Sawyer skipped changing in the locker room and went directly for her car in the school parking lot. She threw her backpack—note safely tucked in the front pocket—on the passenger seat. She drove a brand-new midnight blue Honda Accord with all the extras. Though she was thankful, she wasn’t as wowed by the thing as her friends had been. Where they saw shiny new wheels and imminent freedom, Sawyer saw her parents’ last unified attempt at appeasement—or apology—while her mother moved two thousand miles away to run a corporate office and her father and wife number two moved Sawyer to the outer regions of hell. Her parents had presented the car as a reliable necessity for Sawyer. Her father’s new subdivision and her new, just-like-every-other-house-in-the-tract home were thirty-three miles away from Chloe, Hawthorne High, and every other bit of civilization in Sawyer’s life.
She sunk her key in the ignition, plastic Fighting Hornet keychain dangling, but didn’t start the car. Instead, she bit her lip and listened to her heartbeat speed up, grimacing as hot needles pricked at her spine. She unzipped her pack and pulled out the note, studying the envelope as if some new, revealing clue would suddenly appear. There was nothing. On a sharp breath she plucked the card from its envelope and opened it, reading the handwriting font once again:
You’re welcome.
She said the words out loud, and they seemed to fill up the whole car, to squeeze the air out of the cab. Sawyer chewed her bottom lip, glancing from the newspaper article back to the note. I’m welcome for what?
She heard the football coach’s whistle blow in the distance, signaling the end of their practice. Football players, muddied and sweaty, began to trickle into the parking lot, their hoots, howls, and general chatter muffled by the Accord’s rolled-up windows. The team girlfriends hung back with the cheerleaders, who walked into the lot in bunches, talking animatedly, ponytails bobbing. A group of band members lugged their instruments, and from behind them Sawyer watched as a group of varsity football players ambled by, all wearing matching shirts—hornet green, the words “We Will Never Forget You” printed above a bright white number twenty-one and the last name Anderson.
Kevin.
Sawyer looked from the jerseys to the note in her hand. Her breath hitched and her fingers—and the note—began to tremble.
Someone knew.
***
A navy blue sedan was blocking Sawyer’s driveway when she came home from track practice. Sawyer parked behind it and stepped out of her car, the dusk already setting, already pushing the estates into a hazy darkness. She blinked when she saw the spark of a cigarette from the side of the house. Sawyer guessed the owner of the sedan was checking out the bones of the houses nearby; it wasn’t unusual for potential buyers to check out the Dodd family’s “model home.”
“Hey, Dad,” Sawyer started, “it looks like someone’s looking at the—” She paused, looking at the three heads that swung to look at her.
Her stomach rolled over on itself as she felt all eyes fixate on her, studying her with a look she was starting to recognize—and loathe—sympathy mixed with curiosity, with just the tiniest hint of frustration.
Sawyer’s dark eyes washed from her stepmother to her father. “What’s going on?”
Andrew Dodd blinked at his wife and cleared his throat. They were perched on the new ecru couch, pillows undisturbed, but their faces were drawn. A man sat on the couch directly across from them, a small leather notepad balanced on his knee.
“Is this your daughter?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Andrew Dodd said, jumping up and going to her. “This is Sawyer.” He put his hand on the small of Sawyer’s back and ushered her into the living room. “Sawyer, this is Detective Frank Biggs.”
Frank Biggs looked exactly like you’d expect a man named Frank Biggs to look—like a mustached fireplug in a short-sleeved, button-down shirt; a stained blue tie; and khakis that could use an iron or a dumpster.
Sawyer shook his hand and he smiled, breathing out a whoosh of overly minted, Nicorette smelling air. “Nice to meet you.”
“Dad, what is this about?”
“Detective Biggs just wants to ask you a few questions about Kevin.” Andrew cleared his throat a second time, avoiding Sawyer’s gaze. “About what happened to Kevin.”
“Just a few routine follow-up questions,” Biggs said, flipping a black ballpoint pen over his hairy knuckles.
Sawyer nodded. “Okay. But I told the other officer everything I knew.”
Biggs nodded and flipped open his notebook. “So did you see Kevin the night of the accident, Sawyer?”
He pronounced her name Saw-yah and fixed her with his flat, brown eyes.
“Yes. I saw him before”—a sob lodged in her throat—“before the accident.”
“Were you in the car with him at any time?”
Andrew let out a hissing sigh. “Is this really necessary? She already said that she had been on a date with Kevin and then walked back to her car.”
Sawyer turned to her father. “It’s okay, Dad.”
“So you were in Kevin’s car. Up until when?”
“I don’t know; nine o’clock, maybe?”
“And that was on the hillside.”
“Yeah.”
“So you weren’t in the car with Kevin as he went down the hill.”
Sawyer shook her head. “No. No, he’d been drinking. I walked down myself. Can I ask why you’re asking me this? The other officer—I mean, he asked me about pretty much everything.”
Detective Biggs looked up from his notebook. “We found a shoe stuck in the mud near the accident site.”
“A shoe?”
Biggs nodded and produced a color photograph of a shoe lined up next to a ruler. “It’s a ladies’ size seven and a half. What size shoe do you wear?”