***
Sawyer walked into the house, sliding off her shoes in the foyer, feeling the need to be silent even though her father’s car wasn’t in the driveway and the entire house stood still and silent. She crept slowly up the stairs, each footfall landing with the heavy thud of her heart, her blood rushing in a deafening torrent as she walked to the baby’s nursery. The door was closed and Sawyer pushed open the door slowly, ice-cold air whooshing over her bare arms, making her hair stand on end.
“Oh, shit.”
The pale green curtains that had once seemed so sweet and dainty with their zoo-animal border looked menacing with their severe shreds as they were sucked and expelled from the window, edges catching and tearing on the broken glass. She had seen the kicked-in slats of the crib in Dr. Johnson’s cell phone picture, but up close the crib looked like a smile with broken teeth that had caved in on itself; the oozing red paint was as viscous as fresh blood and made Sawyer’s stomach lurch. She clapped a hand over her mouth and heaved, relieved when nothing came out.
The baby mattress exploded with downy fiberfill, and Sawyer ran her fingers over the soft matting, her nail catching on a sharp corner. She snatched at the corner and pulled out a folded piece of paper, the same familiar green, the identical weight.
She sucked in a breath sharp as a dagger.
After everything I’ve done, you go to the police? You are ungrateful, Sawyer Dodd. You will pay.
She dropped the note, and this time she did heave, vomit and bile searing the back of her throat, burning in her nostrils. She ran to the bathroom and fell to her knees, the thrumming pain of the cold tile against her kneecaps nothing compared to the cramping in her stomach, to the pounding of her head as she gripped the cool sides of the toilet bowl, hurling, sweat, tears, and snot mixing in a relentless whirl.
When there was nothing left, Sawyer trudged to her own bedroom and crawled into her bed, slipping under her blankets still fully clothed down to her sneakers, and fell into a fitful, restless sleep.
The shrill ring of the telephone roused Sawyer. It was coming from somewhere around her and she woke up confused, disoriented. It was dark; she was in her bedroom, and the phone was jammed in her pocket.
She answered on the last ring.
“Hello?”
“Sawyer!”
“Chloe?” Sawyer fumbled to sit up, to find her alarm clock. “What time is it?”
“Just after midnight. You have to get over here.”
“Over where? It’s midnight?” Sawyer kicked off her covers and stood up, going to her bedroom window and blinking at the single yellow streetlight that cast an ominous glow through her picture window. “Are you downstairs?”
Chloe’s brother’s car—mostly a Buick with three Ford hubcaps and a Rolls Royce emblem glued on the hood—was parked askew in Sawyer’s driveway. She could see Chloe, cell phone pressed against her ear, sitting in the driver’s seat, her eyes fixed on Sawyer’s second-story window.
“What’s going on?” Sawyer wanted to know.
“Just get down here.”
Sawyer looked behind her; her bedroom was untouched, nothing moved from the moment she crawled under the covers. “I don’t know if I can. Someone—Maggie—”
“That’s why you have to come down here.”
Sawyer hung up the phone and tiptoed to her closed door. She was already in trouble; sneaking out wouldn’t affect her cause for better or for worse, but when she opened her bedroom door she noticed her father and stepmother’s bedroom door was open as well. The bed was still made; her father had not come home after leaving her at the school. Sawyer sighed and made a beeline out the front door.
“So, what’s going on?” she asked as she sat in Chloe’s passenger seat.
Chloe turned the key in the ignition, and her brother’s car chugged to life, the stereo blaring and scaring Sawyer half to death.
“Sorry,” Chloe said, reaching out and turning it down. “It’s the only car I’m allowed near since the brake line incident. You okay?”
“No,” Sawyer said. “What’s this all about?”
“Maggie,” Chloe said without tearing her eyes from the road. She guided the big car down the sloping hills of the estates and through the heavy iron gates, steering smoothly—if twenty miles over the speed limit—onto the highway.
“What about her?”
Chloe swallowed slowly, and for the first time since she had gotten into the car, Sawyer noticed that her best friend’s blue eyes were impossibly wide, covered with a glossy sheen. Her makeup was crisscrossed with tear tracks, and the edge of her nose was red. “She killed herself.”
“What?” Sawyer stomped an imaginary brake on her side of the car and turned her full body to face Chloe. “What do you mean?”