Sara Shepard: Seven Minutes in Heaven

I screamed with her, wishing the whole city could hear my cries. I had already died at Ethan’s hands, and now the same thing was going to happen to my twin while I watched, helpless.

Ethan clapped his hand over Emma’s mouth, his pupils wide and dark. “I thought you were different,” he hissed. “But you’re just like your sister. Another lying bitch.”

Emma bit down on his hand, hard. The metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth. Ethan swore and pulled his hand away, and she screamed again.

“You’re a monster!” she shrieked, her voice ricocheting off the canyon walls. “You think I’d go anywhere with you after what you did to Sutton?”

He gave a wordless roar, his muscles tightening as he shoved her hard to the ground. This time he pulled a bandana out of his pocket, wadding it up and shoving it so far in her mouth she gagged. And then the knife was suddenly at her throat.

Emma stared up at him, tears coursing down her cheeks as he opened a thin, shallow cut on her neck. A white-hot fury coursed through me at the sight, so pure and strong I felt like I could rip straight through the veil between life and death.

And then, somehow, I was Emma. Or I was a part of her—not possessing her, exactly, but somehow joining my soul to hers for a moment, lending her the strength of my anger. With a sudden motion, her right leg broke free from below his, and we brought her knee to his groin with all of our combined might.

He groaned, his grip on her wrists slackening for just as long as it took her to roll out from under him. Then she was on her feet. She gasped for breath, and for one split second she thought she saw something impossible.

Her sister—shimmering and translucent in the moonlight—was next to her, standing fiercely over Ethan with her fists balled up. And then, just as quickly, she was gone.

Ethan was already on his feet again. His face was twisted beyond all recognition, a mask of hatred so utterly different from the boy she’d fallen in love with. She staggered away from him, pivoting on her heel to run—but lost her balance and sprawled forward.

Ethan towered over her, the knife in his hand. A single drop of her own blood clung to the blade. “You Mercer girls are all the same,” he said and lunged toward her, the knife flashing before him.

For a split second, time froze. Emma saw her own reflection, pale and frozen, in the blade.

But then a low snarl sounded from somewhere behind Ethan, and suddenly he was flying headfirst into the dirt. Thayer fell on top of him, clinching his arms behind his back.

From far below, the sound of sirens echoed up through the mountain pass. Thayer twisted Ethan’s wrist until the knife fell out and clattered into the dust. Ethan struggled, spitting blood and dirt out of his mouth.

Laurel stepped out from behind them, her arms crossed over her chest. “You’re right. We Mercer girls are all alike,” she said, her voice cold. “We’re bitches you don’t want to mess with.”

“Please, tell me again what happened after you hung up with Miss Paxton.” Detective Quinlan handed Laurel, Emma, and Thayer each a cup of hot chocolate, his eyes bright over the deep lines of exhaustion carved underneath. It was after midnight, but the arresting officer had called Quinlan at home. He’d arrived at the station still buttoning his shirt, his hair disheveled but his expression alert and edgy.

“I called Thayer,” Laurel said. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold. She darted a furtive glance at Emma, then turned back to Quinlan. “He picked me up, and we went to Dr. Banerjee’s house, though I didn’t see Ethan’s car anywhere. We looked in all the windows and couldn’t see anyone inside.”

The three of them were sitting on a vinyl couch in a room that was clearly meant for children. Cartoon tigers and monkeys grinned from the jungle-themed wallpaper. A dairy crate of broken toys sat on the floor next to a rug decorated with a hopscotch pattern. Emma stared blankly at a wooden labyrinth game atop of a stack of Highlights magazines. Her eyes traced the lines of the puzzle, her thoughts as lost and wandering as if she were in a real maze.

So far, Quinlan had let Laurel and Thayer do most of the talking, and she was grateful. She tried to take a sip of the hot chocolate, but her hand was shaking, so she carefully set it down. Her body ached to the bone. Images shot randomly through her mind, unbidden and startling. The glint of the knife in Ethan’s hand. Sutton’s decomposed body, her empty eye sockets staring out at the sky. Ethan’s face leaning toward her for a kiss, his eyes heavy-lidded. Ethan’s fingers laced through her own. She shuddered at each one. Everything she’d known, everything she’d believed had been a lie—and now there was nothing left for her to hold on to.

“How did you know they’d gone to the canyon?” Quinlan asked, rubbing the stubble on his jaw.

Laurel stared down into her hot chocolate. “It was a hunch. We thought he might take her back to the same place he’d killed Sutton. We knew we were right when we saw his car near the entrance. So we called the cops and followed them.”

Quinlan’s mustache twitched. “After the 911 operator told you not to give chase.”

“We weren’t just going to sit there and do nothing,” Thayer broke in angrily. “We didn’t know how long it would take the cops to get there.”

“And it’s a good thing we did follow,” Laurel added sharply. “He was about to kill her.”

Emma looked up at the detective then. His normally hard gray eyes had softened, and they came to rest on her. She swallowed. “They’re right. Ethan would have killed me if they weren’t there to stop him.” The EMTs had bandaged the cut he’d made at her throat—it had scarcely scratched the surface, but now it seemed to throb with her heartbeat.

She reached for her cup again and took another sip of the hot chocolate. It was the cheap, just-add-water kind, but it was soothing and sweet. The knots in her stomach loosened a little from its warmth. Thayer and Laurel sat protectively on either side of her. Laurel’s leg was touching Emma’s, and Thayer’s hand rested between her shoulders, warm and gentle. She didn’t feel safe, exactly—she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel safe again. But they had rescued her and hadn’t left her side since. Through the swirling, heartbreaking confusion of shock and grief, a sense of gratitude filled her. She’d lost so much. But she hadn’t lost them.

I focused on Thayer. He was pale and tired, the vulnerable expression in his eyes contrasting with the fierce set of his jaw. That was what I had always loved about him—how strong he was, and how deeply he felt.

Quinlan clasped his hands around one knee, jogging his loafer up and down. “I owe you an apology, Miss Paxton. You and Sutton both.” He sighed, opening a bristling file folder. “We’ve actually been interested in Ethan for a little while now. I’ve been going over the parking-lot surveillance photos from the last few months, and he shows up in dozens of them. He’s out there all the time. It seemed like . . .”

“Too much of a coincidence,” Emma said miserably. He nodded.

“Detectives don’t believe in coincidences,” he said. “So we started to look into him. At first I thought he was your accomplice. That you guys had hatched this plan together, maybe, or that he’d fallen for you and you’d roped him into it. But this morning we found out he had a sealed record. We put in a subpoena to open it, but it didn’t get finalized until tonight, after we’d already taken him into custody.”