The Lying Game Complete Collection - Sara Shepard Page 0,481

in frustration, her nails digging into her palms. Nisha had found something important—and it was still here. Emma could feel it in her gut. But where would she have hidden something that important?

The thought came to her slowly, like a lens coming gradually into focus. Emma had hidden plenty of things herself—she’d spent her childhood protecting her scant treasures from nosy foster parents and kleptomaniacal roommates. She inhaled sharply. It seemed too much of a long shot, too simple an answer. But it was worth a try. Creeping on the balls of her feet, she pushed the door to Nisha’s bathroom open. A small night-light flashed on from the outlet by the mirror. She knelt down by the cabinet and started opening drawers.

There, in the gloom beneath the sink, was an enormous, Costco-sized carton of Tampax.

She froze, almost afraid to move. Afraid her last decent hope would be quashed. Boxes of tampons had been her go-to hiding place for years. But Nisha couldn’t possibly have had the same secret spot . . . could she?

Slowly, she pulled out the box. Her heart felt still in her chest. She groped inside the carton, past the rows of individual boxes, and at the bottom her fingers closed on something that felt like a tube.

It was a plain manila folder, rolled into a tight spiral and rubber-banded several times. Emma’s head spun as she peeled away the rubber bands and smoothed the folder flat on the ground. Paper-clipped to the outside of the folder was a piece of pink Hello Kitty notepaper. She recognized Nisha’s neat handwriting right away.

Sutton, I’m so sorry. I had a bad feeling about this after we talked, and I had to check. You need to know the truth.

Holding her breath, she flipped the folder open.

On the top page, the words UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA MEDICAL CENTER RECORDS were typed in a large bold font. Under “department” someone had scrawled the word psychiatric in black pen.

When I saw the name written on the form next to PATIENT, it didn’t register at first. The letters were like hieroglyphics, strange and illegible. But then the world snapped into a painful, horrifying clarity.

The name sparked something in my memory, and with a deafening roar began pulling me back to that night in the canyon. And I knew with sickening certainty that finally, finally, I was going to relive the last moments of my life.

29

THE LAST MEMORY

I can’t breathe. The shirt collar digs into my throat, crushing my windpipe. I kick my legs furiously, but already I’m seeing spots, and Garrett is much too strong for me. Far below my feet the wind rushes through the ravine with a lost, lonely howl. Garrett’s face is inches from mine, twisted into a mask of fury that’s almost unrecognizable in the moonlight. I dimly register that my shirt is tearing as he shakes me back and forth. I’m going to die here, in this canyon where I used to go camping with my dad, where Thayer and I stole some of our first kisses, where Laurel and I used to tell ghost stories.

Finally Garrett lets go, and a scream erupts from the depths of my ragged lungs, echoing off the walls of the canyon.

But I don’t fall far.

I land in a heap on the ground, crumpled at Garrett’s feet. Inches behind me I can feel the ravine yawning wide. My heart roars in my ears, adrenaline singing in my blood. I’m alive. My fingers curl through the dirt, raw and stinging. My face feels wet, and I realize that I’m crying.

Garrett looms over me, shuddering violently as if the force of his rage might literally tear him apart. Then he turns his face to me, and it’s as red and tear-streaked as my own. He’s crying, too.

I stare up at him, suddenly unable to move, my heart aching. We stay like this for a few minutes: me sitting motionless on the brink of the cliff, Garrett standing there, bruised and broken by his own anger. And in spite of everything that’s happened, I feel sorry for him.

At last he sits in the dirt next to me, his cheeks slick with tears. “I’m sorry.” He reaches out to touch me, but I flinch. He pulls his hand away, looking as wounded as if I’d slapped him.

I wipe at my eyes. The wind makes my tear-streaked cheeks feel raw.

“Were you going to throw me over the edge?” I ask, my voice small in my ears. Garrett gapes at