Seven Minutes in Heaven

8 THE GAME’S AFOOT

Emma’s lungs seized as if she’d had the wind knocked out of her, the breath frozen painfully in her chest. “My . . . my sister?”

Across the table, Mrs. Mercer stifled a sob, and Laurel put a comforting arm around her shoulders. Emma turned to look at Mr. Mercer, noticing for the first time the mud on the elbows of his lab coat, the twig snagged in his shoelaces.

“I’m sorry, Sutton,” he murmured. “Yes. It was Emma. I identified the body.”

The body. Someone had finally found my body. After so long, it almost didn’t feel real.

Emma’s breath kept catching in her throat so that she felt just a step away from hyperventilating. The world slid in and out of focus around her. Of course, she’d known all along that Sutton was dead . . . but somehow, hearing this made it feel more real.

“That is,” Mr. Mercer went on, his eyes haunted, “there wasn’t much to identify. Her body wasn’t . . . wasn’t in good shape. But they found her driver’s license in her bag.” His voice cracked. “The picture. God, Sutton, I just—it looked just like you.”

Emma’s gut wrenched violently. Her driver’s license? As in Emma’s driver’s license? Her wallet, along with her duffel bag, had been stolen on her first night in Tucson. If the police had found it with the body, that meant two things: one, that the murderer had been the one to steal her things—which she’d suspected but hadn’t been able to verify.

And two, the killer had gone back to the scene of the crime to plant evidence.

“Garrett had gone back,” I corrected my sister silently. I could still feel that hand on my shoulder, that voice in my ear, as if no time at all had passed since the night in the canyon. Garrett. It seemed so obvious now. He’d been so jealous. So violent. Why had I stayed with him, knowing all that? How could I have been so stupid?

“The police thought she was you, at first. They thought it was some kind of fake ID,” Mrs. Mercer said softly. Her cardigan was buttoned wrong, and her hands kept fluttering nervously to her mouth as if she wanted to stop the words from coming out of it. “But of course, you aren’t missing, and that body had been in the canyon for . . . for a few months, at least. They called us down, and we explained about Becky and that we’d just found out about Emma ourselves.”

Emma put her hands over her face. Her heart hammered so loudly in her ears that for a moment, she couldn’t hear anything else. She tried not to think about Sutton’s body—a girl who looked just like her, but . . . well, decomposed. But now that she knew it was real, the image was hard to shake. “Who found her?” she whispered through her hands.

“A kid,” Mr. Mercer said. “A freshman at the university. He was hiking off the main trails and found her at the bottom of a ravine. She was covered with leaves, so no one could see her from the trail. But he saw her . . . her foot sticking out.”

I strained my mind, trying to connect myself to what they’d found there in the canyon. Even though Emma didn’t want to imagine the body, I couldn’t help it. Was I a skeleton now, empty eye sockets staring at the sky? I felt a strange sort of detachment. Even though I had lived in it for eighteen years, that body wasn’t me; not anymore.

Emma drew her hands away from her face. She took a deep breath, and finally her lungs filled all the way. The world suddenly seemed to have a surreal brightness, as if the sky and trees and mountains were oversaturated with color. Laurel sat staring at her, her mouth drawn into a small button in her face. Mrs. Mercer’s eyes were moist with compassion. Next to her, Mr. Mercer put a hand on her back and rubbed gently.

No one seemed to have any suspicions, yet, that the body wasn’t Emma’s. At least there was that.

“How did she die?” Emma’s voice was barely a whisper.

Mr. Mercer hesitated, exchanging glances with his wife. Something unreadable darted across his face and was gone.

“They won’t know for sure until after an autopsy,” he said. “It appears that she fell off the cliff. A lot of her bones were broken.”

Of course. The killer had made Sutton’s death look like an accident, or possibly a suicide—just like Nisha’s. For all intents and purposes, Sutton Mercer—or now, Emma Paxton—had simply stumbled to her death.

Would they ever find proof that I was murdered? I tried to go back to the memory, to Garrett’s hand on my shoulder, hoping I could trigger the rest of it. I wanted to know how he’d done it. But it was just like trying to go back to sleep to continue a dream that was interrupted. I couldn’t do it.

“They wouldn’t answer any of my questions when I identified the body,” Mr. Mercer continued. “They said the investigation was ‘ongoing,’ whatever that means. So we’ll just have to wait for the medical examiner’s report to know for sure.” He ran his hands over his eyes violently, like he was trying to rub away the memory of what he’d seen. “When I first saw her, I was sure it was you. Even though my brain was telling me it couldn’t be, that she was too long dead and I’d just seen you this morning, I was absolutely certain it was you. She was wearing a pink hoodie I could have sworn I’d seen you in before. I’ve never been so scared.” He pulled her into a rough hug. “But you’re okay. Thank God you’re okay.”

Mrs. Mercer’s shoulders shuddered as she started to cry again. Laurel grabbed her purse and rummaged inside, coming up with a small packet of Kleenex that she handed to her mother. Emma felt her own lip tremble at the sight of her grandmother so disconsolate. She clasped her hand over her mouth to keep from letting out a sob.

“I just don’t know what to feel,” cried Mrs. Mercer. “I’m so relieved it’s not our baby. I’m so grateful for that. But Emma . . . Emma was ours too. I know we never knew her. But now we never will.”

The sight of Mrs. Mercer and Laurel crying together was the final straw. She couldn’t do it anymore. It wasn’t fair. The Mercers had a right to know that it was their baby down in the canyon. They had the right to be able to grieve Sutton.

“I have to tell you something,” she said, her voice sounding flat and distant in her ears.

“No!” I screamed, trying to somehow get Emma’s attention, make her hear my voice just once. I appreciated her motives, but she wasn’t going to accomplish anything by coming clean now. How did she plan on solving my murder from behind bars?

“I—” Emma stared out over the parking lot as she spoke, unable to meet their eyes. The sun bounced off the windshields of the cars. From where she sat she could see Sutton’s vintage Volvo, which her sister had restored with Mr. Mercer’s help.

“What is it, honey?” Mrs. Mercer asked gently. But Emma didn’t answer. She’d just seen something.

A note was tucked under the Volvo’s windshield wiper.

A cold calm descended on Emma. She stood up, moving robotically. Her mind was eerily still as she walked to the car and carefully pulled back the wiper to grab the piece of paper. She held it in her hand for a moment, feeling the Mercers’ eyes on her. She knew without looking where it had come from, but if she didn’t open it, if she didn’t see the familiar, blocky handwriting, she could still pretend to herself that the note could be anything. From anyone. A parking ticket, a flyer for a party, a love note. Anything but what it really was.

But she had to open it. Because the person who had left it was probably still watching.

She unfolded the note. It was on the same lined notebook paper as the other notes she’d gotten. The handwriting was rigid, the letters carved so deeply into the paper they almost tore through it in a few spots.

Sutton didn’t do what I told her, and she paid for it. Don’t make the same mistake. Keep up the game, or Nisha won’t be the only person you care about who dies for your sake.

Her gaze shot up. She looked frantically up and down the rows of cars, trying to see who might have left it. How long had it been there? How had the murderer known so quickly that the body had been found? The parking lot glittered serenely around her. Several rows away, two girls in aviator shades got out of a silver Miata, one sipping a Frappuccino. Then Emma glanced toward the school, and her blood ran cold.

A boy sat staring out a window, a notebook open on the desk in front of him. His lips were twisted into an ugly, knowing smirk, a look of delighted malice lighting up his eyes. He watched her hungrily, almost eagerly, like he couldn’t wait to see what she’d do next.

It was Garrett.

Emma refused to look away. Adrenaline surged through her body, and she held Garrett’s gaze, determined not to reveal how terrified she was.

“Sutton?”

Back on the lawn, Mr. Mercer had taken a few uncertain steps toward her. Mrs. Mercer and Laurel watched her with wide eyes from the picnic table. Emma propped herself up against the side of the car.

“What is that? Are you okay?” Laurel asked, frowning. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

If only, I thought grimly.

“Flyer. For a car wash,” Emma muttered, shaking her head. “Sorry. I . . . I guess I’m kind of in shock.” She glanced again at Garrett. He had turned back to his notebook and was scribbling something frantically. Then, without glancing at her, he lifted the notebook so she could read what he’d scrawled there.

Bitch.

Lined paper, block letters. Scrawled with a savage intensity. Her knees started to tremble. Still staring straight ahead, Garrett put the notebook back down. He didn’t look at her again—but he didn’t have to. She knew he’d already seen everything he needed to see.

“Let’s get you all home,” Mr. Mercer said, shuffling them into his SUV. As they pulled away from the school, Emma risked a glance back toward the window, but the glare from the late-afternoon sun hid Garrett from view.

It didn’t matter. I could picture him just as clearly as if he’d been in front of me. Garrett—sweet and affectionate Garrett, my over-eager boyfriend—had another side. An angry side. A temperamental side. And that night in the canyon, a violent side.