When my eyes meet Jordan's, a tingle of adrenaline blasts over my scalp.
All those months Emma was missing were some of the worst of my life; even worse than after what happened with my father. When I fired that gun, things could have ended so much differently. My father could have been killed. When Emma disappeared, we didn't know what happened. And after her truck turned up several weeks later, we were told to prepare ourselves for the worst.
Emma was likely dead—that's what the police said—and their plan to bring home a missing teenager became a search for her body.
But then she reappeared, very much alive, and along with her came an entire story that solved exactly nothing. The only evidence police have is the reappearance of her missing tennis shoe.
But does that prove anything?
Now that I know about priZm and Mizz Marigold, it does raise some doubts. This Stefanie girl is supposedly the great love of Emma's life, the one she's destined to be with no matter how her family feels. Still, the question I can't escape is ... why would she go through all this trouble?
"I have a theory," Jordan says, yanking me out of my head. "What if Emma took off with Mizz Marigold but things didn't work out the way she'd hoped? So, she decided to come back home and staged the kidnapping so her parents wouldn't know what actually happened?"
"But that farmer found her truck in April. If she'd abandoned it to trick her parents, where was she the rest of the time?"
Jordan's quiet for a beat. "Maybe she was waiting it out in the woods? If she wanted everyone to believe she was kidnapped, she'd have to make it look real, right? I mean, that's what I would do."
I bring my feet up on the seat and hug my knees to my chest, turning her suggestions over in my head. "It seems like a lot to pull off, and it's not like Emma's some mastermind criminal. She's just a small-town girl from Ohio with next to no real-life experience. The extent of her street smarts is when she aced the STD test in health."
"What other choice did she have?" Jordan asks, arching a mangled eyebrow. A cut slices through the center and an ugly purplish bruise takes up the entire side of her face. It's painful to look at, and my insides wince every time my eyes linger too long.
Jordan must sense me staring. She combs her fingers through her curls and positions them over her eye. "Emma talked a lot about her parents and how terrified she was that they'd find out. This is the kind of desperate move she'd make if it meant keeping her secrets. Plus," she adds, her eyes drifting from mine, "sometimes you do crazy things when you're in love."
A knot tightens in my chest. That last statement makes me think Jordan's speaking from experience, but I'm not about to ask her to clarify what she means. Her relationship with Emma is obviously a touchy subject, and to be honest, whatever happened between the two of them is none of my business. What I do know is, Jordan knows a side of Emma I've never seen. If she thinks Emma is capable of pulling off an alleged kidnapping, who am I to argue?
"There's more going on than what you realize," I say as Jordan takes a noisy pull from what's left of her ice water.
I'm not sure where to start. So I open my mouth and let the course of events spill out from the beginning. The secrecy surrounding what happened while Emma was away. The odd way she's been acting since she reappeared in town. How she's twisted my words, trying to make me second guess my own sanity, even going as far as telling my mother I'm paranoid again.
Jordan listens with quiet interest, especially when I save the strangest part for last. "And then today after soccer, Smith showed up and rifled through my glove box like a mad man. I had no idea what was going on until he pulled out a bag of pills."
Her forehead crinkles, her skin puckering around various cuts and scrapes. "What kind of pills?"
"What kind do you think?"
Her face pales beneath her bruises. "Drugs?"
The bewilderment that consumed me after my confrontation with Smith suddenly morphs into red hot anger.
My heartbeat pulses in my ears.
I take in a gulp of air, hoping to still the chaos in my chest, but my breath comes out in a series of shallow bursts. "Emma planted them there, it's the only explanation. She was in my car and had the perfect opportunity to do it," I say in a mad rush, the words tumbling over each other as they burst from my lips. "I'm not sure how well you know Smith, but there's a history of substance abuse in his family, and he's adamantly against it. She told him exactly where to find the baggie and said I've been self-medicating because of my anxiety."
Jordan reaches for my hand and gives it a squeeze, a mixture of sympathy and turbulence lurking behind her eyes. Then, she awkwardly pulls away, like she just realized what she's done. "What's her motive?"
"She obviously wants Smith back."
"But don't you think playing the sympathy card would work better in her favor? As far as I know, Emma and Smith never broke up. Their relationship was the perfect disguise. If she wanted him back, it would be easier to play the victim than to plant drugs in your car. It was a risky move, that's all I'm saying. And Emma's no fool."
Emma's a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them. She puts my own 3.6 grade point average to shame. "If it wasn't to win over Smith, then what else could it be?"
"That's what we need to find out." Jordan levels her eyes on mine as if waiting for a response. But I can't find any words. "How do you feel about playing a real-life Veronica Mars?"
Veronica Mars. I am so not cut out for this kind of detective work. The last time I tried to solve a mystery, I almost killed my father. And with Jordan stuck in the hospital that means all the hard work will fall on me. What makes her think I can pull this off?
When I'm back in my car, the Bluetooth connects my contacts and I attempt to call Smith, but it goes straight to voicemail. The last thing he said before storming out of the parking lot was that he needed some time. But how much time are we talking about?
He can't honestly believe I do drugs, can he? We've known each other for years, and I have never once let on that I did. But then, he was around during my stint in the hospital, for my initial visits with Dr. Wilder. He's known about the medications I've been on and experienced first hand the sometimes not-so-pleasant side effects. If one didn't work, they'd put me on another, and then another, or play around with the doses until they got it right. If Emma told him I was self-medicating, maybe it wouldn't be so hard to believe.
But Jordan never once questioned if what I'd said was true. She believes me. And right now, that's all that matters.
I need a plan. Something that will help me gain access to more information. However I go about getting it, I'll need to be extra careful. If Emma's capable of staging a kidnapping and running Jordan off the road in order to keep her secrets, how much farther is she willing to go?
My chest tightens, like a rubber band that's stretched to its limit.
Every time I think I'm getting closer to answers, all I run into are more questions. And when a new one pops up, it's like adding another dot to the ones I'm already trying to connect. Is going to these extremes worth it in Emma's eyes—just so her parents wouldn't find out she likes girls? Her actions scream desperation, but the reward doesn't fit.
She must be up to something more. But what?
The remaining rays of sun slant through the trees as I pull into the driveway, and a warm golden glow pours from the windows of the house. Mom's probably making dinner. I let the thought comfort me as I grab my soccer bag from the backseat. After the day I've had, it's good to know I'm not coming home to an empty house.
A wave of leaves tumble across the driveway as I head toward the porch. I stop and let the cool air lift the hair around my face, the musky-sweet scent of autumn lingering on the breeze. From out of nowhere, a leaf flutters from the sky and lands at my feet. I pick it up, twist the stem between my fingers. It's not brown or orange like the rest, but silky and green, like it hasn't yet realized it's dead.
Something odd thrums through my body. I glance across the lawn, and another light catches my attention. It's coming from Emma's room. A shadow hovers at the window, the curtains pulled aside before falling back into place.
She's watching.
Emma's created a chain of events meant to ruin me, and now, from the safety of her bedroom, she's waiting for the world to collapse around my feet.
I won't let it.
The truth is, Emma didn't disappear. Not in the way she wants us to believe. She shed the skin of her previous life and stretched into a brand new one, and when that didn't fit, she emerged with another plan. It's up to me to figure out what it is.
And as I stare at the shadow looming behind her bedroom window, I know exactly what to do.