Sara Shepard - Seven Minutes in Heaven

For most of her life, Emma had wanted to be an investigative reporter when she grew up. But now that she was experiencing a media siege firsthand, she wasn’t so sure. The reporters felt like nothing so much as vultures, circling her family, waiting for one of them to show signs of weakness.

The TV screen cut to a young man with glasses and a long blond ponytail, standing in front of a dormitory building on campus. “She was covered up with leaves and branches,” he said, his voice breaking. “All I could see was her . . . her foot, sticking out at a weird angle.” He looked terrified, blinking in the bright light like a nocturnal creature out during the day. This will haunt him for the rest of his life , Emma thought sadly.

The reporter returned. “The body has been identified as Emma Paxton from Las Vegas, Nevada.” The previous year’s school photo flashed on the screen. Emma had worn a vintage wrap dress she’d scored from a garage sale in Green Valley. Her bangs were shorter then; she’d grown them out to match Sutton’s longer hairstyle. Her smile was maybe a little more guarded than Sutton’s, a little less confident. Still, the image made the Mercers stir in their seats. Mr. Mercer dropped his fork onto his plate of untouched lasagna, and Mrs. Mercer stared at the screen with a rapt, shocked expression.

“It’s so weird,” Laurel said. “She looks just like you.”

All Emma could do was nod.

Watching news coverage of her own death was dizzyingly surreal. She felt weirdly exposed every time her picture appeared on-screen, as if the Mercers would suddenly be able to see that the girl in the photo was sitting right in front of them. The newscasters had said her name so many times it was almost easy to believe that poor Emma Paxton, foster kid, was dead—that she really was Sutton Mercer now.

It was weird for me, too. I watched as my parents grieved for a girl they’d never met when their own daughter was gone. Would I be buried in Vegas, far away from my family and friends? Would my headstone say my sister’s name? What if Emma never found my killer—would she live as me forever, until she was finally buried as Sutton Mercer at the ripe old age of ninety?

“Paxton went missing almost three months ago from Las Vegas, after an argument with her foster family. Clarice Lambert, her guardian at the time, spoke with our Nevada correspondent.”

Emma choked on a mouthful of water, sending it down the wrong pipe. She coughed, clutching her throat.

“Honey?” Mrs. Mercer put a hand on her back.

“I’m okay,” she said quickly. “Just drank too fast.” She took a deep breath, wiping the corners of her eyes. There on the screen, in front of the little bungalow house she’d stayed in for a few short weeks, stood Clarice and her son, Travis. Clarice was wearing a strappy sundress meant for someone much younger than she was, her platinum hair piled high on top of her head. She had a mildly shocked, scandalized expression on her face. Travis slouched next to her, a baseball cap pulled askew across his ear and a sanctimonious expression on his wide, fishy lips.

“She was obviously a troubled girl,” Clarice said. “She stole from me, she lied to me, and when I tried laying down the law, she took off in the dead of night. Never a note or a message saying where she was going. Of course I worried, but there wasn’t anything I could do. She was almost eighteen.”

Emma’s body twitched involuntarily. Clarice had all but kicked her out of the house after Travis had framed her for stealing from her purse. Why was the news even talking to her? She didn’t know anything about Emma.

Travis had the microphone now. “Emma was a wild girl,” he said with a smirk. “She was into all kinds of crazy stuff. I found a video of her online, getting held down and strangled and . . .” His next word was replaced with a loud beep. “She always had money, too. Maybe she was involved with some kind of fetish dungeon or something.”

I goggled at the TV—would they show the snuff video? I didn’t want my parents to see me like that. They both stared at the screen, my mom with a disturbed grimace, my dad looking confused. I wondered if he’d ever even heard the phrase “fetish dungeon” before, much less in connection with anyone he might be related to.

Across the table, Laurel set her glass down with a loud thunk . Emma glanced up at her, her mind shooting back to what she’d learned of the snuff video. Laurel had masterminded that prank—and she’d been the one with the movie saved on her hard drive. What if she recognized what Travis was describing? But Laurel just toyed with her food, a distracted look on her face.

The newscaster’s voice came back. “When investigators tried to find the video, they found no trace. Whether it’s been since taken down, or was a case of mistaken identity, is still under investigation. Meanwhile, LVPD, who is assisting the Tucson police with the investigation, discovered a locker checked out to the missing girl at the Greyhound station, containing clothes, what seem to be journals, and around two thousand dollars in cash.”

Emma’s insides lurched. They had her journals? Her cheeks felt like they were on fire. She imagined the police flipping through the cheap composition books, guffawing over the phase in junior high when she’d dotted all her i’s with hearts, or reading her fake headlines out loud to a room of beat cops. Girl Goes Stag to Homecoming, Stands by Refreshment Table All Night —she imagined Quinlan and his buddies reading it aloud and erupting in laughter. The very thought made her want to hide her face in her hands.

The cameras jumped back to the newscaster, who held her microphone to her lips and looked seriously into the camera. “Meanwhile, the Tucson Police Department has refused to give an official cause of death, saying the case is still under investigation. But our sources tell us Paxton was hoping to meet up with her biological family in Tucson. Whether she made it to them is unknown. The family has so far declined our requests for an interview.” At that, Mrs. Mercer hit the remote, and the sound muted.

“Requests?” she snapped, curling her lip. “You spent most of the day on our front lawn, you gargoyle.” Then she sighed, and started gathering dishes. “Poor Emma. It sounds like she could have used our help.”

“What do you mean?” Emma asked, glancing up at her grandmother.

“Just, if she was as troubled as those people said . . .” Mrs. Mercer trailed off, then shook her head. Her face darkened. “I wish we’d known about her sooner. This is all Becky’s fault. It’s always Becky’s fault. She lies, she steals, she keeps secrets, and she doesn’t care who she hurts along the way.”

“Kristin,” Mr. Mercer said softly. But his wife scowled, grabbing the Pyrex dish of lasagna from the center of the table. She moved so violently a small splatter of sauce flew free and landed on her sweater, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“You know it’s true. She kept us in constant agony, wondering where she was and if she was okay. And for some insane reason, she didn’t tell us about this other little girl who we could have . . .” Tears sprang to her eyes. “This little girl we could have saved.”

Mr. Mercer stood up and gently pried the dish from her hands. He set it back on the table and pulled his wife into his arms. She broke down then, sobbing against his chest as he patted her back. Laurel and Emma looked at each other with wide, frightened eyes. Emma had never seen Mrs. Mercer this emotional, and from the look on Laurel’s face, she hadn’t either.

Emma couldn’t help but agree with Mrs. Mercer. She wanted to forgive Becky—Becky was her mother, after all—but sometimes she was so angry she could scream. What had been the point of keeping Emma if she was only going to abandon her five years later? What had been the point of separating the twins?