Never Have I Ever: A Lying Game Novel. Sara Shepard

the back of a spoon. “What do you think, Sutton? Did we properly usher you into adulthood?”

      “Like she’d know.” Madeline nudged Emma. “You weren’t even there half the time.”

      Emma swallowed. She still wasn’t used to the taunting banter between Sutton’s friends, the kind that grew out of years of friendship. Just sixteen and a half days ago, she’d been living as a foster child in Las Vegas, suffering silently with Travis, her vile foster brother, and Clarice, her celeb-obsessed foster mom. But then she discovered an online strangulation video of a girl who looked exactly like her, down to the oval shape of her face, high cheekbones, and blue-green eyes that changed colors depending on the light. After contacting Sutton, the mystery doppelganger, and discovering that they were long-lost identical twins, Emma took a road trip to Tucson, giddy and excited to meet her.

      Fast-forward to the very next day when Emma learned that Sutton had been murdered—and that Emma would be next unless she took Sutton’s place. Even though she felt anxious about living a lie, even though her skin prickled every time someone called her “Sutton,” Emma didn’t see any other option. But it didn’t mean she was going to sit silently by and let her sister’s body languish somewhere. She had to find out who killed Sutton—no matter what. Not only was it justice for her twin, but it was the only way for Emma to get her own life back and stand a chance of keeping her new family.

      The waitress returned with four glasses of tomato juice, and as soon as her back was turned, Madeline unscrewed the cap of the stainless-steel flask and dumped clear liquid into each cup. Emma ran her tongue over her teeth, her journalism-obsessed mind producing a headline: Underage Girls Caught Boozing at Local Country Club. Sutton’s friends … well, they lived on the edge. In more ways than one.

      “Well, Sutton?” Madeline slid a glass of spiked tomato juice toward Emma. “Are you going to explain why you bailed on your own birthday party?”

      Charlotte leaned in. “Or if you told us, would you have to kill us?”

      Emma flinched at the word kill. Madeline, Charlotte, and Laurel were her number-one suspects in Sutton’s murder. Someone had tried to strangle Emma with Sutton’s locket during a sleepover at Charlotte’s house last week, and whoever had done it was either capable of hacking the house’s many alarms … or already inside. And last night, at Sutton’s birthday party, Emma had discovered that her friends were behind Sutton’s strangulation video. It was only a prank; Sutton’s friends were part of a secret club called the Lying Game that prided itself on scaring the crap out of its members and the other kids at school. But what if Sutton’s friends had meant to take things much, much further? They’d been interrupted by Ethan Landry, Emma’s only real friend in Tucson, but maybe they’d finished Sutton off later.

      To calm her nerves, Emma took a long sip of spiked tomato juice and summoned her inner Sutton, a girl she’d learned was snarky and sassy and didn’t take shit from anyone. “Aww. Did you miss me? Or were you nervous that someone dragged me away and left me for dead in the desert?” She glanced at the three faces staring back at her, trying to detect anything that looked like an admission of guilt. Madeline picked at her chipped peach nail polish. Charlotte coolly sipped her Bloody Mary. Laurel gazed out at the golf course as if she’d just spotted someone she recognized.

      Then Sutton’s iPhone chimed. Emma pulled it out of her bag and checked the screen. She had a text from Ethan. HOW ARE YOU AFTER LAST NIGHT? LET ME KNOW IF YOU NEED ANYTHING.

      Emma shut her eyes and pictured Ethan’s face, his raven hair and lake-blue eyes, and the way he’d looked at her, a way no boy had ever looked at her before. Her body flooded with desire and relief.

      “Who’s that from?” Charlotte leaned over the table, nearly impaling her boobs on the cactus arrangement. Emma covered the screen with her hand.

      “You’re blushing!” Laurel pointed a finger at Emma. “Is it a new boyfriend? Is that why you ran out on Garrett last night?”

      “It’s just Mom.” Emma quickly deleted the text. Sutton’s friends wouldn’t understand why she’d left her birthday bash with Ethan, a mysterious boy who was more interested in stargazing than popularity. But Ethan was the sanest person Emma had met in Tucson so far—and the only person who knew who she really was and why she was here.

      “So what exactly happened with Garrett?” Charlotte pursed her glossy, blackberry-tinted lips. From what Emma had gleaned in the past two weeks, Charlotte was the bossiest of their four-girl clique—and also the most insecure about her looks. She wore way too much makeup and talked too loudly, as though no one would listen to what she had to say otherwise.

      Emma jabbed the ice at the bottom of her Bloody Mary with her straw. Garrett. Right. Garrett Austin was Sutton’s boyfriend—or, more accurately, ex-boyfriend. Last night, his birthday gift to Sutton had been his naked, willing body and a pack of Trojans.

      It had been painful to see the shattered look on my boyfriend’s face when Emma rejected him. I could only guess at what our time together had been like, but I knew our relationship hadn’t been a joke. Although now he probably thought that’s what it had been to me.

      Laurel’s crystal-clear blue eyes narrowed as she took a sip of her drink. “Why did you run out on him? Does he look freaky naked? Does he have a third nipple?”

      Emma shook her head. “None of that. It’s my deal, not his.”

      Madeline pulled the wrapper off her straw and blew it in Emma’s direction. “Well, you’d better find a rebound. Homecoming’s in two weeks, and you need to snag a date before all the decent guys are spoken for.”

      Charlotte snorted. “As if that’s ever stopped her?”

      Emma flinched. Sutton had stolen Garrett from Charlotte last year.

      It didn’t make me the nicest friend, I admit. And from the doodles of Garrett’s name on Charlotte’s notebook and the pictures of him hidden under her bed, she was clearly still pining for him—which gave her a pretty solid reason to want me dead.

      A shadow fell over the round table. A man with slicked-back hair and hazel eyes stood above Emma and the others. His blue polo was starched to a crisp and his khakis were perfectly pressed.

      “Daddy!” Madeline exclaimed in a shaky voice, her controlled, cool-girl disposition instantly melting away. “I-I didn’t know you were going to be here today!”

      Mr. Vega gazed at their half-drunk glasses on the table. His nostrils twitched, as if he could smell the alcohol. The smile remained on his face, but it had a false edge that made Emma uneasy. He reminded her of Cliff, the foster father who sold used cars in a dusty lot near the Utah border and could swing from volatile dad to smarmy, ass-kissing salesman in four seconds flat.

      Mr. Vega was silent a moment longer. Then he leaned forward and squeezed the top of Madeline’s bare arm. She flinched slightly.

      “Order anything you want, girls,” he said in a low voice. “It’s on me.” He turned with military precision and started toward the brick-arched doorway to the golf course.

      “Thanks, Daddy!” Madeline called after him, her voice trembling just slightly.

      “That’s sweet,” Charlotte murmured hesitantly after he left, glancing sideways at Madeline.

      “Yeah.” Laurel traced her pointer finger around the scalloped edge of her plate, not making eye contact with Madeline.

      Everyone looked like they wanted to say more, but no one did … or dared. Madeline’s family was rife with secrets. Her brother, Thayer, had run away before Emma arrived in Tucson. Emma kept seeing his missing-person poster everywhere.

      For just a moment, she felt a pang of nostalgia for her old life, her safe life—a feeling she’d never thought she’d have about her foster-care days. She’d come to Tucson thinking she’d find everything she’d always wished for: a sister, a family to make her whole. Instead, she’d found a family that was broken without even realizing it, a dead twin whose life seemed