The Lying Game Complete Collection - Sara Shepard Page 0,18

wishing she could tell her what was going on. “I knew it was them the whole time,” she said instead.

“Okay.” Charlotte turned up the radio. “See you tomorrow then, drunky. Remember to take lots of vitamins before you pass out. And, hey, sleepover at my house on Friday? I promise it’ll be good. My dad’s still out of town, and my mom won’t bother us.”

Emma frowned. “Your dad’s out of town?” The man she’d seen at Sabino Canyon popped into her head.

A worried look crossed Charlotte’s face, the first crack in her armor Emma had seen all night. “He’s been in Tokyo for the past month. Why?”

Emma ran her hand along the back of her neck. “No reason.” The guy on the trail must have been someone else.

She slammed the car door and walked up the driveway. The air smelled citrusy from the orange and lemon trees in the front yard. A silver windsock flapped on the eaves of the front porch. The swirling patterns in the stucco reminded Emma of icing on a cake. She peeked through the foyer window and saw a crystal chandelier and a grand piano. Small reflective stickers on an upstairs bedroom window said, CHILD INSIDE. IN CASE OF FIRE, PLEASE RESCUE FIRST. No foster family had ever bothered to put those stickers on Emma’s windows.

She wished she could take a photo, but then she heard an engine rev behind her. Emma turned and saw Charlotte watching her from the curb, one eyebrow raised. Just leave, Emma silently willed. I’m fine.

The Jeep didn’t budge. Emma scanned the sidewalk, crouched down, and overturned a large rock near to the porch. To her astonishment, a silver key glimmered underneath. She almost burst out laughing. Hiding keys under rocks was something she’d seen on TV; she didn’t think people actually did it.

Emma climbed the porch stairs and stuck the key into the lock. It turned easily. She stepped across the threshold and gave Charlotte another wave. Satisfied, Charlotte pulled away from the curb. The engine snarled, and the red taillights vanished into the night. And then Emma took a deep breath and pushed open the door to the house.

My house, not that I could recall much of it. The creak of the porch swing I used to sit on and read magazines. The smell of the lavender room spray my mom drenched the place with. I could distinctly remember the sound of our doorbell, two high-pitched, tweet-like dings, and that the front door would sometimes stick a bit before opening. But other than that . . .

The foyer was cool and silent. Long shadows dripped down the wall, and the tall wooden grandfather clock ticked in the corner. The floorboards creaked beneath Emma’s feet as she took a tentative step onto the striped carpet runner that led straight to the staircase. She reached out to flip on a nearby light switch, then hesitated and pulled back. She kept expecting alarms to sound, a cage to drop over her head, and people to jump out and shout, “Intruder!”

Grasping the banister, Emma tiptoed up the stairs in the darkness. Maybe Sutton was upstairs. Maybe she just fell asleep, and this was all a big misunderstanding. This night could be salvaged. She could still have the fairy-tale reunion she’d imagined.

A brown wicker hamper stuffed with dirty towels sat just outside a white-tiled bathroom at the top of the landing. Two night-lights glowed near the baseboard, casting yellowish columns of light up the wall. Dog tags jingled from behind a closed door at the end of the hall.

Emma turned and gazed at a bedroom door. Pictures of supermodels on a Parisian catwalk and James Blake and Andy Roddick playing at Wimbledon hung at eye level, and a pink-glitter placard that said SUTTON swung from the knob. Bingo. Emma pushed gently at the door. It gave way easily and soundlessly.

The room was fragrant with notes of mint, lily of the valley, and fabric softener. Moonlight streamed through the window and spilled across a perfectly made four-poster bed. A giraffe-print rug sat to its left, and an egg chair in the corner was strewn with T-shirts, bikini tops, and a few balled-up pairs of sports socks. On the windowsills were candles in big glass jars, blue, green, and brown wine bottles with flowers protruding from their mouths, and a bunch of empty Valrhona French chocolate wrappers. Every available surface was covered with pillows—there were at least ten on the bed, three on the chair,