Sara Shepard - Seven Minutes in Heaven

Emma stood frozen, watching them go, until she realized that the entire parking lot full of students was staring at her. With a nervous glance around, she quickly let herself into Ethan’s car and locked the doors.

In the rearview mirror she could see the entrance to the school. Principal Ambrose still stood there, staring daggers at her. Most of the students started streaming toward the door now that the show was over. The clock on the dash read 7:58. The bell was about to ring.

Suddenly, Emma picked one face out of the crowd as if a spotlight shone over him. Garrett stood alone in the shadow of a ten-foot saguaro cactus growing in the desert-scaped bed separating the school from the parking lot.

His eyes were honed onto my sister like a laser beam. He stared at her for a long moment, his face motionless.

I stared at him right back, wishing I could unleash the full force of my anger on him. I might have been taken in by those eyes when I was alive, but now that I was dead I knew the truth: They were the windows to a soul that was as dead and rotten as my body.

Emma started Ethan’s car, fumbling with the clutch so it rabbit-hopped a few feet before snapping into gear. She swerved toward the exit, narrowly missing a pudgy girl with a backpack shaped like a panda. A few feet away, Tricia Melendez stood close to her cameraman. Emma gritted her teeth. Without looking into the oncoming lane she hit the gas pedal hard, peeling out into the road just as the reporter started rushing toward the car. As the car roared away from the crowd, she could hear Tricia yelling: “Emma! Emma! Emma, what do you plan to do next?”

She’d never hated the sound of her own name so much.

Her eyes blurred with tears as she entered a neighborhood lined with pastel bungalows. In one yard a terrier ran alongside the chain-link fence, barking as she passed. A tottering old man with a pair of shears in one hand glared at her suspiciously from another.

Her heart sank as she glanced in her rearview mirror. A navy blue BMW was tailing her closely. She recognized it immediately—it was Thayer’s car. He honked lightly on the horn, signaling her to pull over. Her heart picked up speed. If Madeline and Charlotte were pissed, he’d be livid.

Still, Emma took a deep breath, then pulled over. The guilt of hiding Sutton’s death from him had been eating her alive. He deserved the truth, and a part of her believed she deserved what she was about to get.

She rolled down the window. Thayer held Emma’s gaze for a long moment before speaking.

“I knew there was something weird about you,” he said finally. “I knew it.”

Emma swallowed hard. Her pulse throbbed in her ear. “I tried to tell everyone at first. But no one would listen.” She winced, bracing herself for the onslaught of accusations.

But Thayer just nodded, eerily calm. “I know. Laurel told me.”

With a sigh of relief, Emma got out of the car and followed Thayer to an empty playground around the corner. A rusted merry-go-round pivoted slowly in the breeze. The jungle gym was shaped like a giant red spider, its long metal legs covered in footholds for climbing. Emma sat down on one of the swings, empty of energy, drifting listlessly back and forth. Thayer slouched against one of the swing set’s support poles, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You acted too nice,” Thayer said.

Emma glanced up at him, frowning. “What?”

“That’s what Laurel said: You were too nice to be Sutton. You didn’t do a very good job playing her.” Thayer shrugged. “Well, I guess you did a fine job. Everyone bought it. Then again, it would have been crazy not to. I mean, I thought I was going crazy.”

“Thayer, I’m so, so sorry—” Emma started, but Thayer cut her off.

“Save it,” he said curtly. His eyes narrowed on Emma. “Just tell me—did you kill Sutton?”

“No.” Emma looked down, shaking her head. Even though the whole world thought she’d done it, it somehow hurt more that Thayer thought she could have hurt her own sister. “I’ve been trying all this time to figure out who did.” She glanced at Thayer, who was staring off across the street. “Ask Laurel—my first morning here, there was a note for me on her car. She thought it was a love note. But it was a threat from the killer. It said that if I didn’t keep pretending to be Sutton, I would be next. It’s in Sutton’s room, if the cops haven’t taken it.” A cloud drifted over the sun, and the colors of the world dimmed like someone was turning down a knob. “I’ve gotten three notes since I got here. I told Quinlan about them. There’s a purple pillow with a ripped seam in Sutton’s room—I hid them all inside it and stitched it back up. Ask Laurel if the police came for it yet.” Emma looked down at her lap. “And it wasn’t just me he threatened. He said he’d hurt the rest of you if I didn’t do what he said. You. Laurel. Laurel’s parents. Everyone.”

Thayer gripped the pole. “So some maniac has been watching you for months, making sure you kept fooling everyone into thinking you were Sutton?” There was an unavoidable note of skepticism in his voice.

“Look, I know it sounds crazy. It is crazy. But yes. Sutton’s murderer has been watching every move I make.” Emma paused. “My first week here, someone strangled me with Sutton’s locket during a sleepover at Charlotte’s, warning me to keep up the act. Then that light almost fell on me at homecoming court rehearsal, with another warning note. And . . .” Her voice grew small, but she kept going. “And I think whoever killed Sutton killed Nisha, too. I’m almost certain that Nisha learned something about Sutton’s death that night, and she died because of it.”

Thayer’s face went pale, but he didn’t flinch. He stared at Emma with steady green eyes. “I guess that explains why you asked me so many weird questions when I was in jail. You thought I did it for a while, didn’t you?”

Emma hesitated, then nodded. “I know now you’re not capable of anything like that. But when I first got here I didn’t know anything about anyone. Everyone was a suspect. You, Mads, Charlotte, Gabby, and Lili.” She paused. “Even Laurel.”

Emma fell silent, shivering in the morning breeze. For a few minutes the only sounds were the birds twittering in the low canopy of trees. A college-aged nanny wearing a jumper and tights pushed a stroller down the street. She started to enter the playground but seemed to change her mind when she saw two teenagers hanging out there during school hours. Emma swayed gently on the swing, the chains creaking overhead.

“Well?” Thayer asked after a moment’s silence. “Who are your suspects now? Do you have any clues?”

Emma picked at one of her cuticles, her mind racing. Thayer might have information she needed, something that could help her defeat Garrett before he managed to frame her. Then this nightmare could be over.

But she thought of the notes she’d gotten, the warnings. She’d been one step behind Garrett ever since she arrived in Tucson. Ethan was already in danger just for helping her. She didn’t want to risk any more lives.

“No,” she lied. “And anyway, I don’t want you involved. It’s too dangerous.”

Thayer stepped forward quickly, to stand directly in front of Emma. “I’m not stupid. I know you have a suspect.” He lowered his voice. “You think it’s Garrett, don’t you? That’s why you were asking me all those questions about him the other day.”