. “If we stop, that means whoever did this to Sutton will have gotten away with murder.” Then she swung her legs over the tiny cot. Blood prickled through her body as she rose to her feet.

“What are you doing?” Ethan exclaimed, watching her make her way to the filing cabinets along the wall.

“Gabby’s medical history will be on file with the school if there’s any type of problem,” Emma whispered. She yanked open the file cabinet marked E–F and ran her fingers over the worn manila folders until she found FIORELLO, GABRIELLA.

Heels clacked along the hallway, and Emma froze, listening as they grew louder and then faded as they passed the nurses office. Emma pulled out Gabby’s folder and saw that it was crisper than the others, as if it hadn’t done the time to earn worn edges. She thumbed through the contents and let out a low whistle. “Topamax, Gabby’s medicine? It’s to treat epilepsy.”

“She has epilepsy?” Ethan narrowed his eyes. “I feel like I would’ve heard about that.”

Emma kept reading. “It says the disease was dormant until July, and that ‘an incident triggered the first seizure.’” She raised her eyes to Ethan. “The train prank was in July. What if Sutton caused her epilepsy?”

“Jesus.” Ethan’s face paled.

Emma slipped the folder back into the drawer and guided it shut with her hip. “The Twitter Twins must have been beyond furious—maybe even angry and crazed enough to plan Sutton’s murder.”

Ethan’s eyes were round. “You think the Twins . . . ?”

“I’m more sure than ever,” Emma whispered, her mind racing. “I’m positive Lili cut the light, too—she ran upstairs to grab her phone right before it fell. And you should’ve seen the way both the Twins stared at me before I passed out.” Goose bumps covered Emma’s flesh as she pictured it again. “They looked capable of anything.”

My mind flashed back to the murderous look in Lili’s eyes on the night of the train prank and the text she sent from the ambulance promising revenge if anything was wrong with Gabby. Thank God Emma had stepped aside before the light crashed on her head. She’d been inches away from joining me here in the in-between.

Outside, a flock of birds lifted off from a knot of bushes beneath the nurse’s window. Emma paced the floor. “It makes so much sense,” she whispered. “Gabby and Lili are Twitter and Facebook masters—they could’ve easily hacked on to Sutton’s page, read that first note from me, and sent one back asking me to come to Tucson and wait at Sabino Canyon. They were with Madeline the night she hijacked me at Sabino and dragged me to Nisha’s party, too. Who’s to say Gabby and Lili didn’t suggest the whole kidnapping thing?”

Ethan moved the chair back and forth, the caster wheels squeaking, not saying a word.

“And they’re such gossip hounds,” Emma went on, pausing by a big poster titled WHAT TO DO IF YOU’RE THE VICTIM OF ASSAULT. “It wouldn’t look suspicious for them to skulk around, spying,