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?”
Chloe unwrapped her spork, stabbed at a dish of electric-looking orange pieces. “Did what?”
“Killed herself.” Sawyer’s voice dropped into a hoarse whisper. “Do you really think Maggie killed herself?”
“Well…yeah. She hung herself, S. She was in her own closet.” Chloe shuddered. “It’s just awful.”
“But—” Sawyer started and then stopped, snapped her mouth shut when Chloe looked up at her questioningly.
“What are you thinking?” Chloe asked.
A hot blush washed over Sawyer’s cheeks and she shrugged, shoulders to earlobes. “Nothing, I guess.”
Sawyer gathered up her lunch tray, unease settling over her. Maggie had harassed her every day for the last year and a half straight. Could it be a coincidence—or a message?
TWELVE
Sawyer dressed carefully, pulling on a simple black sheath dress and dark tights. There was a cold bite in the air, and when she stepped outside, goose bumps littered her bare arms. She shivered, sunk her key into her car door, and slid inside.
She was at Maggie’s house twenty-three minutes later.
Sawyer parked across the street and watched the mourners crossing the Gaines’s well-kept lawn. The front door to the house opened and closed rapidly as people slipped inside, their black clothes blending them together into a faceless mourning mob. She sucked in a painful breath—each time she breathed lately, she felt a sharp stab of pain in her abdomen—and kicked open the car door.
“I can do this,” she told herself. “I need to do this.” Sawyer took a shaky step onto the concrete and willed her legs to carry her across the street. She paused on the Gaines’s front porch when a chilled breeze cut across the lawn, carrying with it the super-sweet smell of lilies. It made Sawyer’s head hurt, made her remember the last time she had slipped into the black dress she now wore. The last time was at Kevin’s funeral.
The warmth enveloped her the second she stepped through the door. People were packed into the living room and spilling into the kitchen, clothes in shades of mourning black and muted grays, eyes uniformly red and puffy. There was a spread of barely touched luncheon meats and cold salads that people silently poked at; no one seemed to be talking, but the quiet hum of conversation was everywhere.
Sawyer beelined for a tall, thin woman in a long-sleeved black dress. Though her eyes looked weary and her cheeks were sunken, she shared the same thick, blond hair as Maggie, the pale in her eyes a distant match to the bright cornflower blue of her daughter’s.
“Mrs. Gaines,” Sawyer breathed, “I’m so sorry.”
Elaina Gaines’s eyes raked over Sawyer and softened as a fresh wave of tears spilled over.
“Sawyer! We haven’t seen you in ages.” She threw her arms open and embraced Sawyer in a stiff hug, her thin, spindly arms gripping Sawyer tightly. “Thank you for coming.”
Sawyer nodded, swallowing heavily. “Of course. Maggie and I were…” She struggled to say the word since so much time—and animosity—had passed between the two girls. But the photograph, two bone-thin girls in oversized helmets, grinning toothless smiles, was still in a simple frame on the mantle: Maggie and Sawyer as third-graders, arms entwined, showing off their Best Friends Forever embroidered bracelets. Sawyer felt the burn around her wrist from the bracelet she never wore.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
Mrs. Gaines just wagged her head, pressing her hands to her cheeks. “No, thank you. I’m just so—we’re just so—” The woman looked away uselessly, her shoulders racking under her silent cries. She sniffled finally and breathed deeply, using the heel of her hand to wipe at her tears. She forced a small, polite smile.
“The new choir uniforms are lovely.”
Sawyer cocked her head, confused. “Yeah, they finally got it right this time.”
“Maggie was so excited to wear hers. She loved to sing.” Mrs. Gaines’s eyes shone. “She sang like an angel.”
Sawyer nodded, the words “she did,” coming out soft and breathy. Guilt tugged at her heart as she remembered the exchange she’d had with Maggie about the solo.
“We plan on burying her in the dress.”