Hannah Jayne - Truly, Madly, Deadly

Sawyer woke up on Thursday morning, still crushed under the weight of sleep, under the pressure of trying to chase every errant thought out of her mind. The newspaper was strewn casually across the kitchen table when she finally trudged downstairs, dressed in dark-washed jeans and a heavy gray hoodie, hair wound in a sloppy, top-of-the-head bun. Her face was freshly washed and free of makeup; the buttery pallor was obvious, as were the heavy purple half-moons underneath her eyes. The ensemble had become her signature look over the past few days. Tara was at the table already, cup of tea steaming, elbows resting in her hands. Sawyer stood in the doorway, worrying her bottom lip.

“Tara?”

Tara looked up slowly, her hair a mess of tangles and snags, her usually healthy-looking pink face a sallow yellow.

“I thought morning sickness was supposed to end in the first trimester.” She rested her forehead on the table. “And in the morning.”

Sawyer smiled, a small bit of guilty relief washing over her. “Well, it is morning—I’m sorry about the multiple trimester thing. How about I make you some dry toast?”

Tara chuckled mirthlessly. “Your father thinks we should name this baby dry toast.”

“I guess it is pretty much the Dodd family cure-all.” Sawyer paused, fingers kneading her palm. “Tara, about the nursery—”

Tara looked up at Sawyer and shook her head. “It’s okay, Sawyer.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You’re right, it isn’t, but I’m willing to look past it if you can assure you me that this is it.”

“It is,” Sawyer said, nodding emphatically.

“I know this has all been a bit rough for you.” She rubbed her palms over her basketball of a stomach. “And fast. But I really do want us all to be a family.”

“Me too,” Sawyer answered, surprised to find that she actually did. She reached for the paper and Tara stopped her, her fingers gentle on Sawyer’s forearm.

“The news isn’t good,” she said, blue eyes wide.

Sawyer reached for the newspaper anyway, her breath hitching in her throat when she saw the blaring headline, saw Maggie’s face smiling at her from the front page. “Teen Suicide Was Murder, Coroner Says.”

“I’m sorry, Sawyer. Your father said you two had been close.”

Sawyer heard Tara speaking to her, vaguely, but everything was muffled. Heat surged through her limbs, closing like hot fingers around her throat. Sawyer gripped the newspaper and willed her eyes to focus, to avoid the innocent smile on Maggie’s face, to read the newsprint underneath.

Seventeen-year-old Hawthorne High School student Maggie Gaines was found dead in her home late Tuesday night from an apparent suicide. The autopsy revealed post mortem ligature marks and fibers in the teen’s throat are consistent with death by asphyxiation.

Sawyer’s stomach went to liquid and scanned the paper, pulling sections apart. “Is this all there is? Don’t they say anything else?”

“What else would you want to know?”

“Well, do they have any suspects? Did anyone come forward or see anything?”

Was there a note?

Tara stood up and pulled a box of Chex from the pantry. “There hasn’t been any more information. I’ve been up since four, and the news report basically says the same thing. Cereal?”

“No.” She licked paper-dry lips, snatched her book bag from the floor where she dropped it. “Thanks.” She glanced at the clock, startled. “I’m late. I’ve got to go.”

Sawyer tore down the front walk, her blood pulsing, coursing so hotly through her veins that she didn’t even feel the cold drizzle that began to fall. She started the car and zoomed out of Blackwood Hills Estates, the empty, gaping houses shapeless blurs through the Accord’s rain-splattered windows.

Students were milling about the school when Sawyer pulled up; she beelined for the junior hall and spotted Chloe waiting under an awning, checking her watch and tapping her foot impatiently.

“I’ve been waiting forever for you.”

“Sorry.” Sawyer shrugged. “I got a late start.” She swallowed. “Did you hear about Maggie?”

“ Everyone heard about Maggie. Everyone’s freaking out. They think there is some crazed killer on the loose.”

Sawyer stepped away from her best friend. “Don’t you?”

Chloe shrugged under her big coat. “I don’t know. I don’t want to think about that. What have you heard?”

“Just what I read in the paper. That she was strangled. There were fibers in her throat.”

“Red fibers,” Chloe informed.

“How did you know that?”

Chloe gestured over her shoulder at the pool of kids behind her. “Gossip.”

Sawyer checked her watch. “Why is everyone out here? The last bell should have rung two minutes ago.”

“It did.”

“Grief counselors again?”

“I haven’t seen them, but there are cop cars everywhere.”

Sawyer stiffened, ice water going through her veins. “Cop cars? Do they think—is there something that led them back here?”

“Like what? Clues or something?” Chloe shrugged again. “I don’t know. Last I saw that short, fat detective guy was going into Principal Chappie’s office.” Chloe leaned close, her voice dropping. “I heard that she was strangled—or suffocated or something—with the sash from her choir dress.”

Sawyer felt her face pale. She thought back to Maggie’s memorial, to her mother noting that there had been no red sash with her daughter’s black satin choir dress.

“Red fibers,” she whispered.

“Hey, let’s go in.”

Logan was inside the school, striding down the hallway. He pushed open the doors and smiled at Chloe and Sawyer. “Hi, Sawyer.”

“Hey, Logan. It’s nice to see you. What are you doing in here?” She tried to hide her unease, but her voice sounded false, insincere, even in her own ears.

“I took the early bus. I was working in the computer lab, so Principal Chappie let me stay inside.”

Chloe’s eyebrows shot up. “So you’ve been inside the whole time? Do you know anything? Did you hear the police talking?”

“About Maggie’s murder,” Sawyer said.

Logan’s jaw dropped open. “I thought Maggie committed suicide.”

Chloe shook her head. “No, it was all over the papers this morning and on the radio. What, do you live under a rock?”

Color bloomed in Logan’s cheeks. He held up his iPod. “I was plugged in all morning. Someone murdered Maggie?”

Sawyer narrowed her eyes at Logan, trying to read his expression. Was he feigning ignorance to hide his crime?

“Your brother didn’t tell you?” she asked.

“Stephen? No, he doesn’t tell me anything that happens at the station.” Logan turned to Chloe. “So, do they know who did it? Did they catch him?”

Sawyer shook her head.

“Why? Does anyone know why?”

“She was kind of an über bitch.”

“Chloe! She’s dead,” Sawyer snapped. She saw the hurt look in Chloe’s eyes and sighed. “She wasn’t very nice, but she didn’t deserve to die.”

A throng of kids pushed through the open door then, separating Logan and Sawyer by a few arms’ length. Just before the crush, Sawyer was sure she heard Logan mumble the words, “Like Kevin.”

She couldn’t shake the chill that rolled through her.

Homeroom passed with a textbook discussion of teen suicide, the teacher lecturing on how many lives are cut short by bad, spur-of-the-moment decisions. Her eyes flashed to Sawyer when she said this and went round and sympathetic; Sawyer’s eyes started to water.

She raised a hand. “Can I go to the nurse, please? I don’t feel so well.”

Mrs. Fluke nodded her head and scribbled out a pass; Sawyer picked up her bag and stepped out into the deserted hallway. Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket, and she slid it out: a text from Chloe.