Never Have I Ever

Chapter 9 Daddy’s Little Girl

The ride home from the police station was filled with a stony, implacable silence. The radio remained off. Mrs. Mercer didn’t even complain about the aggressive driver who merged in front of her. She stared straight ahead like a wax figure in Madame Tussauds, not looking at the girl she thought was her daughter slumped in the seat next to her. Emma kept her eyes on her lap, picking at the skin around her thumbs until a tiny red drop of blood slipped across her skin.

Mrs. Mercer pulled the Mercedes into the driveway behind her husband’s Acura, and everyone trudged into the house like prisoners on a chain gang. Laurel leapt up from the leather couch in the living room as soon as the door swung open. “What’s going on?”

“We need a minute with Sutton. Alone.” Mrs. Mercer flung her handbag onto the coat and umbrella stand that stood guard at the front door. Drake, the family’s Great Dane, bounded up to greet Mrs. Mercer, but she swished him away. Drake was more lovable doofus than guard dog, but he never failed to put Emma on edge. She’d been afraid of dogs her whole life after a foster parent’s chow chow used her arm as a chew toy when she was nine.

“What happened?” Laurel’s eyes were wide. No one answered. Laurel tried to meet Emma’s gaze, but Emma just studied the massive spider plant in the corner.

“Sit down, Sutton.” Mr. Mercer pointed to the couch. A glass of sparkling water sat on a wood coaster on the mesquite coffee table, and an upended copy of Teen Vogue lay on the floor. “Laurel, please. Give us some privacy.”

Laurel sighed, then tromped down the hall. Emma heard the soft sucking sound of the refrigerator door opening in the kitchen. She perched on the suede wing chair and stared helplessly around the room at the southwest chic design—lots of desert-y tans and reds, a zigzag Navajo blanket thrown over the leather couch, a white fluffy shag rug that was amazingly clean, despite Drake’s big and often-muddy paws, and a wood-beamed ceiling with several slowly rotating fans. A Steinway baby grand piano stood by the window. Emma wondered if Sutton and Laurel had taken lessons on something so exquisite. She felt another twinge of envy that her identical twin had been cared for so lovingly, given everything she wanted. If fate had dealt her a different hand, if Becky had abandoned Emma as a baby instead of Sutton, maybe Emma would’ve had this life instead. She definitely would’ve appreciated it more.

I felt the same flare of annoyance I always got whenever Emma passed judgment on me. How could any of us truly appreciate our lives if we had nothing else to compare them to? It was only after we lost something, after a mother abandoned us, after we died, that we realized what we were missing. Although that raised an interesting question: If Emma had lived my life, would she have died my death, too? Would she have been the one who’d been murdered instead of me? But as I bitterly mulled this over, a sinking feeling told me that my death had somehow been my fault—something I had done, the result of a choice Emma might not have made. It had nothing to do with fate.

Mrs. Mercer paced back and forth, her high heels clicking on the stone floor. Her face was drawn and her gray streak looked more prominent than ever. “First of all, you’re going to work off this punishment, Sutton. Chores. Errands. Whatever I ask you to do, you’re going to do it.”

“Okay,” Emma said softly.

“And second of all,” Mrs. Mercer went on, “don’t think you’re leaving the house for two weeks. Unless it’s for school, tennis, or community service, if that’s what they decide to give you. Let’s hope that’s what they give you.” She paused by the piano and placed a hand to her forehead, as though the thought made her woozy. “What do you think colleges are going to say about this? Did you even think about the consequences, or did you just grab whatever it was from that store and run?”

Laurel, who’d clearly been lurking, appeared in the doorway, an unopened bag of Smartfood popcorn in her hands. “But Homecoming is next week! You have to let Sutton go. She’s on the planning committee! And then there’s the camping trip after.”

Mrs. Mercer shook her head, then turned back to Emma. “Don’t try to sneak out either. I’m having someone put outside locks on your windows. I know you’ve been sneaking out that way. Yours, too, Laurel.”

“I haven’t been sneaking out!” Laurel protested.

“I noticed footprints all around the flower beds this morning,” Mrs. Mercer snapped.

Emma pressed her lips together. The footprints outside Laurel’s room were hers. She’d fled through Laurel’s window during her birthday party, right after she’d found the unedited version of the snuff film that showed Laurel, Madeline, and Charlotte pranking Sutton. But Sutton wouldn’t have admitted to trampling the flowers, and now, neither would she. Maybe she was becoming more like her twin than she realized.

Mrs. Mercer fumbled through her bag to answer her buzzing phone. She pressed the tiny device to her ear and disappeared down the hall. Mr. Mercer checked his beeper, too, then turned wearily to Sutton. “I have a chore for you right now, actually. Get changed and meet me in the garage.”

Emma nodded obediently. Let the punishment begin.

Ten minutes later, Emma had changed into a T-shirt and a worn pair of jeans—well, as worn as a pair of Citizens of Humanity jeans could be—and was standing in the Mercers’ three-car garage. It was lined with shelves full of rakes, shovels, cans of paint, and extra bags of dog food. In the middle of the big concrete room stood an old motorcycle with the word NORTON written in script on the side. Mr. Mercer squatted by the bike’s front wheel, inspecting the tire. He wore white protection pads on his knees.

When he saw Emma, he stood up halfway and gave her a nod.

“I’m here,” Emma said, feeling a little sheepish.

Mr. Mercer stared at her for a long few beats. Emma braced for a lecture, but instead, he just looked sad.

Emma wasn’t sure what to say. Disappointment was something she was used to feeling herself, but she’d never been on the receiving end of it. She’d always tried to be whatever her foster parents required of her—a nanny, a cleaning lady, and once, even a massage therapist. Never had she intentionally made trouble.

Mr. Mercer turned back to the bike. “This place is a mess,” he finally said. “Maybe you can help me toss stuff out and put everything back where it’s supposed to be.”

“Okay.” Emma pulled a large black trash bag from a box on a nearby shelf.

She looked around the garage, surprised to see that she and Mr. Mercer might have a bit in common. On the wall was a tattered poster of a flame-burst Gibson Les Paul, one of Emma’s favorite guitars from when she’d gone through her I-want-to-be-in-a-band phase. There was also a framed reprint of Emma’s favorite incorrect newspaper headline, DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN. And to the left of the racks of car-detailing equipment and weed killer was a small shelf that held ragged, well-loved crime-fiction paperbacks, many of which Emma had devoured, too. She wondered why they weren’t on the built-in bookshelves in the main house. Was Mrs. Mercer ashamed that her husband wasn’t into literary fiction? Or was it a dad thing to keep his favorite possessions in his own space?

Emma had never met her own father. When she was in kindergarten, a bunch of kids’ dads came into class and talked about what they did for a living; there was a doctor, a guy who owned a musical instrument shop, and a chef. Emma went home that day and asked Becky what her dad did. Becky’s face drooped, and she blew cigarette smoke through her nose. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Can you tell me his name?” Emma tried, but Becky wouldn’t answer. Shortly after that conversation, Emma went through a phase pretending that various men they met on their endless travels—Becky could never hold down a job for long—might secretly be her father. Raymond, the gas station cashier who slipped Emma a few free Tootsie Rolls with her purchase. Dr. Norris, the ER doctor who stitched up her knee when she fell on the playground. Al, a neighbor in their apartment complex who waved to Emma every morning. Emma pictured one of these men scooping her up, swinging her around, and taking her to the local Dairy Queen. But it never happened.

A barrage of moments came to me: my dad and me sitting at a table at a blues club, listening to a band play. My dad and me on a mountain trail, binoculars to our faces, watching birds. Me falling off my bike and running inside, searching for my dad to comfort me. I had a feeling my dad and I had had a special bond at one point in our lives. Suddenly, in light of what Emma went through, I felt lucky to have all those memories. But now my dad didn’t even know I was gone.

Emma leaned over the motorcycle, inspecting it carefully. “Why is the shifter on the wrong side?”

Mr. Mercer blinked at her, as if Emma had suddenly started speaking Swahili. “Actually, it’s not. This is a British bike. Before 1975, the gearshift was on the right side.” He laughed uncomfortably. “I thought your interest in cars stopped with 1960s Volvos.”

“Oh, well, I just read something about it,” Emma covered. One of her foster families, the Stuckeys, had a car that constantly gave them trouble, and the responsibility had somehow fallen to Emma to figure out how to fix it. She’d befriended the mechanics at the local gas station, and they’d taught her how to change a tire, check for oil, and replace various fluids and parts. The owner of the place, Lou, had a Harley, and Emma hung around him while he fixed it up, helping out now and then. Lou took a shine to her and started to call her Little Grease Monkey. If she ever wanted an apprenticeship as a mechanic, he said, his door was wide open.

I smiled. Now there was a career path. But it impressed me how resourceful she was. It was like Ethan said the other night: Nothing seemed to overwhelm her.

“Thayer had a Honda bike, right?” Mr. Mercer said. “You didn’t ride on it with him, did you?”

Emma shrugged, her skin prickling at Thayer’s name. Emma had found out last week that Laurel and Thayer had been best friends, and that Laurel had a not-so-secret crush on him. But she’d also discovered that, at the very least, Thayer had liked Sutton.

I tried desperately to remember what Thayer meant to me. I kept seeing flashes of the two of us standing in the school courtyard, Thayer grabbing my hands and saying something in an apologetic voice, me wrenching my hands away and spitting something back at him, my words flinty and abrasive. But then the memory dissolved.

Mr. Mercer sank down on an overturned milk crate. “Sutton . . . why did you steal today?”

Emma ran her fingers over the shifter. Because I’m trying to solve your daughter’s murder. But all she said was “I’m really sorry.”

“Was it because of . . . everything at home?” Mr. Mercer asked gruffly.

Emma blinked, turning to face Mr. Mercer. “Meaning . . . ?” Suddenly, a new list began to form in her mind: Things That Are Awkward About a New Family You Don’t Know but Are Supposed To. Heart-to-heart conversations with a dad she’d only met two weeks ago would be first on the list.

Mr. Mercer’s face folded into an exasperated, please-don’t-make-me-explain expression. “I know it’s a lot to take in. I know you’ve gone through a lot of . . . changes.”

More than you know, Emma thought wryly.

Mr. Mercer gave Emma a meaningful look. “I want to know what you’re feeling. I want you to know you can talk to me. About anything.”

The AC unit shuddered off and an earsplitting silence settled over the garage. Emma tried to keep her composure. She had no idea how to answer his question, and for a moment, she considered telling him the bald truth. But then she remembered Sutton’s killer’s threat: If you tell anyone, if you say anything, you’re next.

“Okay . . . thanks,” Emma said awkwardly.

Mr. Mercer fiddled with the wrench. “And are you sure you didn’t steal because, well, you wanted to get caught?”

I studied my dad’s clear blue eyes and a sudden flash came to me of voices and accusations flying through the air. I saw myself sprinting down a desert trail, heard my father’s angry voice calling out for me, and felt tears running down my face.

When Emma didn’t respond, Mr. Mercer broke his stare, shook his head, and threw a balled-up yellow rag on the grease-stained floor. “Never mind,” he mumbled, now seeming annoyed. “Just throw the trash bag in the bin when you’re done, okay?”

He closed the door with a muffled thud. Behind it was a cork bulletin board that contained a calendar several years out of date, a business card for a local HVAC service, and a snapshot of Laurel and Sutton standing in the middle of the backyard, smiling into the camera. Emma stared at the photo long and hard. She wished the photo could talk back, wished Sutton could tell her something, anything, about who’d she’d been, what kinds of secrets she’d kept, and what had really happened to her.

A snicker sounded behind her. Then a warm tickle, like someone’s breath on the back of her neck. Emma swung around, her heart in her throat, but found herself staring into the empty garage. Then, out the narrow square windows, she caught sight of an SUV slowly passing by the Mercers’ house. She ran to the windows and looked out, recognizing the white Lincoln SUV immediately. And this time she also recognized the two faces behind the windshield.

It was the Twitter Twins.