Stapled to one cover was the coroner’s report. Sawyer winced, trying her best not to fixate on anything there—grisly descriptions of textbook body parts—body parts that had belonged to Kevin, that she had loved and caressed and brushed up against. Her fingertips brushed over the toxicology report, listing Kevin’s blood alcohol level 0.22. A heavy black X covered the box marked legally intoxicated. Sawyer sighed, pinching her bottom lip and peeling open the envelope included in Kevin’s report.
Her stomach roiled, and she clamped her lips down hard as she spilled out the contents of the envelope. Full-color crime scene photos littered the top of the dining table, and Sawyer’s fingers fumbled as she worked to gather them up, stacking each horrid image one on top of the other. Her mouth filled with blood, but she kept her teeth gritted hard, her hands fisted as she forced herself to sift through each picture, taking in every putrid detail—the crushed, buckled metal of the broken car, the splinters of blood-edged glass staining the concrete. The first few shots were exterior, and Sawyer smelled the acrid smell of hot metal, the choking stench of blood on the night air. It stung her nostrils and she flipped, fingers shaking, to the next group of photos. These were interior, and Sawyer was blinking, the itch from her tears tracking over her cheeks. She remembered the soft feel of the ruined leather, the glint from the tiny crystal that hung from the rearview mirror. She remembered the night she gave it to him.
It was September, but summer still hung on the stillness of the night air, the long days being slowly chased away by tiny wisps of fall on the breeze.
“I got you something,” Sawyer said, a smile playing at the edges of her pink, glossed lips.
Kevin’s head lolled against the gray leather headrest and he grinned at her, eyebrows raised sexily. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
She pulled the little charm from her pocket—a cut glass football that she had picked up at the Boardwalk—and dangled it between forefinger and thumb. The orb caught the yellow glow from the streetlight and broke it into a thousand tiny shards of rainbow-colored light.
Kevin’s fingers brushed against hers as he took the charm. Electricity, like the lights of the prism, broke through Sawyer in a thousand tiny, twittering vessels.
“Do you like it?” she breathed.
“It’s from you, isn’t it?” He hung it over his rearview mirror. “That means I love it.”
Sawyer felt a cold shiver of delight.
“Here,” Kevin said, shrugging out of his hoodie. “I don’t want my girl to get cold.” He slipped the well-worn sweatshirt over Sawyer’s bare shoulders and pulled her to him; she softened, fitting her curves against his angles.
“This is perfect,” she said, breathing deeply, letting the familiar cut-grass cologne scent of Kevin’s hoodie envelope her. “So, so perfect.”
She closed her eyes and could still smell Kevin, the fading scent of cologne on his hoodie. She pushed away the photographs and held her head in her hands, breathing deeply. The edge of a photo caught her eye.
Beer bottles. Crushed brown glass on the floor of Kevin’s car.
She thought of that night, the way the slick shards of moonlight glinted off his eyes, even though his face was mostly obscured by his hood. Sawyer remembered the way he pulled it up so only a few licks of his dark hair showed; she remembered the way the too-long sleeves curled over his knuckles. She remembered that he was wearing that black hoodie as she jogged away from him, the beer bottle sailing past her left ear.
And now that black hoodie was in the back of her car. Sawyer squinted, trying to remember. How had Kevin’s hoodie ended up in her car? It was lying in a crumpled heap half under one of the seats and she had dismissed it at the time, but now the thought nagged at her.
She flipped through the rest of the documents in the file, pausing briefly on her interview with Detective Biggs, her breath hitching in her throat when she saw the next interview form enclosed—Haas, Logan.
It was dated a full month before Kevin’s death, and Sawyer squinted at the handwritten page, the photocopy imperfect, ink fading.
“Kevin bullied Logan,” she mumbled to herself, laying the paper down flat. “That wasn’t news.” Sawyer turned the paper over, noting that the attending officer was Stephen Haas.
She pushed Kevin’s file aside. It caught the corner of the stack, and the whole group flopped off the table, pages scattering and falling gracefully to the slate flooring. Sawyer leaned over to pick them up, snatching up first a handwritten incident report from Maggie’s file.
…attempted break-in the night before; authorities were called but no intruder was found on the premises…
…subject reported a run-in with a student at Hawthorne High School [Junior Sawyer Dodd] earlier that day. No follow up reported…
Another page floated down, landing delicately on the floor. Sawyer’s stomach lurched as she read the typewritten header—SUBJ: Amendment to M. Gaines’ Autopsy Report and Statement.
Sawyer continued to read:
J. Hugh, M.E. Crescent County
It is my professional opinion that subject M. Gaines was asphyxiated with a belt (approximate 1” width) cinched around her neck. Assailant assaulted Gaines from behind; pre-mortem bruising indicates assailant aimed the cinched area downward either deliberately or due to a height discrepancy. Once subject was subdued, assailant pushed fabric “gag” down her throat (also pre-mortem). Bruising around the trachea is consistent with these findings.”
Sawyer shuddered and pushed the page aside with her foot, just enough to expose one line from the paper underneath:
First on the scene: Officer S. Haas.
Stephen was the responding officer every time.
Could he…?
Sawyer’s mind started to race. She thought about Logan, slight, shy. His hands trembled when he asked her out. Was he her admirer? Was Stephen covering up for his little brother?
Sawyer shuddered, dumping the files in a hasty stack on the table, and jumped when the phone rang. She grabbed the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Sawyer, oh, thank God.”
Heat raced through her. “Oh, uh, hi, Dad.”
“I have been calling you for a half hour. Have you been home all this time? Do you know the police are looking for you?”
Sawyer considered hanging up the phone and running upstairs to her room, diving under the sweet-smelling covers on her bed. Instead, she started to shake. “I didn’t do anything, Dad. You know that, right?”
Andrew blew out a long sigh. “Your mother will be calling you soon. I don’t have her flight information yet.”
“Mom’s coming?”
“Sawyer, she’s an attorney. You’re in some pretty deep trouble here.”
Sawyer pinched her lips. “Is Tara with you?”
“No, that’s why I’m calling. She’s not answering her cell phone either. She barely made it to work before they sent her home.”
Sawyer looked around the still house. “I don’t think she’s here. Oh, wait. I see her purse. She didn’t say anything when I came in.”
“She’s probably asleep. Do me a favor, just check in on her—don’t disturb her, she needs her rest—but have her call me when she wakes up.”
A sob lodged in Sawyer’s throat. “Aren’t you coming home now?”
“I can’t, Sawyer, not right now. I’m sorry. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”