Truly, Madly, Deadly (13 page)

Sawyer slipped into the first stall and locked the door behind her, digging the note from her pocket. She smoothed it against her thigh and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Every beat of her heart seemed to squeeze the last of the breath out of her lungs as she read.

Maggie—

You’re a slut! Don’t think Kevin didn’t tell me about you. As a matter of fact, he said you were the worst blow ever…although ALL the other guys on the football team might have a different view. We used to laugh about what a skanky bitch you were, pretending to be a sweet, innocent virgin. You aren’t fooling anyone; the entire school knows what a whore you are, what a ho…

It wasn’t the words on the note that caused Sawyer’s distress; it wasn’t even the fact that the note appeared on the same mint-green paper as hers had—it was the handwriting. It was
identical
to hers.

Sawyer bit down hard on her lower lip as she read the last line—signed,

Sawyer Dodd, an admirer.

Her breath came out in painful gasps now, and Sawyer flopped forward, clutching the note in one hand as she pressed her head between her knees. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed her breathing to slow down, her heart to slow down, when there was a frantic beating on the girl’s room door, followed by a crack of hallway light as the door opened.

“Sawyer? Is everything okay?”

Sawyer pushed herself up and used the heel of her hand to brush away the tears that had inexplicably started to fall. “Yeah,” she said, clearing her throat, “I’m good.” She kick-flushed the toilet for good measure and beelined to the bank of sinks, keeping her head bent so Ellen couldn’t see her flushed cheeks. She splashed her face with cold water and Ellen’s eyebrows went up, her lips curling into a sympathetic coo.

“Are you worried about what your parents are going to say?”

“Um, yeah, a little bit,” Sawyer said, meeting Ellen at the door. “But time to face the music, I guess, huh?”

Ellen fell into step next to Sawyer. “You know, if you need anything, you can call me. I know we don’t really know each other, but I can get your schoolwork for you or something.”

“That’s okay,” Sawyer said, “you don’t even know my classes.”

“Oh, no worries. I can pull your schedule from the office. It’s no big deal.”

Sawyer felt a small bit of heat clawing at the back of her neck, but she wasn’t sure why. “No, that’s all right. I really appreciate it though, thanks.”

Andrew Dodd didn’t say anything to Sawyer as they left Principal Chappie’s office and walked to the visitor’s lot.

“Dad,” Sawyer tried once they got to the car.

Andrew held up a silencing hand as he sunk his key into the lock and slid into the front seat of the car. Sawyer flopped into the passenger seat next to him, dumping her backpack on the floor.

“Dad, I didn’t do anything. Maggie threw herself on me! And I didn’t even write that note.” She paused, and when Andrew didn’t respond, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and slunk down in her seat, staring out the front windshield. When her father made a left turn away from the highway toward Blackwood Hills Estates, she frowned. “Where are we going?”

“You’re going to see Dr. Johnson.”

Sawyer straightened up, anger and betrayal tearing through her. “What? Dad, I told you I had nothing to do with this. Maggie is a freak—and someone sent her a note and they said it was from me but it wasn’t.”

Andrew raked a hand through his thinning hair then rubbed his eyes. “Sawyer, Tara’s on bed rest. She’s gone to her mother’s house.”

Sawyer felt her eyebrows rise. “What? Why?”

Her father turned to look her full in the face now. His eyes were narrowed and cold, and his cheeks were flushed a hot red. “Really, Sawyer? Really?”

“Dad, I have no idea what—”

“Save it. God, Sawyer, I just don’t know what to do with you anymore. I mean, I know you lost your boyfriend and my marriage and this baby have been hard on you but really, grow up. What you did—” He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white and he continued looking straight out the front windshield. “You know what? You’re about to be late for your appointment. I’ll be right out here in an hour, and I expect you to be here.”

Sawyer opened her mouth to say something, but the tension was oppressive. Instead, she swallowed back tears and slipped out of the car, making a beeline for Dr. Johnson’s empty waiting room.

“Sawyer Dodd,” she said to the woman at the front desk. “I guess I have an appointment.”

The dark-haired woman smiled serenely. Without checking her computer or datebook, she gestured toward Dr. Johnson’s office. “You can go right in.”

Sawyer hiked up her shoulder bag, suddenly feeling very small and very unprotected as she walked into Dr. Johnson’s posh office. She had been there a handful of times before—just after Tara and her father married, and then again after Kevin’s death.

“Ah, Sawyer, so nice to see you again.” Dr. Johnson was dressed in his signature “don’t think of me as a doctor, think of me as a buddy!” khakis, with a light-colored button down that showed off his trim physique. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, showing off well-toned forearms tufted with blond hair. He was a good-looking man, but Sawyer never trusted anyone who steepled their fingers and “mmhmm, mmhmmed” as much as he did.

“Have a seat.”

She did, tentatively, dropping her purse on the floor. “Why am I here?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I knew,” she said, feeling the hot fist of anger forming in the pit of her stomach. “Some chick at school jumped me and my father picked me up and dumped me here. It wasn’t even my fault.”

Dr. Johnson pressed his lips together. “So you don’t want to talk about the nursery.”

Sawyer felt her lip curl. “What about the nursery?”

The doctor cocked his head in what was supposed to be a comforting look, Sawyer guessed, but it just looked like condescension to her. “So we’re not going to talk about it?”

“What are you talking about?”

Dr. Johnson picked up the cell phone on his meticulously kept desk. He scrolled through a few screens and then handed it to Sawyer.

She gasped.

“Oh my God. Who did this?”

The pictures were of the nursery that Tara had so carefully put together with her organic fabrics and the soothing, butter-colored walls, the white slatted crib with its layette that matched so perfectly. Only it wasn’t. Now the calm of the pale yellow walls was interrupted by angry slashes of red paint that dripped in sad streaks, leaving pools on the carpet. Slats of the pristine white crib were kicked in on each other, showing the blond wood underneath. The layette was torn and slashed, bubbles of organic cotton fill bubbling out. What wasn’t destroyed was splashed with heavy dots of red paint, giving the image that something truly terrible had happened there—or was about to.

Sawyer gaped at Dr. Johnson. “They think I did this.”

The doctor waited.

“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? My dad thinks I’ve gone over the edge and I—I want to hurt the baby.” She shoved the phone back at Dr. Johnson. “I didn’t do this. You know I wouldn’t do this, Dr. Johnson, you have to tell them.”

“Sawyer, a lot has happened in your life in a very short time. It’s understandable that you would feel some anger.”

“I’m not angry!”

“You were in a fight today at school.”

“I told you she jumped on me. I didn’t do anything! I had to push her off of me—that’s all. I didn’t mean for her to fall.”

“Did you mean to send her the note? Uh…” He pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and picked up his phone, reading from it.
“Maggie, You’re a slut! Don’t think Kevin didn’t tell me about you. As a matter of fact, he said you were the worst blow ever…although ALL the other guys on the football team might have a different view.”

Sawyer’s eyebrows rose, as did the heat at the back of her neck. Her hand immediately, almost subconsciously, went to her jeans pocket, where Maggie’s note was stashed.

“How do you know what the note said?”

Dr. Johnson looked surprised. “Your principal sent me a picture of it.”

Sawyer frowned. “May I see it?”

The doctor handed over his phone. “Is that not the note you sent to Maggie?”

Sawyer read over the note pictured on the screen. The text was the same, but the paper was slightly different. “Principal Chappie had this?”

“Yes. I suppose Maggie brought it to him. You know she was suspended as well. Now tell me—”

“Maggie was suspended too?”

“That’s what zero tolerance means, Sawyer. Both parties are immediately—”

“I didn’t write that note.”

Dr. Johnson smiled, lips pressed to together. “That’s beside the point. Maggie was still suspended as well.”

“No—I mean, that’s fine, whatever. But the note. I didn’t write that. I try my best—every day—to stay out of Maggie’s way. She’s the one who’s been harassing me. She spray-painted my locker.” Sawyer paused, considering. “It was the same color paint that was on Tara’s wall. And Maggie shredded my clothes, just like the layette. Maggie must have done this too!” Even as she said the words, they didn’t ring true. Sawyer wasn’t even sure that Maggie knew her stepmom was pregnant, let alone where she lived or what kind of schedule her family kept.

She felt the blood drain from her face.

“Someone is watching me, Dr. Johnson. Someone is trying to hurt me—and my family.”

Dr. Johnson pressed back in his chair, did his psychologist-approved hand steeple. “Sawyer, I can’t do anything to help you unless you’re honest with me.”

“I
am
being honest. I didn’t do any of this.”

Dr. Johnson blinked slowly. “If you can’t be honest with me, you need to at least be honest with yourself. How does the impending birth of your half-sibling make you feel?”

“I feel pissed,” Sawyer said, springing up, “but not at the baby. I’m pissed at whoever is making my life hell.” She snatched up her shoulder bag. “And I’m going to find out who’s doing it.” She turned on her heel and went for the door, slamming it hard behind her.

Dr. Johnson didn’t try to stop her.

Sawyer was pacing on the sidewalk outside Dr. Johnson’s office when her father pulled up. “Can you just take me back to the school to get my car?” she asked him.

Andrew Dodd nodded silently and Sawyer slipped in beside him, her hands gripping the strap of her bag, her heart thumping. “Dad, I—”

Sawyer stopped dead when her father made no indication that he heard—or was willing to listen to—her. His icy silence, his eyes fixed on the street in front of them was answer enough, and Sawyer kept her mouth shut, her hand on the door handle the second Mr. Dodd’s wheels crunched over the gravel in the Hawthorne High parking lot.

“I didn’t do this,” Sawyer said before getting out of the car. “I promise, Dad. I’ll prove it to you.” She snapped the car door shut and Andrew revved the engine, sliding smoothly out of the parking lot without response.

Sawyer was walking to her car when she heard Chloe calling out to her.

“Hey, Sawyer! What happened to you?”

“Therapy.”

“They still think you’re loony tunes, huh?”

Sawyer licked her lips. “Sometimes I think I am too.”

“Join the club.” Chloe offered a small smile. “Anyway, want to hit the mall or grab a bite or something?”

Sawyer shook her head. “Didn’t you hear? I got suspended. I’m pretty sure that translates directly to ‘Sawyer Dodd will be homebound until she’s seventy-five.’”

“Damsel in distress.”

“Yeah. Come throw pebbles—or jelly beans—at my window. Or better yet, throw a prince on a white horse at it.”

Chloe grinned. “I’ll see what I can do. So, see you later?”

“God willing.”

***

Sawyer walked into the house, sliding off her shoes in the foyer, feeling the need to be silent even though her father’s car wasn’t in the driveway and the entire house stood still and silent. She crept slowly up the stairs, each footfall landing with the heavy thud of her heart, her blood rushing in a deafening torrent as she walked to the baby’s nursery. The door was closed and Sawyer pushed open the door slowly, ice-cold air whooshing over her bare arms, making her hair stand on end.

“Oh, shit.”

The pale green curtains that had once seemed so sweet and dainty with their zoo-animal border looked menacing with their severe shreds as they were sucked and expelled from the window, edges catching and tearing on the broken glass. She had seen the kicked-in slats of the crib in Dr. Johnson’s cell phone picture, but up close the crib looked like a smile with broken teeth that had caved in on itself; the oozing red paint was as viscous as fresh blood and made Sawyer’s stomach lurch. She clapped a hand over her mouth and heaved, relieved when nothing came out.

The baby mattress exploded with downy fiberfill, and Sawyer ran her fingers over the soft matting, her nail catching on a sharp corner. She snatched at the corner and pulled out a folded piece of paper, the same familiar green, the identical weight.

She sucked in a breath sharp as a dagger.

After everything I’ve done, you go to the police? You are ungrateful, Sawyer Dodd. You will pay.

She dropped the note, and this time she did heave, vomit and bile searing the back of her throat, burning in her nostrils. She ran to the bathroom and fell to her knees, the thrumming pain of the cold tile against her kneecaps nothing compared to the cramping in her stomach, to the pounding of her head as she gripped the cool sides of the toilet bowl, hurling, sweat, tears, and snot mixing in a relentless whirl.

When there was nothing left, Sawyer trudged to her own bedroom and crawled into her bed, slipping under her blankets still fully clothed down to her sneakers, and fell into a fitful, restless sleep.

The shrill ring of the telephone roused Sawyer. It was coming from somewhere around her and she woke up confused, disoriented. It was dark; she was in her bedroom, and the phone was jammed in her pocket.

She answered on the last ring.

“Hello?”

“Sawyer!”

“Chloe?” Sawyer fumbled to sit up, to find her alarm clock. “What time is it?”

“Just after midnight. You have to get over here.”

“Over where? It’s midnight?” Sawyer kicked off her covers and stood up, going to her bedroom window and blinking at the single yellow streetlight that cast an ominous glow through her picture window. “Are you downstairs?”

Chloe’s brother’s car—mostly a Buick with three Ford hubcaps and a Rolls Royce emblem glued on the hood—was parked askew in Sawyer’s driveway. She could see Chloe, cell phone pressed against her ear, sitting in the driver’s seat, her eyes fixed on Sawyer’s second-story window.

“What’s going on?” Sawyer wanted to know.

“Just get down here.”

Sawyer looked behind her; her bedroom was untouched, nothing moved from the moment she crawled under the covers. “I don’t know if I can. Someone—Maggie—”

“That’s why you have to come down here.”

Sawyer hung up the phone and tiptoed to her closed door. She was already in trouble; sneaking out wouldn’t affect her cause for better or for worse, but when she opened her bedroom door she noticed her father and stepmother’s bedroom door was open as well. The bed was still made; her father had not come home after leaving her at the school. Sawyer sighed and made a beeline out the front door.

“So, what’s going on?” she asked as she sat in Chloe’s passenger seat.

Chloe turned the key in the ignition, and her brother’s car chugged to life, the stereo blaring and scaring Sawyer half to death.

“Sorry,” Chloe said, reaching out and turning it down. “It’s the only car I’m allowed near since the brake line incident. You okay?”

“No,” Sawyer said. “What’s this all about?”

“Maggie,” Chloe said without tearing her eyes from the road. She guided the big car down the sloping hills of the estates and through the heavy iron gates, steering smoothly—if twenty miles over the speed limit—onto the highway.

“What about her?”

Chloe swallowed slowly, and for the first time since she had gotten into the car, Sawyer noticed that her best friend’s blue eyes were impossibly wide, covered with a glossy sheen. Her makeup was crisscrossed with tear tracks, and the edge of her nose was red. “She killed herself.”

“What?” Sawyer stomped an imaginary brake on her side of the car and turned her full body to face Chloe. “What do you mean?”

Chloe’s eyes started to moisten again and she took her hands off the wheel, pressing her palms over her eyes. “Maggie’s mom called my mom. They found her tonight.”

“Chloe!” Sawyer gripped the wheel and pulled the car back into their lane as a big rig horn wailed next to them.

“I hated her, but I can’t believe she—she—”

Chloe sniffed, and Sawyer felt the same lump growing in her throat. “She committed suicide?”

They drove in silence for a beat before Chloe turned off the highway, down a forested off ramp that Sawyer recognized as the one nearest Maggie’s house. They drove down a long, windy street that was bathed in a starlit darkness until the angry slashes of emergency lights gashed the darkness, orange, red, and blue cutting through the Buick’s windshield as they veered to a stop.

“Oh my God,” Sawyer breathed.

The cul de sac was littered with cars—some Sawyer recognized from the student parking lot at Hawthorne, most she didn’t know—and police and emergency vehicles with open doors, officers and paramedics staggered around with notepads or listening to squawking shoulder radios. An officer stepped in front of a shard of yellow headlight, and Sawyer clicked off her seat belt, launching herself out of the car. She barely heard Chloe calling in the background.

“Stephen?”

Officer Stephen Haas stopped in midstride. He smiled when he saw Sawyer, but she could see that the grin held no joy, was wooden, meant to be offered to strangers and mourners in such situations.

“What are you doing here, Sawyer?”

Sawyer’s eyes cut to Maggie’s house ablaze with lights and then back to Stephen. “Maggie was my…” She pressed the word out over her teeth, reminding herself that it had been true, once, “My friend. What happened?”

Stephen swallowed slowly, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he raked a hand through his hair. He dropped his voice and Sawyer stepped closer to him. “There’s nothing official yet, but off the record”—he touched Sawyer kindly on the shoulder, an almost fatherly gesture—“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your friend Maggie killed herself tonight.”

Sawyer felt the firm fist in her gut, felt all the air go out of her body. “She
what
?”

Now Stephen’s fatherly touch on her shoulder dipped to her elbow, his fingertips closing tightly around her arm as he led her to a slightly less populated area. He cocked his head when he brought Sawyer to a stop, dug his notepad out of his front shirt pocket.

“Did you know of anyone who was bothering Maggie?” he asked her.

“Bothering Maggie?” Sawyer crossed her arms in front of her chest, suddenly, strangely aware of the chill in the night air. “No one ever bothered Maggie.”
She
bothered
everyone
else
, she stopped herself from saying.

Stephen closed his little notebook and spread his legs, evening out his weight. “She left a note before”—his eyes flashed, and he went on—“before. She said that she couldn’t take the bullying anymore.”

“Maggie
was
a bully.”

“She said she was being bullied.”

“What? That’s crazy. I mean, you can even ask Logan—he would know. Maggie practically ran the school.”

There was a heavy metal clanging, and the heartbreaking wail of misery. Stephan looked over his shoulder, and Sawyer’s eyes followed his as the front door of Maggie’s house was pushed open wide and a gurney was pushed out, the unmistakable shape of a body covered in a black vinyl body bag strapped on top. Maggie’s mother, her face screwed up in agony, clawed at the bag, her husband grabbing her shoulders, trying to hold his anguished wife back.

“She obviously didn’t think so,” Stephen said.

Sawyer felt her fingernails digging half moons into her palms well before she realized she was fisting her hands. “Can you tell me—can you tell me how?”

She stopped before she could complete her sentence—
can
you
tell
me
how
Maggie
killed
herself?
Because even though she knew the words, she couldn’t form them, couldn’t let them cross her lips, because teenagers weren’t
supposed
to die. They weren’t supposed to kill themselves.

The muscle in Stephen’s jaw jumped as he looked Sawyer over hard, obviously wondering what he should tell. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, “I can’t do that.”

He turned to walk away, and Sawyer jumped after him, her hands clawing against the navy blue of his heavy shirt. “Please.” It was half whisper, half gasp. “I need to know.”

Stephen’s eyes trailed down to Sawyer’s fingers and she unleashed them, one by one. “Please,” she whispered.

“Officer Haas!” The stern voice cut through the light-pocked night, and Sawyer whirled. Detective Biggs was striding toward them, his pants pulling up at the ankle as he rushed, showing off his thin, slouched socks, the tufts of black hair poking out of them.

“Sawyer.” Detective Biggs regarded her cautiously. “I assume you knew Maggie.” He cocked his head, a mask of sadness tingeing his big cheeks pink. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Sawyer nodded, numbness overtaking her as her eyes swept over Maggie’s parents, embracing, shaking under the weight of their eldest daughter being moved slowly into the back of the waiting van, the word CORONER painted in bold, straight letters on the side.

“I have to go.”

Sawyer snapped herself back into the passenger side of Chloe’s brother’s car.

“What did you find out?” Chloe wanted to know.

“Can we just leave, please?” Sawyer’s voice sounded strange and hollow.

Chloe frowned. “Sure. I guess so. Did you—”

“Please, Chloe?” Sawyer shook her head, swallowing slowly. “I just want to go home.”

Chloe nodded, big blue eyes wide and focused on the dim street in front of them. “Sure. Let’s just head home.”

***

Sawyer’s father had come home sometime—during the night or in the morning, Sawyer couldn’t be sure—and left again, leaving a terse note on the countertop.

Will be late tonight. Food in the freezer. Dad.

Sawyer crumpled the note and tossed it in the trash; she hadn’t slept all night and her stomach had been in knots since she saw the paramedics wheeling Maggie’s body away. She drove to school with the radio off and the windows rolled up tight, convincing herself that if she could just stay in the tiny, closed confines of the car, none of this would touch her.

There would be no more notes.

No shredded surprises.

Sawyer took the exit that fed her into town; she slowed in front of the police station and turned into the parking lot. Her heart started to thump when she glanced through the large plateglass windows and saw Stephen in the lobby, talking to Detective Biggs.

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.