The Lying Game

Chapter 21 UNREQUITED SPYING

“So where do you want to go for dinner?” Garrett asked Emma, guiding his Jeep Wrangler down a hill.

“Um, I don’t know.” Emma bit her pinkie. “Why don’t you pick somewhere?”

Garrett looked shocked. “Me?”

“Why not?”

A glassy, indecisive look swept across Garrett’s face. He reminded Emma of the malfunctioning Tickle Me Elmo doll she had inherited from an older girl her first year in foster care; sometimes the Elmo stared into space and didn’t know what to do next. “But we always go somewhere you like,” Garrett said.

Emma pressed her nails into her palm. If only she could just tell him she couldn’t pick a damn restaurant because she didn’t know any around here. Then she spotted a Trader Joe’s out the Jeep window. “Why don’t we buy some cheese and stuff and have a picnic on the mountain?”

“Great.” Garrett swerved across three lanes of traffic to get to the grocery store parking lot.

It was Saturday night just past 7 P.M., and the sun hung on the horizon. Garrett had shown up at the Mercers’ door a half hour earlier with a bouquet of flowers in his hands and a bouquet of different fragrances on his body—colognes, body sprays, hair gel, the works. There was such a hopeful, eager expression on his face that Emma couldn’t bring herself to call off the date, even though every cell in her body was dying to. She didn’t want to deal with Garrett right now; she wanted to be searching for Sutton’s killer.

After standing in line behind an old lady who insisted on paying with a check, Emma and Garrett finally arrived at Catalina State Park, a shopping bag full of sparkling cider, black olives, crackers, grapes, trail mix, fancy Australian licorice, and a wedge of Brie swinging from the crook of Garrett’s elbow. The air was cool and crisp and smelled like sunscreen. Other hikers bounded up the path. After another few twists and switchbacks, they reached the vista and settled on a big boulder. Emma could see all the way down the mountain. Garrett’s car looked like a toy from up here.

“It’s so nice out tonight,” Garrett murmured, running his hand through his blond hair. He removed his long-sleeved shirt and spread it on the ground as a picnic blanket. His tanned biceps bulged. He twisted the cider bottle open with a satisfying psst.

“Uh-huh,” Emma replied. She stared blankly ahead. There were tumbleweeds in her mind where conversation topics should have been. What did Garrett and Sutton used to talk about? Did they have inside jokes? What brought them together? If only Sutton’s journal had been normal, Emma might’ve actually learned something useful like this.

Sighing, she pulled the crackers, olives, trail mix, and licorice out of the bag. She absentmindedly placed a cracker on the napkin and added two olives for eyes, a trail-mix peanut for a nose, and a piece of licorice for a smile. Thinking of Ethan, she poked Garrett. “Like my new friend?”

Garrett glanced at it for a moment and nodded. “Cute.”

“You want to make a face, too?”

Garrett shrugged. “I can hardly draw a circle in art class.”

Emma popped one of the olive eyes into her mouth. So much for common ground.

But I was kind of glad she didn’t like Garrett. I couldn’t remember exactly why I loved him. I couldn’t recall what it was that made me think of him as damaged, I just knew that I did. And even in death, I wanted him all to myself.

Emma sat back and stared at the horizon, absently touching the scratches on her throat from last night. Tiny red marks lacerated her skin. Her windpipe still ached from the pull of the necklace. She’d taken a bunch of Advils and covered up the scrapes with the Dior foundation she’d found in Sutton’s bathroom, hoping Garrett wouldn’t notice anything amiss. She could still feel the assailant’s hot, stale breath on her neck. She shut her eyes and winced.

“You okay?” Garrett asked.

Emma nodded. “Yeah. I’m just tired.”

“Fun sleepover last night?”

Emma paused. “Actually, sleepover is inaccurate. I didn’t get any.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Emma fiddled with Sutton’s locket, saying nothing. It still felt foreign around her neck.

“C’mon.” Garrett poked her side. “You can tell me what happens at your crazy sleepovers. I wish you told me more.”

Emma reached for another cracker, suddenly getting an idea. Actually, Garrett might be useful to this investigation after all.

“Well, I’m not sure ‘fun’ is the word I’d use,” she said slowly. “More like . . . intense. Sometimes I think my friends hate me. I think they’d stab me in the back if they could.” It felt weird to recite the words she’d found in Sutton’s journal.

A couple of college kids smelling strongly of pot emerged from behind the curve. The air shifted and suddenly reeked of smelly armpit. Garrett bit down on a grape; some of the juice dribbled down his chin. “Are you talking about that night?”

Emma jolted up. “What night?”

Garrett slowly chewed a cracker. “The night you won’t tell me about?”

Emma’s eyes widened. What did he mean?

“Or do you mean Charlotte?” Garrett asked when Emma didn’t answer.

Emma lowered her eyes. Charlotte? “Um, yeah,” she said, hoping this led somewhere. “I just don’t know what her problem is.”

Garrett pressed the edge of his sneaker into a scrubby patch of desert grass. “You’re going to have to give her some time, Sutton. Try to see it from her perspective. I dumped her . . . to go out with you. A lot of girls would have a tough time with that.”

Emma pushed another piece of Brie into her mouth to hide her shock. Charlotte and Garrett . . . dated? She certainly hadn’t learned anything like that from Sutton’s journal.

But it made sense. It explained the death stare Charlotte had given Emma last night when boyfriend-stealing came up in Never Have I Ever. There was that picture of Garrett’s naked torso hanging outside the shower in Charlotte’s bathroom, too. And the picture of him that had been abandoned under her bed.

“She’s clearly not over it,” Emma agreed. “Actually, I don’t think she’s over you.”

Garrett sighed and wrapped his arms around his knees. “I wish it never happened. I thought she understood my position. We were friends, and when we tried being more, there wasn’t any romance. I didn’t think she felt a spark either.” He broke off a piece of cracker and held it in his palm. “She’s actually called me a couple of times. Sometimes she just hangs up.”

Emma sat up straighter. “Like . . . prank calls?”

Garrett frowned. “I don’t think so. She just doesn’t know what to say. I feel bad for her. I mean, she’s so tough, but it’s got to be hard on her. And I still see her all the time with you. I want her to be my friend—I want all of us to be friends. Besides, Charlotte was there for me during everything that happened with Louisa.” His voice cracked on Louisa. A pained look crossed his face. “We share a lot of history together.”

The words rushed over Emma. She felt dazed as she tried to process all Garrett had said. Then he grabbed her hand. “I don’t want it to be anything more than that with her though. I’m with you now. I want to be with you.”

He moved a little closer to her and draped his arm around Emma’s shoulders. “That reminds me though . . . of what we talked about this summer. Our . . . plans?”

Emma searched his way-too-close face, trying hard not to pull away. Garrett looked so serious all of a sudden. “Uh-huh,” she lied, hoping he’d elaborate.

“Well, I was thinking of making that happen for your birthday.” He shot her a bashful smile as he traced a squiggle on her arm. “What do you think?”

Emma shrugged. “Um, sure,” she said.

Garrett snuggled toward her and leaned his face close to hers. Emma braced herself as he touched his lips to hers, but he tasted like sweet grapes and fizzy cider, and his lips felt warm and soft. She relaxed a tiny bit into the kiss.

A twig snapped close by. Emma pulled back and sat up straight, instantly on edge. “Did you hear that?”

There was another snapping sound. “Yeah.” Garrett frowned and looked around, too. Someone emerged from a dirt path off the main trail. It was a girl with pale skin and bright red hair. Emma drew in a breath.

“Oh!” Charlotte stopped short and pulled a pair of iPod earbuds from her ears. Her gaze darted from Garrett to Emma, then to their entwined hands. What was Charlotte doing up here? Had she been watching?

Garrett tugged nervously at the collar of his shirt. “Uh, hi, Char. What’s up?”

Charlotte fiddled with a rope bracelet around her wrist. “Oh, just getting a hike in.”

“Cool,” Garrett said.

“Nice night for it,” Emma added stupidly.

A hawk screamed ominously from a nearby ledge. When Charlotte raised her head again, her expression was placid. Her mouth no longer trembled. “Anyway,” she said. “See you lovebirds later.”

“L-Later,” Emma stammered.

Charlotte slipped the earbuds back in. Garrett waved weakly. Emma did, too. Just as Charlotte made the turn, darkness crept over her face. She glanced over her shoulder, and met Emma’s gaze.

All at once, Emma felt the hands at her neck and heard the raspy voice from last night in her ear. Sutton’s dead. Could it have been Charlotte?

I recalled the broad-shouldered shape standing over me in the trunk and wondered the same thing. Could it have been Charlotte staring angrily, finally getting her revenge?

Then Charlotte whipped her head around, red ponytail bouncing. She shook her hips to the song on her iPod. As she rounded the next rock, her footsteps didn’t make a sound, almost like she’d never been there at all.