“Oh, no worries. I can pull your schedule from the office. It’s no big deal.”
Sawyer felt a small bit of heat clawing at the back of her neck, but she wasn’t sure why. “No, that’s all right. I really appreciate it though, thanks.”
Andrew Dodd didn’t say anything to Sawyer as they left Principal Chappie’s office and walked to the visitor’s lot.
“Dad,” Sawyer tried once they got to the car.
Andrew held up a silencing hand as he sunk his key into the lock and slid into the front seat of the car. Sawyer flopped into the passenger seat next to him, dumping her backpack on the floor.
“Dad, I didn’t do anything. Maggie threw herself on me! And I didn’t even write that note.” She paused, and when Andrew didn’t respond, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and slunk down in her seat, staring out the front windshield. When her father made a left turn away from the highway toward Blackwood Hills Estates, she frowned. “Where are we going?”
“You’re going to see Dr. Johnson.”
Sawyer straightened up, anger and betrayal tearing through her. “What? Dad, I told you I had nothing to do with this. Maggie is a freak—and someone sent her a note and they said it was from me but it wasn’t.”
Andrew raked a hand through his thinning hair then rubbed his eyes. “Sawyer, Tara’s on bed rest. She’s gone to her mother’s house.”
Sawyer felt her eyebrows rise. “What? Why?”
Her father turned to look her full in the face now. His eyes were narrowed and cold, and his cheeks were flushed a hot red. “Really, Sawyer? Really?”
“Dad, I have no idea what—”
“Save it. God, Sawyer, I just don’t know what to do with you anymore. I mean, I know you lost your boyfriend and my marriage and this baby have been hard on you but really, grow up. What you did—” He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white and he continued looking straight out the front windshield. “You know what? You’re about to be late for your appointment. I’ll be right out here in an hour, and I expect you to be here.”
Sawyer opened her mouth to say something, but the tension was oppressive. Instead, she swallowed back tears and slipped out of the car, making a beeline for Dr. Johnson’s empty waiting room.
“Sawyer Dodd,” she said to the woman at the front desk. “I guess I have an appointment.”
The dark-haired woman smiled serenely. Without checking her computer or datebook, she gestured toward Dr. Johnson’s office. “You can go right in.”
Sawyer hiked up her shoulder bag, suddenly feeling very small and very unprotected as she walked into Dr. Johnson’s posh office. She had been there a handful of times before—just after Tara and her father married, and then again after Kevin’s death.
“Ah, Sawyer, so nice to see you again.” Dr. Johnson was dressed in his signature “don’t think of me as a doctor, think of me as a buddy!” khakis, with a light-colored button down that showed off his trim physique. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, showing off well-toned forearms tufted with blond hair. He was a good-looking man, but Sawyer never trusted anyone who steepled their fingers and “mmhmm, mmhmmed” as much as he did.
“Have a seat.”
She did, tentatively, dropping her purse on the floor. “Why am I here?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I knew,” she said, feeling the hot fist of anger forming in the pit of her stomach. “Some chick at school jumped me and my father picked me up and dumped me here. It wasn’t even my fault.”
Dr. Johnson pressed his lips together. “So you don’t want to talk about the nursery.”
Sawyer felt her lip curl. “What about the nursery?”
The doctor cocked his head in what was supposed to be a comforting look, Sawyer guessed, but it just looked like condescension to her. “So we’re not going to talk about it?”
“What are you talking about?”
Dr. Johnson picked up the cell phone on his meticulously kept desk. He scrolled through a few screens and then handed it to Sawyer.
She gasped.
“Oh my God. Who did this?”
The pictures were of the nursery that Tara had so carefully put together with her organic fabrics and the soothing, butter-colored walls, the white slatted crib with its layette that matched so perfectly. Only it wasn’t. Now the calm of the pale yellow walls was interrupted by angry slashes of red paint that dripped in sad streaks, leaving pools on the carpet. Slats of the pristine white crib were kicked in on each other, showing the blond wood underneath. The layette was torn and slashed, bubbles of organic cotton fill bubbling out. What wasn’t destroyed was splashed with heavy dots of red paint, giving the image that something truly terrible had happened there—or was about to.
Sawyer gaped at Dr. Johnson. “They think I did this.”