The door swung open easily, and Emma scuttled inside. The AC was on full blast, and goose bumps warped her damp skin. The glass panes over the family portraits glimmered in the pale streetlight. Detective Quinlan’s card sat on the console table by the door, just where Sutton’s mother had left it that afternoon. Emma cupped her palm over her wrist and remembered what it had felt like when Ethan rested his fingers there. She shut her eyes and leaned her head against the wall.

What was wrong with her? I wanted to ask. Why hadn’t she kissed him?

Creak. Emma froze. Was that a footstep?

Creak. Creeaaaak. A shadow appeared at the end of the hall. Feet tapped the floor, getting louder and louder, until Laurel stepped into the light. Emma jumped back and suppressed a scream.

“Whoa!” Laurel held up her hands. “Someone’s jumpy!” She stared closer at Emma. “Why are you all wet?”

Emma glanced down at the soggy camisole clinging to her skin. “I just took a shower,” she said.

“In your clothes?”

Emma walked into the powder room and dried her face with a sea-green hand towel. When she glanced at her reflection, she saw Laurel watching her in the mirror. Had Laurel seen her and Ethan in the pool? Had she heard their conversation? Was she the one who’d turned the headlights on them?

It seemed possible. From the flashes I’d seen of my past, Laurel was a hanger-on, a snoop, a spy. I didn’t know why we’d let her into the Lying Game, but I knew I hadn’t supported it. I think, deep down, I was jealous. Laurel was my parents’ real daughter, clearly loved more than me. I didn’t want my friends to love her more, too.

Laurel padded into the powder room and sat down on the closed toilet seat. “So when were you going to tell me?”

“About what?” Emma pretended to be fascinated with the mini soaps lined up on the edge of the sink.

“About who you’ve been seeing. About who you were talking to outside just now.”

Nerves snapped under Emma’s skin. So Laurel had seen. And if Laurel had killed Sutton, if Laurel knew Emma was with Ethan, Emma might have just risked Ethan’s life, too. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice trembled slightly.

“Come on,” Laurel snapped. “You were with someone named Alex, weren’t you?”

Alex? Emma let the towel go slack in her hands, racking her brain for someone named Alex at Hollier. The only Alex she knew was her friend from Henderson. . . .

“I saw that text on your phone in Ceramics,” Laurel said, crossing her arms and staring at Emma’s face in the mirror. “Someone named Alex wrote to you. He said he was thinking of you.” Her eyes sparkled. “Was this the guy you vanished with at your party, too?”