“We’d like it if you’d come stay with us. At least for the time being,” Mrs. Mercer said. “I know you’re eighteen, and maybe after all this you’re ready to move on. But we’d like a chance to get to know you, Emma. As yourself.”

Emma opened her mouth to reply, but words refused to form. She glanced at Mr. Mercer, and he nodded encouragingly. Quinlan sat quietly in an armchair, as poker-faced as ever, but she thought she could see a twinge of sympathy in the corner of his mouth.

“Of course she’s coming to stay with us,” Laurel said briskly. “I didn’t just save her ass in the middle of the woods so she could run off again.” She looked steadily at Emma.

Emma stared around the room at her family, all of them waiting for her answer. They may not have forgiven her yet—but they wanted to try. And if they could do it, maybe she could forgive herself.

“I’d like that,” she said, smiling through her tears.

I sat in their midst, surrounded by my family again. And I could feel their love for me, even across the divide between the living and the dead.

33 - Home

33

HOME

“There’s been yet another twist in the sensational case of the Tucson Twin Murderer,” Tricia Melendez’s voice reported from Sutton’s laptop. “On Wednesday night, eighteen-year-old Ethan Landry was arrested for kidnapping, assault, and attempted murder. The victim? Emma Paxton, Sutton Mercer’s twin sister, and, until Wednesday, the chief suspect in Sutton’s murder.”

Emma lay curled on Sutton’s bed Saturday morning, staring dully at the screen. She’d propped the computer on Sutton’s nightstand, where she could see it from the nest of pillows. She’d been watching since she’d woken up, clicking through different blogs and news agencies to hear twenty different versions of the same event—the fact that Emma Paxton had been cleared of all charges, and that Ethan Landry had allegedly killed Nisha Banerjee and Sutton Mercer.

In just a few minutes she’d have to move. She’d have to get up, even though her body felt like it was made of lead, and go downstairs to join the Mercers. That afternoon, Sutton would finally be buried—and finally be at peace.

Would I? I’d been imagining my funeral for months, but now that it was here, I wasn’t so sure. Would this last good-bye from my friends and family finally lay me to rest? Or would I linger in Emma’s shadow for the rest of her life, voiceless and powerless and utterly alone?