Emma darted frantically away from the computer, tipping over the desk chair in the process. She wheeled in the center of Laurel’s room for a moment, trying to figure out where to go. Under the bed? In the closet? She dashed to the window and pressed her back to the wall.
Another knock. “Sutton?” Garrett called. The doorknob began to turn. She inched over to the window and looked out. Laurel’s bedroom faced a long line of hedges in the backyard. Kids raged at the party just a few feet away.
Trembling, she touched the window sash and lifted it up. Cool night air wafted in.
“Sutton?” Charlotte’s voice called. “You here?”
Emma glanced over her shoulder. The strip of light under the door began to widen. Emma caught sight of Garrett’s blond hair in the doorway. Here goes, she thought. She turned back to the window and took a deep breath.
“Sutton?” a voice sounded from inside Laurel’s room. But by that time, Emma had already hit the ground.
Chapter 29
THE GREAT ESCAPE
Emma’s fall landed her square in a hedge and tore a big hole in the hem of her dress. Her hand scraped against a rock and her high-heeled ankle twisted on the hard dirt. Letting out a groan, she ripped off her shoes and stashed them under a cactus.
She peered through the hedge. The guys continued to play Speed Racer with the RC cars. Girls giggled and passed around a chrome flask. Gabriella and Lilianna stood just a few feet away, their backs to her, heatedly whispering, frustrated looks on their faces.
The sliding glass door opened. Garrett and Charlotte emerged from the house. Garrett went one way, but Charlotte found Madeline and Laurel and all three huddled in a knot near the bushes. Emma crouched down close by. She didn’t dare move a muscle.
Madeline’s voice floated over the other sounds of the party. “Was she up there?”
“I even checked Laurel’s room,” Charlotte said. “She’s gone.”
“She can’t be gone.” Madeline made a face.
The girls turned for the gate. Emma crouched down and crawled to the next bush, then the next. Her bare knees dug into the gravel. When she reached the wall surrounding the house, she hoisted herself up and over. The rough surface scraped her arms and the top of her thighs.
Her bare feet crunched to the gravel on the other side. She looked around wildly. She had no money, no phone. No shoes. Where could she go?
A wall of parked cars stood in front of her, blocking her passage to the street. A Jeep Cherokee stood closest to her, a Toyota was to her left, and a crookedly parked Subaru Impreza pinned her in on the right. Then Emma spied a narrow escape corridor on the other side of the Subaru along the block-wall fence that separated the Mercers’ yard from the neighbors’. All she had to do was get around the Subaru and she was free. Sucking in her stomach, she squeezed past the car’s side mirror, praying that the car didn’t have one of those car alarms that blared as soon as someone touched it.
A clang made her stop halfway. Three figures stood at the back gate. One was tall and angular, with dark hair and golden skin. Another was shorter and thicker, with pale skin that shone luminously in the moonlight. The third girl had a familiar blond ponytail. All of them looked around. Laurel had a flashlight. Emma quivered, momentarily paralyzed.
“Sutton?” Madeline shouted, her voice cold and unfriendly.
Then Laurel gasped. “There she is!” She shone the flashlight across the yard to where Emma stood. They ran toward her, tramping through the flowerbeds and past the porch. Emma took off down the narrow corridor, her heart drumming in her ears.
“Sutton!” Charlotte, Madeline, and Laurel wove around the cars. “Come back here!”
Emma sprinted, her feet screaming, her gaze on the street just a few yards away. Just as she reached the end of the driveway, her foot landed on something sharp and hot. She yelled out and flew to her knees.
“Get up!” I screamed uselessly at her. “Get up!”
Emma scrambled to her feet. The girls had squeezed past the Subaru, too, and started down the corridor. Emma locked eyes with Laurel. Her shoulders were hunched angrily. Emma let out a whimper and staggered into the street.
And then the automatic light timer on the garage clicked off, bathing the driveway and the street in total darkness. Emma froze, her heart jumping to her throat. She groped for the edge of the block wall that surrounded the Mercer house, then ducked around it, out of their view.
“Sutton?” the girls called. Their high-heeled shoes clicked on the asphalt. They were moving closer and closer in the darkness. For all she knew, they were right next to her.
A hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. Emma jumped and cried out. She was yanked to her knees and dragged farther into the neighbors’ yard. Her palms hit hard, sharp gravel. Tears came to her eyes. Her foot throbbed in pain. Her nose twitched with the sharp smell of a cigarette. She stared at the dark figure in front of her, expecting to see Charlotte’s angry face or Laurel’s searing gaze. “What are you doing?” a guy’s voice asked instead.
Emma blinked hard. “Ethan?” she whispered, her eyes adjusting. She could just make out Ethan’s shorn head and angular jaw. He held a cigarette between his fingers, the red tip glowing eerily in the darkness.
Ethan stubbed out his cigarette in the gravel and stared at Emma’s sweaty, harried face, her torn dress, her lack of shoes. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Sutton?” Madeline called out at the same time. She was right next to them, separated only by the block wall. “Where are you?”
Emma grasped Ethan’s hand hard. “Can you get me out of here? Now?”
“What?”
“Please,” Emma whispered desperately, clasping Ethan’s hands. “Can you help me or not?”
He stared at her. A look Emma couldn’t quite discern flashed over his eyes. He nodded. “My car’s a couple houses down.” Hand in hand, they slipped into the darkness.
I only hoped he could get her away before they caught her.
Chapter 30
SOMEONE KNOWS . . .
Ethan led Emma to an old red Honda Civic hatchback with a gray door and a crack in the windshield. The inside smelled like McDonald’s and old shoes, and the passenger seat was littered with textbooks and papers. Emma swept them aside and belted herself in. Ethan swung behind the wheel. Swiveling around, Emma saw Laurel standing at the edge of the driveway, looking right and left.
The stereo blared as soon as Ethan turned the ignition. It was a fast, raging song, and Ethan dove quickly for the dial and snapped it off. The wheel squeaked as he maneuvered into the street and drove away. Emma’s nails pressed hard into her thighs. She watched the Mercer house grow smaller and smaller in the side mirror until it was no longer visible.
“What’s this all about?” Ethan’s low voice pierced the silence.
“It’s hard to explain,” Emma answered.
They passed the park where she and Ethan had played tennis. Big floodlights illuminated one of the courts, but no one was there. Next they drove past the complex that contained the nail salon where she and Laurel had gotten manicures. Then La Encantada, where she and Madeline had shopped. The road for Hollier curved to the left; a big one-armed cactus pointed the way.
“Where are we going?” Ethan asked.
Emma slumped down in the seat. Where could she go? What about the police? Would they believe her now? Could she get them to search Laurel’s room and find the video?
Then she took a deep breath. “The bus station down-town.”
Ethan’s eyebrows did a quick lift-and-drop. “The one near Hotel Congress?”
“Yep.”
“You taking a trip?”
Emma hugged her chest. “Something like that.”
He nodded toward her feet. “Without shoes?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
Ethan gave her a strange look, then took a left turn at the next intersection and merged onto the highway. It was sparse at this time of night, the concrete lanes empty far into the distance. Neon signs for highway businesses peppered the drive. GREAT DANE TRUCKING. MOTEL SIX. A tall cowboy hat for Arby’s. Lights glittered on the mountain. A helicopter zoomed overhead.
“Can I ask why you’re fleeing your own party?” Ethan asked as he veered off the highway at an exit.
Emma leaned her head against the seat. “I just need to . . . go. It’s too crazy to explain.”
The light turned green, and he made a left at an intersection. They drove in silence for a while on a dark, hilly road. For a few minutes, there wasn’t a single light anywhere. No cars passed them going the other direction. No houses loomed at the curbs. Emma frowned and glanced at the receding highway behind her. The city lights were all in the other direction. “I think you took a wrong turn.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Emma continued to watch the city fade in the rearview mirror. The street rose and dipped. Ethan took another turn, but this road was even more desolate than the last. Dusty gravel crunched under the tires. Tall cacti passed within an inch of the car. Emma’s heart suddenly started to thump. “Ethan, this is the wrong way,” she insisted.
Ethan didn’t answer her. He maneuvered the car up a small slope. Lights twinkled in the distance, as far away as the stars. Emma felt the scratches on her neck from the near-strangulation last weekend. Her mouth immediately felt dry. She peeked at Ethan’s profile. His eyes were narrowed. His jaw jutted out. His hands gripped the steering wheel hard.
“Emma . . .” I cried weakly. Something about this suddenly seemed really wrong.
Emma’s stomach turned over. Slowly, carefully, she reached for the door handle and started to pull.
Click. The tiny knob that locked the door depressed all on its own. Emma hit the button to unlock the door, but it wouldn’t budge. “Stop the car!” she shrieked, suddenly reeling with fear. “Stop the car now!”
Ethan hit the brake so hard that Emma shot forward, ramming her arm against the glove box. The car lurched back again. The engine idled loudly. She squinted in the flinty darkness. As far as she could tell, they were in the middle of a barren, empty desert. This wasn’t even a road.
“What?” Ethan asked. “What’s the matter?”
She turned to Ethan, trembling. The tears flowed freely and easily down her cheeks. “I want out. Please unlock the door. Please.”
“Settle down,” Ethan said gently. He unbuckled his seat belt and turned so that he was facing her. Then he grabbed Emma’s wrist. Not tightly exactly, but not very loosely either. “I just wanted to get us far away from where anyone could see or hear us.”
“Why?” Emma wailed. All kinds of awful possibilities flashed through her mind.
“There’s something I think I know,” Ethan’s voice dropped a half octave. “Something I don’t think you want anyone else to know.”
“What are you talking about?”
Ethan’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “You’re not who you say you are.”
Emma blinked hard. “I-I’m sorry?”
“You’re not Sutton. You can’t be.”