The Lying Game Complete Collection - Sara Shepard Page 0,245

seen who it was.

It was up to my twin to catch my killer, and there was nothing I could do to help. It wasn’t like I could communicate with her. Emma had cleared my best friends, Charlotte Chamberlain, Madeline Vega, and Gabby and Lili Fiorello, as murder suspects—they each had alibis for the night of my death. But the alibi she’d been counting on to clear my adoptive little sister, Laurel, suddenly wasn’t so airtight.

Now I watched as my family sat on chaise lounges at the local country club, shading their eyes from the brutal Tucson sun. Emma settled into a seat next to Laurel and buried her nose in a magazine, but I could tell she was studying my sister as closely as I was.

Laurel pored over a leather-bound beverage menu through the shade of thick black Gucci sunglasses, then casually rubbed a dollop of tanning oil on her shoulders as though she didn’t have a care in the world. Fury streaked through me. I’ll never feel the sun on my skin again and it might be because of her. She had a motive, after all. We shared a secret crush—and I was the one who got Thayer in the end.

My mother pulled her BlackBerry from her straw Kate Spade beach tote. “You won’t believe the way the RSVPs are pouring in for Saturday, Ted,” she murmured, staring at the screen. “It looks like you’ll be turning fifty-five with a bang.”

“Mm-hmm,” my dad said absently. It was unclear whether he really heard her. He was too busy looking across the pool at a tall, muscular boy running a hand through his dark hair.

Speak of the devil. Thayer Vega himself.

My heart thumped as Emma glanced in Thayer’s direction. Laurel’s gaze turned, too. No matter how cool my younger sister tried to play it, she couldn’t hide the flash of hope that passed over her face. Not on your life, I thought angrily. I may be dead, but Thayer belongs to me—and only me. We’d had a secret relationship when I was alive, something that I’d only fully remembered a few days before. For a time, it had seemed like Thayer could have been my killer—we’d had a secret rendezvous the night I died. But thankfully, Emma had cleared him—someone had hit him with my Volvo, maybe aiming for me. Laurel had whisked Thayer off to the hospital, where he’d remained all night. I was relieved he wasn’t the one who did it…until I realized that maybe the person who did was sitting next to Emma right now. Just because Laurel took Thayer to the hospital didn’t mean she stayed with him. She could have come back to give me a piece of her mind…or to finish me off forever.

We all watched as Thayer climbed the metal steps of the diving board. He stalked to the end of the board, limping slightly, and tested the spring with a few bounces. His stomach muscles rippled as he gathered momentum. He raised his tanned arms above his head and dived into the water, cutting the still surface with his perfect form. He stayed under for the length of the pool, little bubbles rising to the surface in his wake. I could almost feel the butterflies fluttering in my no-longer-there stomach as I watched him move beneath the water. Something about Thayer Vega still made me feel so alive and it took me a moment to realize that I wasn’t.

Laurel’s lips flattened into a grim line when Thayer surfaced and grinned at Emma, and I realized something else. If Emma’s not careful, she’ll end up just like me.

1

DON’T FEED THE EARTHLINGS

Emma Paxton leaned in close to the Saturn-shaped mirror in the Tucson Planetarium and pursed her lips as she reapplied a coat of cherry-flavored gloss. The entire dimly lit bathroom was astronomy-themed. The bathroom stalls were decorated with glow-in-the-dark star stickers, and the trash cans were in the shapes of rocket ships. A sign above the sink read WELCOME, EARTHLINGS. Two bobble-headed aliens stood on the G, their stubby fingers lifted in a wave.

Taking a deep breath, Emma stared at herself in the mirror. “This is your first official date with Ethan,” she said to her reflection. She drew the last word out, savoring it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this excited about a guy—she’d dated guys before, but she moved around from foster home to foster home too often to ever really fall for someone. But lately, everything in her