“Sawyer.” Detective Biggs regarded her cautiously. “I assume you knew Maggie.” He cocked his head, a mask of sadness tingeing his big cheeks pink. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Sawyer nodded, numbness overtaking her as her eyes swept over Maggie’s parents, embracing, shaking under the weight of their eldest daughter being moved slowly into the back of the waiting van, the word CORONER painted in bold, straight letters on the side.
“I have to go.”
Sawyer snapped herself back into the passenger side of Chloe’s brother’s car.
“What did you find out?” Chloe wanted to know.
“Can we just leave, please?” Sawyer’s voice sounded strange and hollow.
Chloe frowned. “Sure. I guess so. Did you—”
“Please, Chloe?” Sawyer shook her head, swallowing slowly. “I just want to go home.”
Chloe nodded, big blue eyes wide and focused on the dim street in front of them. “Sure. Let’s just head home.”
***
Sawyer’s father had come home sometime—during the night or in the morning, Sawyer couldn’t be sure—and left again, leaving a terse note on the countertop.
Will be late tonight. Food in the freezer. Dad.
Sawyer crumpled the note and tossed it in the trash; she hadn’t slept all night and her stomach had been in knots since she saw the paramedics wheeling Maggie’s body away. She drove to school with the radio off and the windows rolled up tight, convincing herself that if she could just stay in the tiny, closed confines of the car, none of this would touch her.
There would be no more notes.
No shredded surprises.
Sawyer took the exit that fed her into town; she slowed in front of the police station and turned into the parking lot. Her heart started to thump when she glanced through the large plateglass windows and saw Stephen in the lobby, talking to Detective Biggs.
I should stop, she told herself. I should go in and find out what happened to Maggie.
Sawyer pulled her car to a stop but kept her hand on the key, the ignition quiet.
After all I’ve done for you…
The words of the note flashed in front of her eyes.
He knew.
Sawyer’s hackles went up and a cold sweat pricked at her hairline, at her upper lip. Her saliva was sour, her tongue limp and heavy in her mouth.
He could be watching me now.
Sawyer turned in her seat, her eyes scanning the backseat littered with discarded sneakers and crumpled homework papers, a few paper cups from the Sonic drive-through on the floor.
She swallowed hard and then looked outside. The parking lot was choked with cars, but all of them sat empty. The bushes that lined the manicured lawn in front of the building were clipped too low, and the plants and trees were too sparse to hide a person. Sawyer should have felt better, but unease still cloaked her like a blanket.
When someone rapped on her windshield, Sawyer screamed.
“Sorry!” Stephen’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Sawyer opened her door and smiled sheepishly up at Stephen, her heart thundering in her throat. “No, I—I’m just a little freaked out is all.”
“Is everything okay?”
Sawyer looked at Stephen, weighing the eager look in his eyes, the friendly, open set of his smile.
She could tell him.
Ask him to keep it a secret.
You’ll pay, Sawyer Dodd…
“Everything’s fine. I just thought I would stop by here and say thank you…to you. Thanks for listening to me. Everything is fine, though. I should go.”
Sawyer snapped her car door shut and flicked the key in the ignition before Stephen had a chance to answer. She pulled out of the parking lot leaving Stephen behind her, watching her taillights flash as she sped from the lot.
***
“It’s a juice box, not a male model,” Chloe said when they were sitting in the lunchroom.
“What? Oh. Ew.” Sawyer put down the juice she was drinking and rolled her eyes at Chloe. “You’re gross.”
“Sorry. Just trying to inject a little lightness into the day, I guess.” Chloe’s smile was wistful but held no joy. “How’s detention?”
Sawyer shrugged and shook her head, distracted.
There had been the pale drone of sad, whispered stories on campus since Sawyer stepped into the Hawthorne High student lot: Is Maggie really dead? Did she really hang herself in her closet? I didn’t know she was so depressed…
A semiofficial rumor—some kid was related to someone at the county coroner’s office—said that Maggie had hung herself, that she was found in her own closet, a belt wound around her neck. Rumor or not, the idea that Maggie—or anyone, for that matter—could loop something around her neck and kill herself made Sawyer’s blood run cold.
It had only gotten worse as the school day progressed, and every time Sawyer saw the red, puffy eyes of a fellow student, she was thrown back to Kevin, back to the Monday after his death when she trudged through the molasses-smeared memory of her heavy feet, her guilty heart.
Sawyer chewed her bottom lip. “Do you think she really did it?”