Never Have I Ever (15 page)

Chapter 21
Service with a Snicker

“Hey, guys!” Laurel said brightly, beaming at Gabby and Lili. “That would be awesome.”

“No problem!” Gabby’s eyes flickered, snakelike, to Emma, then back to Laurel. There was a hint of a smile on her lips, as though she were trying to hold in a laugh. “We all know how badly Sutton needs her car back.”

“Yeah, so she can stall it again,” Lili added under her breath.

An eerie shiver passed through me.

Lili steered Emma to their white SUV, which was parked in the lot. “C’mon. A little birdie told me the impound closes at six.”

“But . . .” Emma protested, planting her feet. “I don’t have to go today. . . .”

“Nonsense,” Lili said hurriedly. “We don’t mind. That’s what friends are for, right?”

“You guys are the best!” Laurel reached into her purse for her car keys. “Have fun reuniting with Floyd, Sutton!”

Emma glanced over her shoulder at Laurel, sure that helplessness and fear were written all over her face, but Laurel just waved obliviously. She flung the yellow plastic Scare-O-Rama bag over her shoulder and skipped toward her Jetta.

Lili opened the backseat of the SUV with a flourish. “Ladies first,” she said sweetly, pointing Emma to one of the black seats inside. Emma hesitated, wondering how far she could get if she took off in a sprint.

“What’s wrong, Sutton?” Gabby teased, noticing Emma’s reluctance. “You all freaked out from being inside the Halloween store? Afraid another light was going to fall on your head?”

Emma swallowed hard, the words cutting her like knives. Her heart had never pounded so fast or so hard. But she told herself that the Twins couldn’t do anything to her today—not when Laurel knew she was with them. Straightening her shoulders, Emma brushed her dark hair over her shoulder and called upon her deepest Sutton reserves. “No, I’m freaked out by your wardrobe choices,” she snapped, eyeing Lili’s mismatched polka-dot blouse and plaid skirt. “Did someone dress while under the influence this morning?”

Lili sniffed. “This month’s
Vogue
says mixing patterns is in.”

“I would’ve thought you’d know something that basic,” Gabby scoffed.

“What’s with the attitude today, ladies?” Emma tried to sound exasperated. “Are you two still not over that prank during your court party?”

“
Please
, Sutton.” Lili opened the front passenger door. “We were over it before it even began.”

Gabby nudged Emma into the backseat, which smelled overpoweringly of Skittles. The Twitter Twins climbed into the front, and Gabby started the engine. Her blue eyes met Emma’s in the rearview mirror. “To the impound, right?”

Emma nodded, and the Twins exchanged a look and shared a secret giggle that turned Emma’s stomach. Then Gabby steered the car out of the parking lot and made a left at the light. Lili tapped away on her iPhone. Emma could just make out the Twitter icon on the little screen. She leaned forward, dying for a peek. Was Lili writing under her secret Twitter name? Was she sending a secret missive to Gabby?

Lili cocked her head, noticing Emma. Emma snapped her head away, pretending she wasn’t looking. Lili covered the screen with her hand and smirked. Emma pulled out her phone to check, but nothing new was posted.

Gabby merged onto the freeway, snaking around cars and nearly cutting off a fast-moving milk truck. “So, Sutton. Excited for tomorrow night?” She swiveled around and glanced at Emma, taking her eyes off the road.

“Gabby!” Emma screamed, gesturing toward the highway with her phone. Was Gabby even allowed to be behind the wheel? Could people with epilepsy get driver’s licenses?

One corner of Gabby’s lips lifted into a smile. She still didn’t turn around. “But, Sutton, I thought you liked to live on the edge!”

“
Whoo, whoo!
” Lili said in a high-pitched voice, her fingers flying over the iPhone’s keyboard.

More cars honked at the SUV. Sweat began to bead on the back of Emma’s neck. She placed a hand on Gabby’s shoulder as a pickup truck swerved out of her way. “Gabby, please!”

Finally, as Gabby was about to have a head-on collision with an oncoming Jeep Cherokee, she calmly faced forward and wrenched the SUV back into the far lane like they’d never been in peril at all. “
We’re
really excited for Homecoming, Sutton,” she said, picking up on the previous conversation as though nothing was amiss. “It’s a big night for us. You’re going to die when you see us!”

Emma flinched. “Excuse me?” She grabbed the door handle, wishing she could jump out of the car.

Lili giggled. “Our
costumes
are amazing.”

“God, what did you
think
we meant?” Gabby asked, snickering. The girls exchanged another glance, as though they knew how much they were freaking Emma out.

Just then, Gabby took the next exit and turned into a dingy lot. A sign on the chain-link fence read
TUCSON PD IMPOUND.
As they pulled in, a beefy man with a shaved head emerged from a small, nut-colored building and motioned for Gabby to roll down the window.

As soon as the car slowed, Emma unlocked the passenger door and jumped out.

“Sutton!” Gabby called. “What the hell?”

“I can take it from here!” Emma yelled back, relieved to be standing next to the worker, who had ham-sized arm muscles and a menacing tattoo peeking out from under his collar. “But thanks, guys! I really appreciate the ride!”

The Twitter Twins idled at the gate for a moment, wrinkling their noses. Then Lili shrugged and said something to Gabby that Emma couldn’t hear. The two of them smiled, and Gabby threw the vehicle into reverse. Both girls gave Emma a three-finger wave as they pulled away.

Emma waited a few beats for her heart to slow down. Then she turned to the impound worker. “I’m here to pick up my car,” she said, her voice cracking.

“Come in here.” The worker led Emma to the building inside the lot. “I need your driver’s license and credit card.”

Emma handed over Sutton’s license from her wallet. The worker typed something into a dusty keyboard and stared at the screen. A wrinkle formed on his brow. “Sutton Mercer?” he repeated. “1965 Volvo?”

“That’s right,” Emma said, remembering the details from Sutton’s police file.

The man gave her a long, suspicious look. “It says here that you picked up this vehicle nearly a month ago.”

Emma blinked. “
What?
”

“It’s right here. You signed it out on the morning of August thirty-first. The fine was paid in full.” He twisted the monitor to show Emma the screen. She stared at a scan of the car’s release form. There, at the bottom, next to the
X
, was Sutton’s signature.

A memory bloomed in my mind: I
had
been here before. I remembered the leaky Bic pen that I used to sign the release forms. I remembered hearing my phone ring and feeling a jolt of happiness. But before I could get a look at the screen, the vision tunneled and blinked off.

Emma stared at Sutton’s signature, that swooping
S
, the humps of the
M
. It was another clear link to what Sutton was doing the day she died, but it felt like her investigation had taken a huge left turn. Why hadn’t Sutton told anyone she’d signed out the car that day? And where was Sutton’s car
now
?

The man cleared his throat, breaking Emma from her thoughts. “This
is
your signature, right?”

Emma’s tongue felt like it was made of lead. She wasn’t sure how to answer. Should she say it wasn’t and report the car stolen? But what if she did that and then the police found Sutton’s body in the trunk? As soon as that happened, Emma would be arrested—without any other evidence, she was the most likely suspect in her sister’s murder: the unlucky twin trying to escape a life of poverty.

“Uh . . . I guess I made a mistake,” she croaked. Then she backed out of the little booth and into the blinding sunset.

The worker stared after her, shaking his head and muttering under his breath about how every kid was on drugs these days. As Emma walked out of the lot, figuring she’d call a cab to take her back to the Mercers’, a flash to the right caught her eye. A figure ducked behind an abandoned old Burger King on the other side of the chain-link fence. Even though Emma had only seen a glimpse, she was almost positive the figure had dirty-blonde hair like the Twitter Twins.

They were watching my sister for sure. The only thing I didn’t know was what they were planning next
.

Chapter 22
Tweet, Untweet

Just hours before Homecoming, the doorbell rang at Charlotte’s house. Emma left her Diet Coke on the kitchen counter and padded through the hall to get it. She opened the door to find an older, spiky-haired, tattooed woman in a black tutu, ripped CBGB T-shirt, and worn motorcycle boots. She looked like a cross between the Bride of Frankenstein and a coked-up Courtney Love.

“Hey, sweetie!” the woman at the door cried, breaking Emma from her thoughts. She grabbed Emma’s arms and kissed her on both cheeks, leaving behind vampy red lipstick prints. Emma wasn’t sure if she should assume the woman knew Sutton, or if this was just the way she greeted everyone. She played it safe with a cool smile.

We’d met before—I was sure of it. A memory slithered through my mind: the woman and Charlotte’s mother talking in hushed voices in the kitchen.
You know I’ll kill him if it’s true
, Charlotte’s mom had said. But both of them straightened and smiled when I entered the kitchen, gushing with small talk about how fashionable I looked and if I thought
they
could pull off denim leggings, too. (The answer, for both, was a groaning “no.”)

The woman sauntered into the kitchen and plopped two giant makeup cases down on the farmhouse table. “Okay, ladies!” she croaked in a two-packs-a-day voice. “Let’s get you gory and gorgeous for Homecoming!”

Madeline, Charlotte, and Laurel cheered. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The idea was to primp at Charlotte’s, take dozens of sexy, Facebook-worthy pictures in their Halloween dresses, and then their dates would pick them up in a stretch limo a half hour before the dance. Well, everyone
else’s
dates—Emma hadn’t bothered to ask anyone after Ethan. She tried to play it off like going stag was the cool thing to do; Sutton probably would have.

Emma still had a lot to learn about me. The only place I went stag was the bathroom.

Charlotte’s mother clonked into the kitchen on raffia wedges and gave the makeup artist an air kiss. With her perky boobs, giant Chanel sunglasses, and grass-green Juicy Couture minidress, Charlotte’s mom didn’t look like the rest of the mothers in suburbia, even in Sutton’s upscale Tucson neighborhood. “Ladies, you remember Helene, my makeup guru,” she said, chomping gum between her shiny veneers. “You’re in excellent hands with her.” She slung a studded bag over her shoulder and grabbed her Mercedes keys from the telephone table.

Helene pouted. “You’re not staying to watch the magic?”

Mrs. Chamberlain glanced at her pink diamond-studded watch. “Can’t. I’ve got an appointment for a Brazilian in ten minutes.”

“Mom!” Charlotte covered her ears. “TMI!”

Mrs. Chamberlain gave her daughter a dismissive, you’re-such-a-prude hand flutter. Emma wasn’t sure which was more bizarre—that Charlotte’s mother had just announced she was getting a take-it-all-off bikini wax, or that she trusted her makeup needs to Mistress of the Night Helene.

After Mrs. Chamberlain disappeared out the door, Charlotte turned to Helene. “Can I go first? I’m going as an Egyptian goddess, so I need really dramatic Cleopatra eyes.”

Emma wondered if Sutton would push past Charlotte and demand to go first instead, but she didn’t have the heart to do that.

“Comin’ right up.” Helene opened her giant makeup cases, revealing a bevy of brushes, shadows, powders, mascara wands, and curlers.

As she waited, Emma pulled Sutton’s phone from her pocket and checked out the Twitter Twins’ secret accounts. There was a new entry.

Emma hoped Lili was just talking about her and Gabby’s big night on the court.

But we both knew it meant more than that.

Madeline turned toward the fridge. “Time for refreshments,” she said, winking at Emma. “Sutton, can you grab some glasses?”

Emma followed Madeline, skirting around the behemoth soapstone island, running her fingers along the eerily familiar surface. The last time she’d been in this kitchen, someone had startled her from behind and nearly strangled her. If she squinted, she could see a faint outline of the scuffmark the assailant’s shoe had made on the baseboard when he or she had rammed Emma against the wall. In the oppressive atmosphere, she could almost hear the attacker’s words lingering in the air:
I told you to play along. I told you not to leave.

As Emma laid out four glasses on the island, Madeline pulled a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke from the Chamberlain’s fridge and poured each glass three-quarters full. Then, raising a finger to her lips, she whipped her silver flask from her pocket and topped the drinks off with rum. Emma’s nose tickled with the cloying scent.

“You’re not making cocktails over there, are you?” Helene crowed, a giant blush brush in her hand. “If so, can you make me one, too, honey?”

Madeline grinned. “Sure!”

The doorbell rang again. “Sutton, can you get that?” Charlotte asked, her eyes closed as Helene swept sparkly silver powder over her lids.

Emma wandered down the long hallway lined with modernist photographs of cacti, shadows, and cloudless skies, and pulled at the ring-shaped knob of the huge door. When she saw the two girls on the porch, a hot, acidic feeling welled in her stomach.

“Hello there, Sutton,” Gabby said, pushing past her. A garment bag was draped over her arm, and she wore her orange silk Homecoming Court sash across her T-shirt.

“What happened with your car? I don’t see it in the driveway,” Lili chirped, clomping into the hallway. She had her sash on, too.

Don’t you already know?
Emma wanted to ask, thinking about the lurking figure—or figures—behind Burger King. Perhaps the Twitter Twins had taken Sutton to get her car out on the thirty-first, too. Maybe they even knew where it had ended up.

But instead, Emma told the Twins the same lie she’d told the other girls: “There was a mix-up. Those idiots at the impound lot gave the car to someone else instead. But the cops are on it.”

“Hey, bitches!” Charlotte called from the kitchen before either twin could respond. “Come in and make yourself a drink. We’re in a parent-free zone!”

“I don’t count!” Helene let out a chuckle, which quickly devolved into a coughing fit.

Emma trailed after the Twitter Twins as they glided down the hall. “What are
they
doing here?” she murmured to Madeline as she crossed into the kitchen.

Madeline took a big swig of her rum and Diet Coke. “It was the least we could do after our botched prank.”

“They should leave,” Emma blurted.

Madeline wiped the condensation from her drink with a pink cocktail napkin and let out a sigh. “Sutton, don’t be like that. It’s not like we’re going to ask them to be part of the Lying Game. Chill.”

“Are you talking about us, Sutton?” Gabby practically shouted from the kitchen table, fiddling with her phone. Her voice grated on Emma’s nerves, and she felt her fists ball against her sides.

“Only good things,” Madeline trilled back. She squeezed Emma’s wrist. “Just be nice, okay?”

Charlotte jumped off the chair. Everyone oohed and ahhed over her dramatic Cleopatra eyes, her chiseled cheekbones, and perfect alabaster skin. Madeline climbed into the chair next, topping off her drink with another tip of the flask.

“So, girls.” She looked at the Twitter Twins. “Do you have dates for tonight?”

“We’re both going stag,” Gabby said. Her thumbs dashed over the keys on her phone at breakneck speed. “But I have my eye on someone.”

“You didn’t tell me that.” Lili’s eyebrow arched. “I do, too! Who is it?”

Gabby shrugged. “It’s a secret. I don’t want to say anything until I’m sure he’s into me.”

Lili’s mouth became pinched and small. “Well, then, I’m not telling you who my guy is either.”

Emma watched with curiosity. She’d never seen any tension between the two before now.

“Sutton’s going stag, too,” Laurel piped up, clearly trying to smooth over the sudden mood shift.

“
Really?
” Lili’s beady eyes darted to Emma. “How interesting!”

“I guess we’ll be spending a lot of time together if we’re all going alone.” The words oozed from Gabby’s mouth like a threat. “One-on-one Sutton time. How lucky can we be?”

“How lucky,” Emma echoed, hollow dread settling over her.

Lili reached for her phone, her fingers typing furiously. There was a chime, and Gabby glanced at her own phone’s screen. The Twins’ gazes darted to Emma for a split second before looking away.

The few sips of alcohol Emma had drunk burned her stomach. Pulling out Sutton’s phone, she logged on to Gabby’s and Lili’s public Twitter sites. No new messages popped up. But their fingers were still dancing over their tiny keyboards. Occasionally they smiled, as if one had said something particularly funny.

Emma’s fingers started to fly, too, calling up their private accounts. But only an error message appeared
. This page does not exist.

Emma retyped her search, thinking she’d misspelled something, but the same error message popped up. She’d seen the page ten minutes ago. . . .

She looked up at two pairs of blue eyes. “Looking for something?” Gabby teased.

“Did you think we wouldn’t notice your snooping?” Lili added.

“What are you freaks talking about?” Madeline murmured as Helene smeared gloss across her lips.

“No-thing,” Lili sing-songed.

But Emma knew exactly what they were talking about. The Twitter Twins had figured out Emma was onto them, meaning something huge was going to happen tonight.

I only hoped she could outsmart the Twitter Twins before they outsmarted her.