Hannah Jayne - Truly, Madly, Deadly

“I’m so sorry, Tara,” she said, “but I promise you—”

Tara held up a silencing hand and forced a small smile. “It’s okay, Sawyer. We can work all of this out. I know there must be a lot going on that we don’t understand.”

Sawyer pumped her head. “Yeah. But no more. I’m going to—I’m going to figure this out.”

She spun on her heels and took the stairs two at a time, peeling off her mud-soaked clothing when she got to her room. Sawyer dumped the soiled clothes into the hamper and choose a pair of warm, dry sweats, but the chill in her bones stayed with her, and she shivered, her teeth chattering as she clicked on her laptop and dug out her cell phone. While she waited for the Hawthorne High student page to load, she paced, chewing on her bottom lip and praying that she was making the right decision.

She wasn’t going to the police, after all.

Not exactly.

She sifted through smiling profile pictures on the student page until she found the one that she wanted.

“Hello?” He answered on the first ring, and Sawyer recognized Logan’s voice immediately and hoped that he didn’t recognize hers.

She cleared her throat. “Um, hello. Can I—may I speak to Stephen, please?”

Logan paused for a beat, and Sawyer’s heart clanged like a fire bell.

“Stephen?”

“Yes. Please.”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

Sawyer went back to pacing. “Um…”

“Sawyer? Is that you?”

She sucked in a shaky breath. “Yeah, hi, Logan.”

“I didn’t know you and Stephen were friends.” Logan’s voice had changed. It was slow, even.

“Yeah, actually. I mean, kind of.”

There was an expectant pause, and Sawyer weighed whether or not she should tell Logan that she had met his brother at the police station.

But it was just Logan.

Who had the locker underneath hers and was watching her run the day of the shredding.

Had Stephen told Logan that Sawyer was at the police station?

“He stopped me for speeding,” Sawyer blurted, “and I just have a quick question.” She forced a light, cheery tone. “Is he available?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Logan put the phone down, and Sawyer was able to breathe again. All of her nerve endings were tingling and her mouth went dry; she didn’t wait for Stephen to get on the phone before ending the call. She tossed her phone and sat at her desk, pulled out a blank sheet of paper and a pen. She scrawled the words: note 1—Kevin , at the top, the name Logan, with a question mark just under it. After that she listed Mr. Hanson’s note, the two bunches of flowers, the message scrawled on her locker.

Logan was there when she left Mr. Hanson’s classroom after he tried to force himself on her. Though she had tried to act nonchalant afterward, she knew emotion was rolling off her in waves. He was there at the track while she ran and could have easily stayed around while she showered. And he admitted that he had sent the pink flowers, that he knew her home address.

Did anyone else?

Sawyer went back to the student home page and looked herself up. She was smiling in that picture, head thrown back in mid-laugh, clad in her track uniform. The site listed her name, her class, and her phone number. Nothing else.

A Google search wouldn’t help; Sawyer’s mother was paranoid and had her clerks systematically comb the Internet for any mention of her family, deleting personal information from snoop sites and public records. She said she had prosecuted too many criminals who found easy prey on the Internet.

She sighed, leaning back in her chair. Her eyes scanned her bedroom, then landed on the brochure for Blackwood Hills Estates that her father had proudly pinned to her bulletin board. One side showed the entire intended housing tract, penciled sketches of happy families walking cartoonish dogs around houses that looked like hers, shaded by trees that right now were stick-like saplings. The other side was a full-color photo of the “model” house— her house—with the street address clearly visible.

Sawyer’s breath went sour.

Logan would have known about Maggie and Sawyer’s feud—everyone did—but was he capable of murdering her? Her heart began to pound.

No one will ever hurt you again. Not while I’m watching you.

The ringing of the phone brought Sawyer clattering back to earth. She stared at the blinking thing and felt herself start to shake. She finally snatched it up, letting out a relieved sigh when she saw the readout: Chloe.

“Oh God, Chloe, I’m so glad it’s you.”

“And that’s how you should always greet your best friend.”

Sawyer clutched at her chest, hoping to slow her heart. “Yeah, sure. Sorry, I just—I just thought you were someone else.”

“Who’s that? Cooper? No, wait; then you wouldn’t be so glad it’s me.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“That you love him.”

Sawyer flopped back on her bed. “No. He’s cool, but I’m not—whatever. What’s going on?”

“News.”

“Juicy gossip?”

“Kind of morbid, actually.”

Sawyer frowned, sitting up. “I’m not sure I can take any more morbid right now.”

Chloe’s voice was soft. “I know, right?”

“So, what is it?” Sawyer’s heart seemed to go from powerful thump to absolute stillness with nothing in between. “Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah. I just heard they’re going to autopsy Maggie.”

“So?”

“Isn’t that weird? I mean, she killed herself. It was pretty obvious.”

“They always autopsy suicides,” Sawyer said. “It’s mandatory.”

“How do you know that?”

“ Law & Order. ”

Chloe sighed. “And what would we do without television? I just thought it was weird, is all. Libby was blubbering about it, saying she couldn’t stand the thought of Maggie being cut up.”

Sawyer’s stomach clenched. “It is pretty awful.” She paused. “When did you talk to Libby?”

“The memorial.”

Sawyer felt her eyebrows go up. “You went to the memorial? Why didn’t you tell me? We could have gone together. Then maybe they wouldn’t have thrown me out and accused me of killing Maggie.”

“They said you killed Maggie?”

Sawyer licked her lips. “According to Libby, I was the reason for Maggie’s suicide. She…she never got over me and Kevin.”

Chloe sucked in a breath. “Wow. Sawyer, I’m sorry. You don’t believe that, do you? I mean, Maggie killed herself. Her reasons were her own. They didn’t have anything to do with you.”

Sawyer wished she could be as certain.

It had been nearly a week since Maggie’s memorial, and things at school were slowly—so achingly slowly—getting back to normal. Sawyer’s suspension had been suspended itself, no one on the administrative board willing to mull over an incident with a dead girl and one who seemed barely alive.

Lunch hours were back to being loud and raucous even if the general murmuring in the halls was peppered with guesses about the autopsy, about what may have really transpired the night Maggie died. Sawyer felt like a zombie most days and slept like the dead most nights—a thick, dreamless sleep that settled over her in heavy waves, making her feel sluggish and tired the mornings after. She wasn’t taking the Trazadone regularly now. Regardless of how much she slept, she still found herself yawning, found herself resting her head on her arms, eyelids desperate for a few more minutes of sleep at any moment.

She still jumped each time the house settled, still felt her stomach do a roller coaster drop every time she spun the combination on her locker. She found herself backing away from crowds at school, bowing out of student events. It wasn’t difficult as word of what happened at Maggie’s memorial had gone viral and Sawyer had reached general social pariah status. She was even starting to avoid Chloe and Cooper, partly because she didn’t have the energy to try to be social or normal, partly because she thought—vaguely—that her distance was possibly the only thing that could protect her two friends.