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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-0-06-186976-1 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-219369-8 (int. ed.)
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FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN: 9780062084156
EPIGRAPH
Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.
—ARTHUR MILLER
CONTENTS
Epigraph
Prologue: A Familiar Face
1 Drive-By Mom
2 The Good, the Bad, and the Sexy
3 The Face That Launched a Thousand Fists
4 Karma’s a Bitch, and So Am I
5 Daddy-Daughter Dine-and-Dash
6 The Fourth Floor
7 Strangers in the Night
8 Who Are You?
9 White Lies and Alibis
10 Tea for Two
11 A Picnic Under the Stars
12 Monsters in the Attic
13 Never Underestimate the Power of a Little Retail Therapy
14 The School of Bitchcraft
15 Hopes and Schemes
16 Every Day Should Be Senior Skip Day
17 Researching and Reminiscing
18 Mom, Interrupted
19 Mommie Dearest
20 The Escape
21 Calm in the Storm
22 In Hot Water
23 Help from an Unexpected Source
24 Meet Me at the Plaza
25 File M for Murder
26 You Better Get This Party Started
27 A Voice in the Dark
28 Scenic Overlook Ahead
29 Arts and Crafts Time
30 Things That Go Bump in the Night
31 Origin Story
32 Hello, and Good-Bye
33 The Most Important Meal of the Day
34 Kiss the Girl
35 Call Me Maybe
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Credits
Copyright
PROLOGUE
A FAMILIAR FACE
I watched the two teenagers sitting together outside the Coffee Cat Café on a sunny Saturday morning. They leaned toward each other, their voices low and almost intimate, their bodies close but not touching. Most people probably thought they were a couple—a really attractive couple. The boy had high cheekbones and a lean, athletic build. His blue-and-green striped polo shirt brought out the green flecks in his hazel eyes. He was movie-star hot. But maybe I was just biased: Thayer Vega was my boyfriend, after all.
Or at least he was before I died.
The girl next to him looked exactly like I did, back when I had a body. Her bright blue eyes were lined with my velvety chocolate liner, and her light brown hair spilled down her back in thick waves just like mine used to. She was wearing a gray cashmere sweater and dark-wash skinny jeans from my closet. She answered to my name, and when a tear streaked down her cheek, my boyfriend leaned over to hug her. Instantly, I felt the ghost of my heart constrict.
I should have been used to this by now: living a bodiless existence as a dead girl, floating around like a plastic bag behind my long-lost twin, Emma, watching her inhabit my life, sleep in my bedroom, and talk to the boyfriend I’d never get to kiss again. The night Emma and I were supposed to meet for the first time, I never showed up—because I’d been murdered. My killer threatened Emma into taking my place, or else. She’d been living my life for months now, trying to solve the mystery of my death. But knowing all of that didn’t make it any easier to watch moments like the one I was seeing now.
When Thayer had first returned to Tucson from rehab a few weeks ago, Emma had thought he might be my killer. But even though he was with me that night in Sabino Canyon, her investigation proved—to my great relief—that he definitely hadn’t killed me. She had cleared my adoptive parents, too, even though they had been hiding a huge secret from me—that they were actually my grandparents. Our birth mother, Becky, was their troubled daughter. She had us when she was a teenager, leaving me with her parents and taking Emma with her when she left town, only to abandon her in foster care five years later.
I watched Thayer and Emma talk until a car backfired loudly. Emma’s head snapped up, her gaze locking on a brown Buick idling in the parking lot in front of the café. The woman at the wheel had a wrecked look to her, her hair a wild black tangle, her cheeks sunken and pale. And yet I could sense that she’d once been pretty.
When I looked back at Emma, her hands were trembling. Her coffee cup tumbled to the patio tile, and the lid flew off, spilling lukewarm