Hide and Seek (22 page)

With shaking fingers, Emma unclipped the picture of the mother she hadn’t seen in thirteen years and looked at the note underneath it. Her eyes raced over the words, barely believing them.

Raven was…
Becky?
And Becky was the Mercers’…daughter? And Grandma Mercer was her and Sutton’s
great
-grandmother?

Yes
, I whispered.
Yes, it’s all so fucked up, but it’s true.

“Oh my God,” Emma whispered.
Becky.
She couldn’t believe it. Her own mother was related to the Mercers. And she had been here just moments before. Like she had been throughout Emma’s life, Becky was so close, and yet so far. A specter, a memory.

Emma looked at the letter once more. “That night in the canyon,” was the exact same phrase Mr. Mercer had used when he’d cornered her in the school parking lot. Suddenly a crack opened in her mind and pieces started falling into place. Thayer had seen Mr. Mercer with a woman…Becky. But he hadn’t been having an affair with her—he’d been meeting her because she was his
daughter.
And it sounded like Mr. Mercer and Becky had come clean to Sutton. Had she been so upset to learn the
truth that she’d run off, only to die shortly thereafter? Either way, it seemed she’d been wildly wrong about Mr. Mercer. Becky had called him a good man. Maybe his discomfort with Emma, his warning to play along, had been because of what he’d told Sutton.

He didn’t do it
, I tried to tell her.
I ran away from him. I ran away from the man who could have taken me home safely.

A small knock sounded on the Volvo’s window and Emma jumped. Sutton’s father loomed before her. His dark eyes blinked and his brow furrowed with a distinct combination of sadness, worry, and exhaustion.

Emma stuck the note in her clutch, then fumbled with the levers on the door. A clicking noise sounded as the window began to open. She was no longer afraid of him. She was just tired—and confused. “How did you know I’d be here?”

I studied the man I’d been raised to think of as my adoptive father, observing the contours of the face I knew so well. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to adjust to the idea that he was my biological grandfather, but as I stared hard, I began to see similarities between the two of us—well, counting Emma, the
three
of us. We had the same sloping nose. The same pointed chin. The same long, thin hands. How could I not have noticed this before?

Mr. Mercer lowered his head and rested his hands against the door of the Volvo. “She…Becky…called
me, saying you wanted to meet her at her motel. She wasn’t in the room, but this is her favorite diner.”

Emma nodded. “She left a matchbook in her room with a note that said ‘meet me.’”

Mr. Mercer shook his head. “She always did love scavenger hunts,” he said with a wistful smile.

Emma smiled, too. Becky used to make scavenger hunts for her around the courtyard of their apartment building, leaving a piece of birdseed on the table as a clue to look in the bird feeder in the corner, leaving a scrap of
TV Guide
in the bird feeder as a clue for Emma to look on top of the TV in the apartment, and so on.

“Was she in the diner?” Mr. Mercer asked, interrupting Emma’s thoughts.

Emma shook her head slowly. “No. She just left a note. And a photo.”

A gust of wind rustled his short hair, making it stand up straight. He glanced through the window of the diner before turning to look Emma in the eye. “Can I sit with you? Just for a minute?” he asked.

Emma nodded. She rolled up her window as Mr. Mercer crossed in front of the car and opened the passenger door.

Mr. Mercer let out a breath and stared at the glove compartment. His hands rested in his lap and he hung his head, making him look like a little boy. “I should have
had a real conversation with you after that night,” he said finally. “I shouldn’t have let you run away. Especially after Thayer had left you there all alone.” His eyes darkened at the mention of Thayer.

Emma nodded, saying nothing. His words confirmed what she’d suspected: that he’d explained the Becky situation the night Sutton died—and that Sutton had run off, angry and upset. And if Mr. Mercer thought Thayer had left her in the canyon, then it followed that he hadn’t hit him with Sutton’s car. It also actually explained why he hated Thayer so much: He thought Thayer had ditched his daughter in Sabino Canyon.

“But right after you ran off, I was called into surgery,” Mr. Mercer continued. “I hated leaving you there, but you were just so angry. I thought it would be easier to talk once you had some space. When I got back from the hospital that night, I started to write you a letter. Maybe if I explained things clearly, you’d understand why I didn’t tell you for so long.” He turned to face Emma. “It wasn’t because I was ashamed of you. It was because I wanted to protect you from your mother. I love you more than you can ever know. You are
my
daughter, and I’ve loved you ever since Becky left you at our house.”

Emma tilted her head, taking in his words. “You wrote a letter?”

Mr. Mercer shifted in the seat. “I didn’t finish it,
though. By the next day, you were acting like it had never happened, and I wasn’t sure what to do. But I
can
finish it—if you want. Or, if you feel more ready now, we can just talk.”

Emma’s mind whirred. If he had been called into surgery, he had a solid, easily verifiable alibi. There was no way he could have been out killing Sutton if he was in the OR. More than that, she had no idea why he
would
kill Sutton. He was her grandfather. The secret he was trying to keep was for
her
and
Becky’s
benefit, not his.

My relief at the knowledge that my father hadn’t killed me felt like fresh rain on my skin—cleansing, revitalizing, purifying. My dad was my dad again, someone I could love, someone I could wholeheartedly miss. It felt like my broken heart was healed. And Emma was right: It
didn’t
make sense that he would have killed me. I could tell in his face that he loved me more than words could say. I could also tell that this tension between us was killing him, that the only thing he wanted to do was end the stalemate and make things better.

But then I remembered the memory, and I felt the sharp sting of regret. The last words I said to the man I thought of as a father—my real
grand
father—had been full of hate. If only I could go back and change things. Change
everything
.

Mr. Mercer adjusted his legs in the footwell. “You
know, she really did care about you in her own flawed way,” he went on. “When I first heard from her again a few months ago, I was so thrilled. Kristin had had enough of the lies, but I never had the heart to turn Becky away. Dads and daughters…you know.” He ruffled her hair gently.

Emma nodded, wondering what it must have been like for them all those years ago when Becky showed up with a baby. She would’ve been right around Emma’s age. She wondered why Becky hadn’t told them about her, their other granddaughter—and why she’d only given up one of her daughters. Perhaps she thought she could be a good mom to just one girl. But, of course, by the time Emma was five, Becky had given up on motherhood entirely.

“I could never erase her completely,” Mr. Mercer went on. “But she’s troubled, Sutton. She always has been. I’ve been giving her money here and there, but it doesn’t solve the problem. It only makes it worse.”

A mist covered his eyes and he blinked, looking close to tears. “I always felt so guilty. Like it must have been something your mother and I did wrong as parents.” His broad shoulders slumped as though the weight of his sadness was too much to bear. “The whole situation has felt…impossible.” His voice sounded suddenly panicked. “I love Becky. But she’s made our lives very painful at times. And the way she treated you…”

Fresh tears sprung to Emma’s eyes. She knew full well how messed up Becky was—she’d lived with her for almost five years. And yet she still missed her, every day. She was her
mother
after all, and that was a hard bond to break.

Emma raised her eyes to Mr. Mercer, her grandfather, fingering the letter from Becky in her open purse. If she could only tell him the final piece in the puzzle: that he had another granddaughter, Sutton’s twin. But until Sutton’s murderer was found, she couldn’t. She’d be the prime suspect, the poor girl who’d stolen her twin’s life to get out of foster care. Once again, she was back to square one.

But not entirely. The moon emerged from a patch of clouds and hovered in the middle of the windshield. She stared up at the same sky she and her twin had shared for so many years without knowing it, the sky Emma had gazed up into and wished for a family. She had lost Sutton and Becky, but she had found her family—her
real
family. A grandmother and grandfather. A great-grandmother. And an
aunt
in Laurel.

She leaned toward her grandfather and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He let out a long sigh against her, squeezing tight. The car made a metallic pinging noise beneath their shifting weight.

“Will you tell me a little about her?” Emma asked into Mr. Mercer’s chest. “About my mom?” There was so much
about Becky she didn’t know, so many details she craved, so many questions that had plagued her for thirteen years. “Like what she was like as a kid?” Emma asked. “How I remind you of her?” Her voice was so choked with sobs she could barely speak.

As Mr. Mercer pulled her closer, Emma could feel tears on his cheeks, too. “Of course,” he said, running his hands over Emma’s hair. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

The following day, Emma sat at an outdoor café in a shopping complex a few blocks from the Mercers’ house, Sutton’s laptop beside her. Twitter was open, and she slowly scrolled through tweets hash-tagged
#HOLLIERSECRETDANCE
. If the tweets were any indication, the dance was a complete success—everyone was raving about the music, the food, the hookups, and even the narrow escape from the police. Only a few people had been caught that night. The cops had ended up letting everyone go, and so far no one had told that the Lying Game had organized it. Emma and her friends were safe for now.

I hoped they would stay that way.

“Sutton?” Mr. Mercer’s voice jolted Emma. She glanced up from the computer and saw him walking toward her from the Home Depot across the parking lot, a new shovel in his hand.

“Hey, Dad,” she said, relaxing her shoulders. She’d called the hospital last night and confirmed that he was in surgery the evening Sutton died. It felt good to not fear his presence but to welcome it with open arms.

Tell
me about it.

Mr. Mercer stood next to the table. He passed a hand over his graying hair. “Your mom said you were here. I have to do some weeding, but I was thinking, if you weren’t busy, maybe we could take a hike later. Explore a different canyon. One we haven’t tried before.”

Emma couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face. That sounded like code for talking more about Becky. They’d had a long conversation last night, and Emma had learned so much about Becky. Like how she watched
Cinderella
five times in a row when she was young, loving how the fairy godmother made her into a princess. How she liked peach ice cream, Emma’s favorite flavor, too. That she adored school until about eighth grade, when she got kind of wild, and that she ran away from home in high school…and came back pregnant.

But there were so many more questions to ask, a lot of things Emma hadn’t dared to inquire about yet. Like why
Mr. Mercer’s expression clouded over when Emma tried to talk to him about the trouble Becky used to get into. Or why Mrs. Mercer didn’t want anything to do with her anymore. Becky was her
daughter
—could she really be that callous? Or had Becky done something so horrible to her that Mrs. Mercer simply couldn’t forgive her?

“I’d like that,” Emma answered. She was about to suggest a Catalina trail Madeline had told her about, when a blue BMW pulled off the main road into the lot. Emma turned to watch Thayer’s car park in front of the café.

Mr. Mercer’s eyes narrowed. When Thayer saw him, he blanched, and Emma thought he might back up and leave. But then he shifted into park and turned off the engine. The driver’s door swung open, and he climbed out of the car and walked toward Emma.

Mr. Mercer stared at him. “I thought I told you to stay away from him, Sutton.” He tightened his grip on the five-foot-long shovel. It was the kind of thing that would’ve freaked Emma out just a day ago, but now that she knew the truth, it struck her as kind of funny: her grandfather, clutching a shovel and yelling at some guy he thought was trouble.

Emma pressed her hand on his arm. “It’s okay,” she said gently. “I invited him. He’s cool—I promise. And just so you know, he didn’t leave me in the canyon that night. He got hurt and had to go to the hospital. I
made
him leave.”

Mr. Mercer shot a suspicious look at Thayer. “Okay. But I’m keeping an eye on you, understand?” he said, pointing the shovel at him before heading to his SUV, which was parked a few stores over.

Thayer looked shaken as he sat down next to Emma. “I’m not sure this is a good idea. I’ve actually been thinking of going to the police about what happened to me in the canyon.” He kept his eyes on a twenty-something hipster with a fedora entering the café, as if nervous to see Emma’s reaction.

“That’s why I asked you to meet,” Emma said urgently. “My dad isn’t the one who hit you that night. It was someone else.”

Thayer’s head snapped up and he gazed into her eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. Actually, I found out something crazy.” Emma took a long sip of her iced tea. “My dad is my biological
grand
father. The woman he was with that night? It was my birth mom. His
daughter
.”

Thayer’s eyes widened. For a second he looked like he couldn’t quite believe it. Or maybe he worried that it was yet another prank.

“I’m serious,” Emma urged. “They were meeting and we surprised them.”

Thayer looked astonished. “You mean your birth mother has been in town and has never tried to see you?”

Hurt tears stung Emma’s eyes. She’d imagined Becky walking back into her life so many times, finding her and scooping her up in her arms and telling her everything was going to be okay. But then she thought of the note Becky had left at the diner. She wanted nothing to do with her children—she hadn’t stayed at the diner. She had “nothing to give.”

“She just left me and never came back,” Emma blurted out, thinking of the horrible day when Becky abandoned her at a neighbor’s house. “And she
still
doesn’t want to see me.” A tear spilled down her cheek.

Thayer leaned over and put his arms around her. “Oh, Sutton.”

“It’s okay,” she said, swiping away the tears that wet her cheeks.

“Does Laurel know about all this?” he asked softly.

Emma shook her head. “No. And my mom doesn’t know what happened either.” Her stomach suddenly jumped. “You can’t tell Laurel. You have to promise me.”

“Sutton,” he said in a low voice. “You know you can trust me.” He stared hard at Emma. “But what does that mean? Who hit me with your car?”

“I don’t know,” Emma murmured. “Are you positive it was a guy you saw behind the wheel?”

Thayer squinted, thinking. “I guess I’m not really sure,” he said slowly. “I just assumed it was your dad since
he’d been running after us. It all happened so fast. I think the person had dark hair, but I never actually saw a face.”

A shiver shot through Emma. Was it just a car thief…or someone connected to this case?

Just then a car backfired loudly, and Emma’s head snapped up. A rusted, brown car rolled slowly into the complex. It kept starting and stopping in front of each store. Thayer frowned and hitched forward. “Is that person looking for something?”

Emma leaned forward, too, as the car made its way toward the café. Someone was staring over the dashboard at them. Her mouth was drawn tight, her eyes were wide, and there was an eerie expression her face. It was menacing and threatening, wild and angry. Then Emma took in the eyes, that familiar nose, and high cheekbones.

“Oh my God,” Emma and I whispered in unison.

It was Becky.