Sara Shepard - Seven Minutes in Heaven

A lead weight seemed to drop on Emma’s heart in that moment. Alex was in trouble, all because of her.

Quinlan’s lips curled up in a cruel smile. “We can get your friend here on a half dozen charges. Aiding and abetting, obstructing justice, concealment of a crime. Hell, if the judge is feeling creative I might be able to get her as an accomplice to murder one.” He made a tsk ing sound. “We got a search warrant for her phone, and it turns out she’s been in contact with her dear friend Emma Paxton for the past three months. And Emma had all kinds of interesting stories about life in Tucson. How close she was with Sutton, how great life was with the Mercers. The most recent one was . . .”—he made a show of looking at a pile of papers in his hands—“. . . one day ago! Look at that!”

Emma shot to her feet again, anger bubbling up from beneath her fear. “Alex had nothing to do with this. That should be obvious, if you read the texts.”

Quinlan shrugged. “Maybe it’s obvious. Or maybe you two are talking in code. How can I know, if you haven’t told me the truth?”

Emma stared at him, suddenly hot with anger. She clenched her fists, digging her fingernails into the soft skin of her palms. “I tried to tell you the truth, the day I got here.” She didn’t even have to channel Sutton for the attitude; cold fury squeezed her chest. “Maybe if you’re going to charge Alex with anything, you should charge yourself too—with negligence, for not even bothering to look into my story way back in September.”

The room went silent. Somewhere down the hall a phone rang over and over. The female officer glanced at Quinlan uncertainly. His smirk died away, but as he spoke he didn’t break eye contact with Emma.

“Get her out of here,” he muttered, jerking his head at Alex. The officer hesitated, but when Quinlan didn’t move, she took Alex by the arm and guided her back to the door. Emma wanted more than anything to call after her friend, to ask her forgiveness, but she knew she couldn’t show weakness in front of Quinlan now.

“So what’s your story, then?” Quinlan asked finally, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Aren’t you going to turn on your little tape recorder for this part of the interview?” she snapped. He scowled, reaching down to turn on the machine. She leaned back in her seat. “I came here to meet Sutton at the end of the summer. But she was the one who stood me up in Sabino Canyon, or so I thought. I waited forever, but she never showed up. Madeline Vega and the Fiorello twins found me on the bench and thought I was Sutton. The message had warned me not to say who I was, so I played along. I kept thinking Sutton would show up any minute and clear everything up.” A lump formed in Emma’s throat as she thought back to the hopes she’d had that first night, of meeting Sutton, of finding family. Of finally fitting in somewhere. Tears stung her eyes, but she kept her chin high, refusing to break Quinlan’s gaze. “Then I got a note, one that said Sutton was dead and I had to play along. I still have the note—that, and the others the killer left. I stitched them inside a purple pillow on Sutton’s bed. You can check.”

Quinlan gave an impatient grunt. His eyes glittered darkly as he leaned across the table toward her. “Let me tell you what I think. I think you’ve been stalking your sister for a long time. I think you’ve been watching her on Facebook and on Twitter. Maybe you even took a little road trip here to Tucson to watch her. She had everything you wanted, everything you never had yourself—money, popularity, a nice house, a loving family. And you decided to take it. You came out here without luggage, without ID, because you knew you wouldn’t need it, because you planned to take over her life.” Emma shook her head violently, but he stabbed at the crime scene photos between them with his index finger. “You pushed your sister down that ravine. And then it was easy. All you had to do was step into her shoes. You waited one night, then headed to Nisha Banerjee’s party, calling yourself Sutton. Luckily for you, your twin was a notorious practical joker, so if anyone suspected anything off, they could chalk it up to some kind of prank. You even came in here pretending to be yourself, so that you could have some semblance of an alibi if you got caught. A smart move, trying to make the truth look like a lie. But not smart enough.”

“You’re wrong,” Emma said, slamming her hands on the table. She almost surprised herself with the force of her anger. As Emma Paxton she’d never talked back to an authority figure. She’d always been the get-along girl, the foster kid who didn’t make trouble, a chameleon who could turn into whatever kind of person the adults in her life needed her to be. Now, though, she was possessed of a righteous fury all her own. “While you’re busy harassing me, the real murderer is getting away with it. Don’t you see? Someone’s setting me up.”

Quinlan gave her a long, measured look. Then he squared his jaw.

“I’m not going to lie. Sutton Mercer was a pain in my ass.” His gravelly voice was almost deadly calm. Suddenly the room was so quiet she could hear the second hand on Quinlan’s watch ticking. “But she was just a kid. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. I can’t prove you killed her. Not yet, anyway. But I’m going to make it my mission to dog your steps until you slip up. Because you will, Emma. Criminals always do.”

“So can I go?” Emma asked, her voice shaking but clear.

Quinlan nodded. “Sure. We need both your BlackBerry and Sutton’s iPhone, though. And we’re impounding Sutton’s car for clues. Someone at the front desk can give you a ride wherever you’re heading tonight. I hope it goes without saying that you shouldn’t think about skipping town.”

Emma gave a jerky nod. “What about Alex? Are you going to charge her with anything?”

“We haven’t decided yet.” He shrugged. “That’ll depend on how well you cooperate with us. Tonight she’s probably going home to her mom. We’re not planning to charge her yet. But we’re keeping an eye on her.”

Another surge of guilt swept through Emma at the thought of Alex’s mom worrying, her face tight and anxious. She stood up and picked up her purse. From behind her, Quinlan’s voice came again, this time with a taunting edge.

“I believe this is the part of your prank where everyone jumps out and says ‘Gotcha,’ Miss Paxton.”

She turned to stare at him, and saw that he was smiling again. “The cat’s out of the bag. Everyone in town is about to find out about the lies you’ve been telling—and that includes the Mercers. This game you’ve been playing, it’s over.” He opened the door to the interrogation room and bowed her out into the hall.

I would have been almost touched by Quinlan’s determination to bring my killer to justice, if he hadn’t been acting like such a total moron. It was bad enough that I was dead. Now the cops were going to go after the wrong person on top of that.

Emma didn’t know how she’d made it to the front desk a few minutes later. All the fury had leached out of her, and her limbs felt like they were made of stone, so heavy and stiff she couldn’t believe she was able to move them at all. She stood in a fog while a receptionist with purple acrylic nails paged an officer to take her home. Finally, a tall cop with buzz-cut auburn hair seemed to appear out of nowhere. His name badge said CORCORAN. “Emma Paxton?”