too. You’re a Teufel Kind. Devil Child. But not in my class, ja?” She spit as she spoke.
The whole class swiveled from Emma to Frau Fenstermacher to Emma again, as if they were watching a Ping-Pong match. Emma licked her dry lips. “Ja,” she said. Her voice cracked.
Everyone laughed again. “I heard she almost got arrested twice this summer,” a girl in a long sweater vest and skinny jeans whispered to a wavy-haired girl across the aisle. “And I heard her car was impounded, too. She had so many traffic violations that they finally towed the thing away.”
“The cops brought her to school this morning,” the wavy-haired friend whispered back.
Sweater Vest shrugged. “Not surprised.”
Emma sank down in her chair, thinking about the file at the police station with Sutton’s name on it. What kind of crazy girl was she? She reached into the pocket and touched the edge of the note, desperately wanting someone to see it, to believe it. But then she loosened her grip, pulled out Sutton’s iPad, and placed it on the desk. Now if only she could figure out how to turn it on.
Six more classes of circumspect teachers. Eight wrong turns. A lunch period with Madeline and Charlotte congratulating Emma on showing up to school in a police car—apparently, to them, it was a good thing. Finally, at the end of the day, Emma opened Sutton’s locker. She’d broken down and looked through Sutton’s wallet for money before lunch, realizing there was no way she could get through the day without eating something. Besides cash, Sutton’s America’s Next Top Model–worthy driver’s license, an Amex Blue, and a wallet-sized Virgo horoscope for the month of August, Emma had found a tiny slip of paper that listed Sutton’s locker number and combination. It was as though Sutton had put it there on purpose, hoping Emma would find it.
If only I’d put it there on purpose. If only I’d left Emma tons of clues about who’d done this to me—put a big bull’s-eye on the killer’s head, maybe. I admired her for carefully examining each scrap of paper in my wallet as though it held a vital clue, though. She’d compiled a list of kids in my classes, too, writing things like Sienna, two desks up, history: smiled, seemed friendly, referenced “the egg-baby incident” and Geoff, catty-corner, trig: kept shooting me weird looks, made a joke(?) that I looked “different” today. Would I have known to sleuth like this, had our roles been reversed? Would I have dove in to avenge a sister I didn’t even know? There was something else I noticed about Emma, too: how she walked down the halls with her lips clamped together, like she was holding her breath. How she popped into the girls’ room to stare at herself in the mirror, as if to work up the courage all over again. We were both keeping secrets. We were both so alone.
Emma opened the locker. It was empty, save for a moldy-looking notebook at the bottom and a couple of pictures of Sutton, Madeline, and Charlotte taped up on the inside door. Just as Emma was about to gather the books she’d received today and somehow wedge them into Sutton’s leather purse—what kind of moron didn’t carry a real backpack to school?—she felt a hand on her arm.
“Are you thinking about ditching tennis?”
Emma turned. Charlotte stood in front of a WHY DRUGS AREN’T COOL poster. She’d pulled her red hair into a high ponytail, and she’d changed into a white T-shirt, black Champion shorts, and a pair of gray Nike sneakers. A tennis bag similar to the one Sutton’s mom had packed for Emma this morning swung from her shoulder.
Tennis. Right. “I was thinking about it,” Emma mumbled.
“No, you’re not.” Charlotte looped her arm through Emma’s elbow and pulled her down the hall. “C’mon. Laurel put your gear in the team locker room after you attempted your jailbreak this morning. Maggie will kill us if we’re late.”
Emma gazed at Charlotte as they walked, surprised she was on the tennis team, too. Physique-wise, Charlotte looked more like a wrestler. Then Emma bit her lip guiltily. Was that mean?
Not any meaner than I was, according to the one memory that had resurfaced. And I had a feeling, somehow, that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Emma and Charlotte strode down the yearbook hallway, which was decorated with snapshots of students from previous years. Emma spotted a photo of Sutton laughing with her friends in what