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of Champion mesh shorts, a racer-back tank top, sneakers, and a Wilson tennis racket into a big red tennis bag with the name SUTTON stitched across the side. “Didn’t you set an alarm? “ Then she pausedand smacked herself lightly on the forehead. “What am I thinking? Of course you didn’t. It’s you.”
    I watched my mom as she dropped the tennis bag on the bed and zipped it up tight. Even my own mother couldn’t tell that Emma wasn’t me.
    Mrs. Mercer pointed Emma toward the dress she’d laid flat on the bed. When Emma didn’t move, she sighed, yanked the dress from the hanger, and dragged it over Emma’s head.
    “I can trust you to put your shoes on by yourself, can’t I?” Mrs. Mercer said tightly, holding up a shoe by its T-strap. The label said MARC BY MARC JACOBS . “Be down for breakfast in two minutes.”
    “Wait!” Emma protested, but Mrs. Mercer had already marched out of the room and slammed the door so hard that a snapshot of Sutton, Laurel, Charlotte, and Madeline fell from the bulletin board and landed facedown on the floor.
    Emma stared around the silent room in panic. She darted to the ottoman where she’d left her cell phone.
No new messages,
said the screen. She raced to Sutton’s iPhone on the desk. There was one new text since she’d last checked, but it was only from Garrett: YOU VANISHED LAST NIGHT! SEE YOU IN FIRST PERIOD? XX!
    “This is insane,” Emma whispered. The post she’d seen on Sutton’s Facebook Wall before she left Vegas poppedinto her head.
Ever think about running away? I do.
Could Sutton have run away thinking Emma could take her place long enough for her to get a head start? She strode barefoot out of Sutton’s bedroom and down the stairs.
    The downstairs hallway was decorated with huge framed family photographs: school pictures, shots from family vacations to Paris and San Diego, and a portrait of the Mercer family at what looked like a fancy wedding in Palm Springs. Emma followed the sound of the morning news and the smell of coffee to the kitchen. It was a huge room with sparkling, floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto a brick patio and the mountains beyond. The counters were dark, the cabinets white, and there was a bunch of pineapple paraphernalia all over the room—wooden pineapples atop the cabinets, a ceramic pineapple cylinder that held spatulas and slotted spoons, a pineapple-shaped placard near the back door that said WELCOME!
    Mrs. Mercer poured coffee at the sink. Sutton’s sister, Laurel, dissected a croissant at the kitchen table, dressed in a flowing printed top that looked identical to a shirt Emma had seen in Sutton’s closet last night. Mr. Mercer stepped in through the door, carrying plastic-wrapped copies of the
Wall Street Journal
and the
Tucson Daily Star.
Emma noticed his doctor’s coat, which said J MERCER, ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY . Like Mrs. Mercer, he was also a little older than most of the foster parents Emma hadknown, possibly a well-preserved fiftysomething. Emma wondered if they’d tried to have kids on their own before adopting Sutton. And what about Laurel? She had the same square jaw as Mrs. Mercer and the same round blue eyes as Mr. Mercer. Perhaps she was their biological daughter. Maybe the Mercers had finally conceived as soon as the adoption had gone through—Emma had read about that phenomenon somewhere.
    Everyone looked up when Emma appeared in the doorway, including an enormous Great Dane. He rose from a striped doggie bed by the door and trotted over. He sniffed her hand, his big jowls grazing her skin. DRAKE, glinted a bone-shaped tag on his collar. Emma stood absolutely still. In seconds, Drake would probably start barking his head off, knowing Emma wasn’t who everyone thought she was. But then Drake snorted, turned, and trotted back to his bed.
    A flash about Drake suddenly bubbled to the surface for me. His loud panting. The feel of his tongue on my face. How he’d howl goofily whenever an ambulance