In the rearview mirror she could see the entrance to the school. Principal Ambrose still stood there, staring daggers at her. Most of the students started streaming toward the door now that the show was over. The clock on the dash read 7:58. The bell was about to ring.

Suddenly, Emma picked one face out of the crowd as if a spotlight shone over him. Garrett stood alone in the shadow of a ten-foot saguaro cactus growing in the desert-scaped bed separating the school from the parking lot.

His eyes were honed onto my sister like a laser beam. He stared at her for a long moment, his face motionless.

I stared at him right back, wishing I could unleash the full force of my anger on him. I might have been taken in by those eyes when I was alive, but now that I was dead I knew the truth: They were the windows to a soul that was as dead and rotten as my body.

23 - A Walk in the Park

23

A WALK IN THE PARK

Emma started Ethan’s car, fumbling with the clutch so it rabbit-hopped a few feet before snapping into gear. She swerved toward the exit, narrowly missing a pudgy girl with a backpack shaped like a panda. A few feet away, Tricia Melendez stood close to her cameraman. Emma gritted her teeth. Without looking into the oncoming lane she hit the gas pedal hard, peeling out into the road just as the reporter started rushing toward the car. As the car roared away from the crowd, she could hear Tricia yelling: “Emma! Emma! Emma, what do you plan to do next?”

She’d never hated the sound of her own name so much.

Her eyes blurred with tears as she entered a neighborhood lined with pastel bungalows. In one yard a terrier ran alongside the chain-link fence, barking as she passed. A tottering old man with a pair of shears in one hand glared at her suspiciously from another.

Her heart sank as she glanced in her rearview mirror. A navy blue BMW was tailing her closely. She recognized it immediately—it was Thayer’s car. He honked lightly on the horn, signaling her to pull over. Her heart picked up speed. If Madeline and Charlotte were pissed, he’d be livid.

Still, Emma took a deep breath, then pulled over. The guilt of hiding Sutton’s death from him had been eating her alive. He deserved the truth, and a part of her believed she deserved what she was about to get.

She rolled down the window. Thayer held Emma’s gaze for a long moment before speaking.

“I knew there was something weird about you,” he said finally. “I knew it.”

Emma swallowed hard. Her pulse throbbed in her ear. “I tried to tell everyone at first. But no one would listen.” She winced, bracing herself for the onslaught of accusations.

But Thayer just nodded, eerily calm. “I know. Laurel told me.”