Emma’s mind drifted back to her brief encounter at the police station. The cops had written her off so fast when she tried to explain who she was, not believing for a second she could’ve been anyone other than Sutton. Then again, Sutton had a long track record—the cop on duty, Detective Quinlan, had brought out an enormous manila file packed with Sutton’s past misdeeds. It probably contained countless Lying Game pranks.

Emma straightened up, a thought striking her hard. What if the file contained something about the train prank? Madeline had said something about the cops showing up. At the back of the store, Samantha glanced at Emma out of the corner of her eye.

Ethan touched Emma’s shoulder. “I don’t like that look on your face,” he said. “What are you thinking?”

“You’ll see.” Emma casually picked up a teal Tori Burch clutch from the table. When she was sure Samantha was watching, she shoved it up her shirt. The leather was soft on her bare skin.

“What the hell?” Ethan made a frantic slashing motion across his throat. “Are you nuts?”

Emma ignored him.

Her pulse quickened. This felt so foreign, so wrong. Becky used to steal from convenience stores all the time—swiping a candy bar here, slipping a pack of gum into Emma’s pocket there, once even walking out with several two-liter bottles of Coke stuffed up her shirt like two freaky boobs. Emma had lived in fear that the cops would haul both of them off to jail—or, worse, take her mother away from her. But in the end, it hadn’t been the police who’d taken Becky away. Becky abandoned her daughter of her own volition.

“Stop right there!”

Emma froze, her hand on the doorknob. Samantha spun her around. Her eyebrows made a perfect V. “Nice try. Give it back.”

Sighing, she removed her hand from her midriff and shook out her shirt. The clutch clunked to the ground, the gold chain clanging on the tiled floor. A half-dressed girl poked her head out of the fitting room and gasped.

Samantha scooped up the clutch with a smug grin and pulled a BlackBerry from the pocket of her skintight jeans. She placed the call on speaker.

“Wait.” Ethan scuttled around a wine-colored velvet sofa. “This was a misunderstanding. I can explain.”

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” a voice squawked on the other line.

Samantha’s eyes narrowed on Emma. “I’d like to report a robbery in progress.”

Emma shoved her shaking hands in her pockets and tried to keep the saucy, entitled, I’m-Sutton-Mercer-and-I’m-thrilled-to-be-hauled-off-to-jail smirk glued to her lips.

In a way, it wasn’t hard—going to the police station was exactly what she’d wanted.

Chapter 6 - A Criminal History

Chapter 6
A Criminal History