Seven Minutes in Heaven Read Online Free PDF

the thing with psychopaths? They’re manipulative, really good at putting up a front.”
    Ethan raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know my girlfriend was an expert on criminal psychology.”
    Her lips twisted into a wry smirk. “If I wasn’t before, I will be by the time this is over.” Another thought popped into her head then, one that made her sit up straight. “You know, I haven’t been able to figure out how the killer got into Charlotte’s house that night he strangled me. But if it was Garrett . . .” She looked at Ethan significantly.
    His mouth fell open. “He dated her before he dated Sutton.”
    “He might have had the alarm codes,” Emma agreed, then paused. “And then he dated Nisha.”
    They looked at each other uncertainly. And then Nisha died, too . The unspoken phrase hovered between them.
    Ethan licked his lips. “If it was Garrett, that makes sense. Maybe she saw something while they were dating, and only figured it out two weeks ago.”
    Emma sighed. “It’s all speculation, though, isn’t it? We don’t have any evidence putting him at the scene.”
    “Yeah, but we definitely have enough reasons to suspect him,” Ethan argued. “In murder cases the cops almost always look at husbands or boyfriends first.”
    Emma thought back to homecoming, when Garrett had cornered her in a broom closet to yell at her about their breakup. He’d been drunk, almost violent, twisting her wrist to hold her there against her will. And now she remembered something else—he’d mentioned Thayer. Everyone saw that fight between you guys just before he left. He loved you.
    “What if he found out about Sutton and Thayer?” Her throat went dry at the thought. “He could have followed her to the canyon that night and caught them together.”
    “That would be a real motive,” Ethan said.
    She nodded, the hairs on the back of her neck spiking up. Suddenly the memories of her brief “relationship” with Garrett looked a lot creepier. He’d acted like he really thought she was Sutton, but maybe he’d been testing her, training her so that no one would figure out Sutton was dead. The image of Sutton’s bed, covered in rose petals, floated back to her, and she shuddered. What if he’d been trying to turn her into the Sutton he’d wanted all along?
    I racked my brain for a memory of my summer with Garrett. I didn’t remember anything suspicious—but then, I didn’t remember fighting the way Laurel said we fought, either. In the days after I first woke up from my death, I’d felt a sort of warm tingle toward Garrett every time Emma saw him or spoke to him. I’d thought for sure I’d been in love with him in life, even if I couldn’t remember why. But now all I felt was an anxious flutter.
    “I’ll ask around,” she said finally. “Maybe Charlotte or Mads knows something that could be helpful.” Or Thayer , she thought, though she didn’t say that out loud. Ethan had been jealous of Thayer from the start—and it hadn’t helped matters when he’d caught Thayer kissing Emma a week ago. The very mention of his name was enough to provoke a good half hour of brooding silence from Ethan.
    She looked out over the landscape, the mountain air cool in her lungs. A few miles away she caught sight of a hawk drifting lazily on a gust of wind. Ethan opened a bag of gorp and picked out an M&M, popping it into Emma’s mouth. She crunched down on the candy shell and smiled at him. Suddenly she was simply happy to be with Ethan, away from prying eyes. They’d barely been alone since the night of Charlotte’s party, when they’d made love for the first time. The memory sent a flush of bashful pleasure through her cheeks and made her light-headed.
    “Did you grow up with all the playground folklore about M&M’s?” she asked coyly. He cocked his head at her.
    “Huh?”
    “You know, the urban legends about what the different colors mean?” She took the bag of gorp from him, picking past the nuts and