The Lying Game Complete Collection - Sara Shepard Page 0,376

A girl riding a bike with yellow streamers swerved to avoid Emma, but Emma barely even flinched.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, still turning frantically around, trying to see where Becky had gone.

There. She was walking toward the farthest row of booths. Her sneakers were held together with duct tape and didn’t match. Her hair was in pigtail braids, just how she used to do Emma’s hair before school every morning. Emma felt a pang in her chest. Becky looked so helpless—and innocent. Could she really be capable of murder?

Emma pushed through a group of college girls in front of a vegan candy booth, almost stepping into the open guitar case of a stubble-chinned street performer. “Mom!” she yelled. Several women looked her way but then turned back when they realized it wasn’t their daughter yelling. “Becky!”

Emma knew this was her last chance. She broke free from the crowd, running past an upscale pizza restaurant and a gallery that sold Hopi artwork, almost colliding with Becky from behind. She grabbed her mom’s arm and yanked her back.

“What are you …” The question died on her lips. The woman Emma had stopped was only a few years older than herself. She had a safety pin through her nose and deep purple shadow on her eyelids. Her T-shirt advertised a band called the Pukes, and up close Emma could see tattoos through the cigarette burns in the fabric.

She let go of the stranger’s arm.

“I’m so sorry. I thought you were someone else,” Emma muttered.

“Clearly,” the woman said, her voice ragged with hostility. “Keep your hands to yourself.”

Emma turned dazedly away in time to see Laurel running to meet her. The punk girl swore under her breath and stalked away.

“Who was that?” Laurel asked when she’d caught her breath.

“It was … I thought it was Rose McGowan.” Emma stood numbly in place. “I wanted to get her autograph.”

Laurel gaped at her in disbelief. “Why would Rose McGowan be wandering around the Tucson farmers’ market in November?”

“Well, obviously, she wasn’t,” snapped Emma. Her throat ached and she felt as if she was choking—it took her a minute to realize she was fighting back a sob. She took her purse back from Laurel. “Come on, we’d better get back.”

She turned on her heel and strode back to the plaza without another word. Laurel chased after her.

“I think you’re cracking up,” Laurel muttered.

Emma was starting to agree with her. She put her hand in her purse and felt the outline of the hospital key card. Nightmare or no, she had to act. If she sat around waiting any longer to see what Becky might do, she’d end up going crazy herself.

She had to keep it together. Her life depended on it—and any hope I had for justice depended on it, too.

25

FILE M FOR MURDER

Emma stepped off the elevator into the psych wing that afternoon for the third time. This time, though, she had a plan. She’d stopped on the basement level first, using Nisha’s passkey to get into the laundry so she could borrow a volunteer’s uniform. The only one she could find was a size too small, so it looked more like a naughty nurse costume, the red-and-white fabric clinging to her curves. She’d tied her hair back in a tight bun and wiped away all her makeup in the hope that the nurses wouldn’t recognize her as the girl who’d caused so much trouble earlier that week. Last but not least, she put on a pair of black-framed reading glasses she’d found on Mr. Mercer’s bedside table. If it worked for Clark Kent, it’d work for her.

None of the nurses reacted as she passed the station, barely even glancing up from their filing and typing. The ward was as quiet as ever, a silence heavy with drugged sleep and barely suppressed panic. Emma heard a voice in one of the bedrooms chanting a children’s rhyme. “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes …” The person trailed off into garbled laughter, or maybe it was sobs. Emma couldn’t tell. She forced herself not to walk too quickly away from the sound. She was supposed to look like she belonged here.

The now familiar pulse of the ward’s emotions thudded dully around me. It felt like quicksand, pulling me down. I hovered close to my sister, clinging to her thoughts and feelings, trying to stay afloat.

As she passed the common room, she saw the same blank faces angled toward the television set, the same dark-haired woman