Emma wasn’t supposed to be allowed out for Nisha’s tennis team dinner, but Coach Maggie had apparently called Mrs. Mercer at work this afternoon and urged her to let Sutton attend. It would be good for team morale, Maggie had said, assuring Mrs. Mercer she would be there and would keep an eye on Sutton. But now Mrs. Mercer was hesitating.

“You’ll watch her like a hawk, Laurel?” Mrs. Mercer asked.

“Yeh-hes,” Laurel groaned, fidgeting with the strap of her flowered camisole.

“And you two will come straight home after the dinner is over?”

“Absolutely,” the two girls said in unison.

Mrs. Mercer put a finger to her lips. “Well, it is Nisha.” She uttered Nisha’s name in the same reverent way she might talk about the Dalai Lama. Mrs. Mercer was convinced Nisha was a model girl with straight As and iron-tight morals who could do no wrong.

“Okay, fine.” With a sigh, Mrs. Mercer lowered her shoulders and shooed them out the door.

Emma climbed into Laurel’s car, and Laurel swung into the driver’s seat and whooped. “How does freedom taste?”

“Amazing!” Emma cried.

Laurel drove one-handed through the neighborhood, using her other hand to run a paddle brush through her long blond hair. Despite her messy room, Sutton’s sister was permanently polished: constantly reapplying lip gloss, checking her teeth in mirrors to make sure nothing was caught between them, and dragging out the ironing board from the hall closet and smoothing her skirts and shirts. Emma liked that Laurel took care of her own clothes instead of asking Mrs. Mercer or a dry cleaner to do it. She was resourceful, like Emma was. She could take care of herself.

But that didn’t mean Emma trusted her.

Emma shifted in the passenger seat and mentally assumed her sleuth mode. “So apparently, Madeline has a secret,” she began, turning to Laurel and catching sight of the canine day care, Doggie Dude Ranch, that zoomed past her window. A turquoise and crystal shop was next, followed by a big outdoor pottery shop.

Laurel’s eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t take her eyes off the road. “Oh yeah? What?”

“She won’t tell me. It has something to do with the night before Nisha’s back-to-school party.”

Laurel’s face clouded. “You mean the night before you ditched me?”

Emma bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. Oops. Sutton was supposed to pick up Laurel for that party . . . but since she was dead, it didn’t happen. “Yeah. Well, anyway, Mads called Charlotte that night and told her what it was. I guess it was kind of a big deal.”

“Why weren’t you with them?”

The AC in the car suddenly felt ice-cold. You tell me, Emma wanted to say. “I guess that means you weren’t with them either?”