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E into her sandal fro

"Here," Thayer said, following her gaze He took a blue bandana fro at the wound "Don’t worry, it’s clean I keep it on hand just so I can offer it to hot girls in distress," he added with a grin

As the faded piece of cloth turned dark with my twin’s blood, a memory flashed beforeme that same bandana to wipe the tears fro about, but I re in the warered on it

"Who did you say that was?" Thayer asked, tying the bandana snugly around Emma’s ankle to cover the wound

Emma scrambled for an explanation, for yet another lie But then she looked at the boy who’d loved her sister, his hazel eyes soft and concerned, and all that came out was the truth: "My birth mom"

Thayer blinked hard "Seriously?"

"Seriously"

"How did you knoas her? I thought you’d neverof the note Becky had left in the Horseshoe Diner

For a few horrible days, Eht that Mr Mercer killed Sutton, in order to keep her fro that Sutton had seen Mr Mercer with a woman in the canyon, Emma had searched his office and discovered he was secretly paying a woed to meet with Raven at her hotel, but the er hunt that ended with a note at a diner Raven had left behind a letter and a photo of herself--only, it had been Becky’s face staring back Raven/Becky had vanished, but Mr Mercer had explained everything

It was actually why Emma had asked Thayer to meet her for coffee She’d wanted to tell him that Mr Mercer hadn’t been the one who’d run Thayer down in Sabino Canyon the night I’d died--and that the woical mother

"It was her, Thayer I knoas," Emma protested

"I believe you," he said in a low voice

Behind thee door rattled open, and they stepped aside so that a freshly waxed Lexus could back out past the nothing

"Are you going to be okay?" Thayer asked finally

Emma felt her jaw tremble "She looked … sick, didn’t she?"

"She’d have to be sick not to want to talk to you" Thayer reached out and squeezed her arh afraid he’d been too intimate He nodded aardly back in the direction of the café "I should probably get hoain "If you want to talk about any of this, I’ht?"

Ehts He was three blocks away before she realized that she still had his bandana knotted around her ankle

I watched hiht Maybe the reason that Becky was acting strange was that she was ill But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d encountered her face before--while I was alive, before I became Emma’s silent shadow

I wondered if it had been the last face I’d ever seen

2

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE SEXY

Later that day, Ee Volvo outside the Old Tucson Movie Studios A rickety, old-style western saloon stood in front of her, co stench of booze Next to that was a bank building with bullet holes in the wall, a hitching post, and even a house thatby the overlythemselves on the porch In the fifties and sixties the studio had been a real movie set for westerns, but noas an amusement park, a Wild West Disneyland full of tourists Ethan Landry--Emma’s boyfriend and the only person who knew her true identity--had suggested they come here instead of thespot

"Howdy, ma’am" A man in cow-print chaps and spurs nodded his Stetson to her E in the Wild West spirit She wished she could--it would be reassuring to swagger confidently down the street, a gun at her hip, finally in charge of her destiny after feeling helpless for so long

The studio sparked so in me, too I was pretty sure I’d been here on a class trip and had laughed at the fakey-fakeness of it all with Char and Mads We’d ditched the tour to sneak into the saloon through the outhouse in the back Even half re how

After wandering for a fewEthan, E Tucson Mountain Park and pulled out her copy of Jane Eyre, which they were reading for English She had opened to thebehind her

Ethan was passing by the general store, squinting into the afternoon sun Her knees weakened slightly as she took in his broad shoulders,blue eyes He wore a pair of cao shorts and a black sweatshirt, and his dark hair had a cute tousled look that h it His shadow stretched out toward her in the sunset as he approached