at her phone again. The police station was right next to Hollier High, five miles away. How was she going to get there? Laurel still wasn’t talking to her, and she’d no doubt report back to the Mercers that Sutton was in trouble again. The questioning could have something to do with Thayer, which meant she couldn’t call Madeline. Charlotte was still finishing up her tennis match, and Ethan was taking his mom to the doctor. The Twitter Twins were the only option left.
Emma scrolled through Sutton’s iPhone and found Lili’s number.
“Of course I’ll drive you,” Lili said when she answered and Emma explained her plight. “What are friends for? Gabby and I are on our way!”
In minutes, the Twitter Twins’ shiny white SUV pulled up to the curb. Lili sat in the driver’s seat, wearing a Green Day T-shirt and ripped jeans, while Gabby lounged in überpreppy rugby stripes on the passenger side. Both girls had their iPhones in their laps. As Emma hopped into the back seat, she could feel the twins’ eyes on her.
“So,” Gabby started as they pulled away, her voice dripping with hunger. “You’re going to visit Thayer in jail, aren’t you?”
“We knew it,” Lili said before Emma could answer. Her blue eyes widened as she glanced in the rearview mirror, clumps of mascara dotting her lashes. “We knew you couldn’t stay away.”
“But we won’t tweet about it if you don’t want us to,” Gabby said quickly. “We can keep a secret.” The Twitter Twins, true to their name, were the school’s biggest gossip hounds, airing everyone’s dirty laundry on their Twitter pages.
“I heard his trial is set for a month from now and his dad’s going to let him rot in jail until then,” Lili said. “Do you think he’ll go to prison?”
“I bet he looks good in orange,” Gabby trilled.
“I’m not going to see Thayer,” Emma said as lightly as she could, leaning against the leather backseat. “I, um, just need to sign something about the shoplifting fiasco. The shopkeeper is dropping all charges.” That piece, at least, was true. Ethan knew the salesgirl at Clique and had gotten her to back down.
Gabby frowned, looking disappointed. “Well, since you’re there, you could stop in to see him just for a second, couldn’t you? I’m dying to know where he’s been all this time.”
“You know, don’t you?” Lili jumped in, waving her finger in the air. “Naughty, naughty, Sutton! You knew where he was this whole time and you didn’t tell anyone! So how did you guys communicate? I heard it was secret email accounts.”
Gabby nudged her sister. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Caroline’s sister is friends with a girl whose friend hooked up with the goalie on Thayer’s traveling soccer team,” Lili explained. “Apparently, Thayer told him lots of stuff before he took off.”
Emma glared at the Twitter Twins in the front seat. “I think I feel a migraine coming on,” she said icily, summoning up her best I’m-Sutton-Mercer-and-you-will-do-anything-I-ask voice. “How about we ride the rest of the way in silence?”
The twins looked deflated, but turned down the radio and drove the final stretch in utter silence. Emma glanced out the window at the sand-colored buildings of the University of Arizona whizzing past. Could Sutton have communicated with Thayer through a secret email account? She hadn’t come across anything on Sutton’s computer or in her bedroom, but Sutton was nothing if not sneaky and smart. They could have communicated any number of ways—disposable cells, fake email addresses or Twitter accounts, regular old mail . . .
I racked my memory for any kind of correspondence with Thayer—secretive or not. I saw myself sitting at my desk with a blank computer screen in front me, a familiar feeling of restlessness in my body, like there was something I needed to tell someone, anyone. Maybe Thayer. But the computer screen stayed as white and untouched as fresh snow, the blinking cursor mocking me with its steady beat.
The car passed a ranch called the Lone Range, where three palomino horses grazed in a rectangular pasture. A woman dressed in a flowing white skirt and a raisin- colored tube top sold turquoise jewelry next to a handwritten sign advertising HIGH QUALITY, LOW PRICE. The sun blazed just above the horizon.
When they pulled into the parking lot of the police station, Lili caught Emma’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Do you want us to wait for you?”
“Yeah, we could even come in with you, you know, for moral support,” Gabby added.
“I’ll be fine.” Emma slid out of the backseat and slammed the door. “Thanks for the ride!”
Emma and I didn’t need to turn back around to know that Gabby and Lili were watching her as she walked through the glass doors marked TUCSON POLICE DEPARTMENT.
CHAPTER 6
LITTLE EMMA IN THE BIG WOODS
The inside of the station was the same as the past two times Emma had been there: first to report that Sutton was missing, then after she’d stolen the bag from Clique. It still had that rancid smell of old takeout. The telephones bleated loudly and jarringly. An old HAVE YOU SEEN HIM? flyer with Thayer Vega’s face and information hung on a bulletin board in the corner, next to a document listing Tucson’s most wanted. Emma stepped forward and gave her name to an emaciated woman with a helmet-perm who sat at the front desk.
“S-U-T-T-O-N7 M-E-R-C-E-R,” the woman repeated, her purple acrylic nails tapping each letter on an ancient-looking keyboard. “Have a seat and Detective Quinlan will be right with you.”
Emma sat on a hard yellow plastic chair and looked at the bulletin board again. The calendar was still on August. Emma guessed it was the receptionist who had chosen the picture of a kitten chasing a tattered ball of red yarn. Next she scanned the MOST WANTED poster. It looked like the majority of the guys on it had outstanding warrants for drug possession. Finally, she let her eyes graze the MISSING poster. Thayer’s hazel eyes stared directly at her, the hint of a smile playing across his lips. For a moment, Emma swore the boy in the photo actually winked at her, but that was impossible. She ran her hands over the back of her neck, trying to get a grip. But Thayer was somewhere in this building. Just his proximity made her shudder.
“Miss Mercer.” Quinlan appeared in the doorway wearing dark brown pants and a tan button-down. At six feet tall, he cut an imposing figure. “C’mon back.”
Emma stood and followed him down the tiled hallway. Quinlan opened the door to the same cinderblock interrogation room he’d stuck Emma in the week before, when he’d questioned her about shoplifting from Clique. As soon as the door whooshed open, Emma was enveloped in lavender Febreze. She pressed her hand to her nose and tried to breathe through her mouth.
Quinlan scraped back a chair and gestured for Emma to sit. She lowered herself into it slowly, and Quinlan sat across from her. He leveled a look at her over the table, as if he expected her to just start talking. Emma studied the gun at his waist. How many times had he used it?
“I called you in about your car,” Quinlan finally said. He steepled his hands and stared at Emma over his finger-tips. “We found it. But first—is there anything you want to tell me about?”
Emma tensed, her mind drawing a blank. She knew very little about Sutton’s car—that she had used it in a cruel prank against her friends a few months ago, pretending to stall the vehicle on the train tracks when an Amtrak
