Truly, Madly, Deadly

SEVEN

The tremble that started at Sawyer’s fingertips spread through her entire body until her teeth were chattering and her bones, it seemed, clattered against each other. Her throat closed to the size of a pinhole, and she struggled to breathe, feeling the blood rush to her head in a thunderous pound that brought tears to her eyes.

Is this what it’s like to suffocate?

She clamped her eyes shut and tried to focus on bringing her sensibilities back under control.

Is this what it was like for Mr. Hanson?

Vaguely, she felt the vase slip from her fingers, heard the echo of glass shattering on the floor, the water pooling at her feet. The roses scattered, blood-red petals scarred with shards of glass, cut, torn, turning in on themselves.

“Ms. Dodd?” Sawyer heard from a thousand miles away. “Ms. Dodd?”

She felt the slight weight of a hand on her shoulder, felt her eyes try to focus on the figure before her. She worked to move her mouth, her body, but all she could do was ball the peanut oil label up in her fist, the telltale crinkle of the cellophane screaming for everyone to look at her, to look at the girl who could cause a man to die.

“Can we get the nurse in here?” Detective Biggs was yelling over his shoulder, his hand firm now, holding Sawyer up.

“I’m okay,” she finally forced her mouth to say. “I’m okay. I just slipped and—”

The school nurse rushed out next, a pin of a woman who doubled as a lunch lady and a part-time librarian. Her lips were pursed, her eyes slanted in that sympathetic way, the pink sweater buttoned over her shoulders flying like bat wings.

“Oh, Sawyer.” She looked at Sawyer and then at Detective Biggs. “She’s had a rough couple of weeks. Shall I call your father, hon?”

Sawyer stepped back, sliding out of Detective Biggs’s reach, her sneakers crunching on the broken glass. She licked her Sahara-dry lips and nodded. “Yes, please. I think I need to go home and lie down.”

Nurse Tucker slid a motherly arm across Sawyer’s shoulders and pressed her hand against Sawyer’s cheek. Her fingers were soft and cool, and Sawyer longed for comfort, for her own mother. “This must be too much for you. First Kevin, and now Mr. Hanson,” she clucked, tucking Sawyer’s head underneath her chin. Then, she dropped her voice into a totally audible whisper, her chin jutting toward Detective Biggs. “Her boyfriend was Kevin Anderson, you know. The one who died in the accident. It was so tragic.”

Sawyer didn’t have to look to know that the detective nodded knowingly. For the last three weeks, people had exchanged glances whenever Sawyer was around, glances that spoke volumes, glances that reminded Sawyer that she was now and forever would be attached to Kevin’s death—more so than she ever was to his life. A lump strangled what breath was left in Sawyer’s throat and she doubled over, coughing and heaving.

“Oh, honey!”

“No.” Sawyer wagged her head, using her fisted hand, peanut oil wrapper locked inside, to wipe her eyes, her nose. “Can you just let my dad know that I’ve been excused? I need to go home right now.”

“I don’t think you’re in any condition to drive, Sawyer. I’d be happy to run you home,” Detective Biggs said.

“But I have my car.”

Nurse Tucker made a dismissive motion with her hand, her mob of tiny bangles clinking as she did. “The detective is right. You shouldn’t be driving. You can lie down in my office for a while to calm down if you’d like.”

Sawyer looked from Nurse Tucker to Detective Biggs, the array of shattered glass and broken roses on the floor behind him. “I think I’d like to go home now, please.”

Detective Biggs kept silent as they left the administration building and walked out to the parking lot. Sawyer was grateful for the silence; every time the detective sucked in a breath and looked like he was about to speak to her, her skin tightened, every muscle in her body seemed to collapse in on itself and she had to look away. Biggs seemed to get the message and repeatedly just cleared his throat.

He gestured toward his car, and Sawyer stood at the passenger side door, hands hugging her elbows, until he clicked the lock.

Detective Biggs drove a big, gray, unmarked cop car that smelled like cigarettes and McDonald’s. Sawyer wrinkled her nose when she got in.

“Sorry,” Detective Biggs said, a hint of sympathy in his voice, “my partner is a smoker.”

Biggs cleared the passenger seat of a stack of coffee-stained files and crumpled fast food wrappers and Sawyer sat down, her body stiff, her hands clutching the straps of her backpack.

They pulled out of the school driveway and onto the street when the rain started to fall. Heavy droplets thunked against the hood of the car. Sawyer liked the sound, thought it was soothing. She liked the way the rain marred the windshield before the wipers took it away. If she squinted, she could pretend they were somewhere else, that she was someone else.

“I hate the rain,” Detective Biggs said.

“Take the Old Oak highway, please.”

“Oh, right.” The detective nodded, puckering his lips as if considering something. “So, I guess Kevin was pretty popular at school.”

Sawyer hiked her backpack onto her lap and wrapped her arms around it, her hands disappearing in the long sleeves of her sweater. “Uh-huh.”

“Done much unpacking?”

Sawyer looked at the detective, but he didn’t look at her. His eyes were focused hard out the windshield, guiding the hulking car over the slick black highway.

“Not really.” She vaguely wondered if he knew about the shoes—maybe he had a spy or a bug or something. She tightened her grip on her pack. “Not since you were there.”

“Tragic about what happened with Kevin. I really hate to see something like that.”

Sawyer nodded, replaying the rest of the conversation in her mind. It was the same one every time an adult tried to talk to her: Tragic about what happened. Such a waste. Just goes to show you that nothing in life is guaranteed; we’re all mortal.

“Kevin much of a drinker?”

Sawyer blinked. “What?”

“It was a drunk driving accident, right? Was Kevin a drinker?”

Sawyer shook her head, feeling her ponytail tag the side of her cheeks. “No, not really.” She began to wonder why none of these questions had come up the day Detective Biggs appeared at her house.

“But he was definitely drinking that night,” Biggs said matter-of-factly.

She remembered that night. It was raining then too, big quarter-sized drops that pelted her forehead, that made the fresh cut under her eye sting. She felt the pain of that cut again, remembered the way Kevin’s eyes looked when he noticed the blood. He studied the dime-sized drop that clung to his class ring. He didn’t look at the red velvet drop that bubbled under Sawyer’s eye.

Sawyer remembered seeing Kevin’s face, and it was blurry, soaked. She watched him roll up on the balls of his feet, saw his fingers curl, one by one in molasses slow motion until they were fisted. Sawyer felt her body instinctively recoil, start to flinch.

A flash of something flitted through his eyes at that moment. It was almost—joy. Amusement. He made a fist, her body instinctively flinched, and he liked that. As if he enjoyed the fear he’d cultivated in her. Anger, harder than fear, roiled through her body. He always let her believe it was her fault.

Not tonight.

Kevin’s fingers were still wrapped in that tight ball. He wouldn’t raise that fist to her, but he gritted his teeth, his eyes narrowed and spitting a kind of wicked anger she had come to recognize.

“Leave me alone, Kevin.” She heard her own voice and it rang out loud, clear, and strong through the rain that night. “I’m done with you.”

As she sat in the car she searched her memory for the waver that must have been in her voice, for the shrinking fear she knew she must have felt. She turned around and Kevin reached for her, clamping a hand on her wrist. He squeezed, digging his fingernails into her flesh. She wouldn’t wince. She wouldn’t cry out.

“Don’t you dare run away from me,” he spat.

She shrugged him off violently. “I said leave me alone.”

He gave her a hard shove, but Sawyer kept her ground.

“Screw you, then!” he yelled to her back. “I don’t need you. I made you. No one knew who the hell you were until you started dating me, you little slut.”

Sawyer still felt the sting of those words as she clenched her jaw and hugged her backpack a little tighter, feeling the sharp edges of her books dig into her chest.

She heard the plink! and spritz of a beer being opened, then felt the whiz of the bottle as it soared past her left ear, leaving a spray of cold beer soaking her shoulder, dribbling down the naked skin on her throat and collar bone.

“I’m so done with you,” she said, surprised at the calm finality in her voice.

Kevin shrugged and took a pull on the beer he was holding. “Then what the hell are you still doing here?”

She felt the adrenaline in her legs even now as she remembered her slow jog away from Kevin, his beer bottles, and his car. The rain had started to let up, and she could hear the crinkle of leaves and twigs underfoot as she ran. She picked up speed and her hood slipped back. What remained of the drizzling, spitting rain rushed into her eyes, beer mixed with rain, and Sawyer kept running, kept going even when she heard Kevin’s tortured voice on the wind. “Sawyer!” he was yelling. “Sawyer, stop!”

“You’re way out there, aren’t you?”

“What?”

Detective Biggs jabbed a finger toward the rain-drenched windshield. “The housing development. It’s way out there, huh? I guess I didn’t realize it when we came out before.”

“We?”

“Officer Haas and me. He didn’t come in. He was handling some paperwork in the car.”

Sawyer remembered the fluorescent glow of Officer Haas’s cigarette as he lifted it to his lips when Sawyer drove up to her house.

“Oh.”

She paused, listened to her heart thrum out a metered beat. “Um.” Sawyer’s fingers started working the woven strap again on her backpack. “Detective Biggs? If someone—if something happened to someone and you—I mean, if I were to have…” Sawyer let her words trail off when the detective turned and smiled at her.

“Take a deep breath and start again.”

“I think I’m the reason why Kevin is dead.”

The words came out in a single, breathless string, and the second they were out, Sawyer desperately wished she could suck them back in. She stared straight ahead, eyes focused on the white dashes of the roadway, not daring to look at Detective Biggs.

“Were you in the car with Kevin?”

“No.”

Detective Biggs rubbed a big hand over his bald head, keeping one hand resting on the top of the steering wheel. He didn’t look at Sawyer. “Do you know where Kevin got the alcohol?”

Sawyer shook her head. “Not really. Sometimes he’d just take it from the fridge.”

“But you didn’t supply him with it.”

“No, sir. But I—I may have been the reason he was drinking.”

Detective Biggs put his other hand on the wheel, smoothly guiding the cruiser through the heavy iron gates of Blackwood Hills Estates. “Did you force him to drink the alcohol?”

“We were fighting. He was mad at me. I think that’s why he was drinking.” She licked her lips. “I’m sure that was why.”

A half smile cut across the detective’s face. “You didn’t force Kevin to get behind the wheel, Sawyer. You didn’t force him to drink and drive.” He looked at her, all amusement gone from his face. “That was his decision.”

Sawyer continued working the strap, her fingertips feeling raw from the course fabric. She wondered if she should mention the notes, mention the other reason she felt responsible for Kevin’s—and now Mr. Hanson’s?—death. She thought about the crumpled peanut oil wrapper stuffed in her jeans pocket, thought of the fact that regardless of what Detective Biggs said, if Sawyer hadn’t broken up with Kevin that night, he wouldn’t have been drinking, he wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel of his car. He wouldn’t have died.

“I didn’t force anyone to do anything,” she mumbled.

Sawyer’s cell phone started blaring the Notre Dame fight song the second she stepped through her front door.

“Hi, Dad,” she said into the phone. “I just walked in the door.”

“The school nurse called me. How are you feeling?”

Sawyer shimmied out of her jacket, dumped her backpack on the floor. “Better now.”

Her dad was silent for a beat and Sawyer imagined him on the other end, reclined in his black leather chair, fingers steepled as he wrestled with his thoughts. Sawyer sighed.

“What is it?”

“You know, Sawyer, you only saw Dr. Johnson that one time after Kevin’s death—”

Sawyer felt a red-hot coil of anger low in her belly. “But I saw him every week of you and mom’s divorce. And every week of your trial separation.”

“I know, hon, but this is different. He really helped you, right? Maybe you should consider…” He let his words trail off, and Sawyer cradled her cell phone against her shoulder, arms crossed in front of her chest.

“Maybe you should consider that I didn’t sleep well last night.” She pulled aside the front curtain, her eyes sweeping the bare street, the ominous-looking bones of the half-built houses surrounding her. “It’s impossible to sleep out here. It’s so damn quiet.”

“Language, Sawyer.”

Sawyer rolled her eyes and let the curtain drop back over the plateglass window. “It’s darn quiet, Dad.”

“Your mother and I just think it would be a good idea for you to check in with the doctor.”

“You talked to Mom about this? When did you talk to her?”

“We worry about you, Sawyer.”

“So, if I see Dr. Johnson and let him know that it’s too—” she paused, sucked in a sharp breath “—darn quiet around here and that I got a headache today from lack of sleep, you and Mom will drop this?”

She heard her father draw in a steady breath. “We just want to do what’s best for you. You’ve been through a terrible tragedy.”

Sawyer mouthed the words “terrible tragedy” as her father said them and rubbed her eyes. “Fine. I’ll make an appointment later. I just want to take a bath and go to bed right now, okay?”

“That sounds good. Tara and I have a birthing class so we’re going to be home late. We could always postpone, though, if you want us to be home with you.”

“You can’t postpone a birthing class. You’re kind of on a time crunch with that one. I’ll be fine, Dad. Like I said, bath and bed just sounds really good to me right now.”

“Okay, honey. I’ll call you again before we head out. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Sawyer clicked her phone shut and tossed it onto the couch, sinking down next to it. She rested her head on the stiff, new pillows Tara had picked out—some weird hemp weave stuffed with something hypoallergenic and renewable—and spied a mammoth spray of baby-pink roses on the kitchen counter.

Baby girl pink roses.

She groaned, snatched up her backpack and coat, and plodded to her bedroom. Sawyer had the water running in her attached bathroom (a plying perk of the new house), when she opened her laptop and dialed up her mom.

“Hi, Mom.”

The face that smiled back at Sawyer from her thirteen-inch screen mirrored her own: deep brown eyes, high cheekbones, a determined nose, but her mother’s face had a tiredness that tugged at Sawyer’s heart. Angela Dodd’s hair had always been a few shades darker than Sawyer’s, something that gave her a hard, no-nonsense edge in the courtroom; now Sawyer noticed the fringe of gray around the temples. It softened her.

“Sweetheart! I only have a minute to talk—I’m between clients—but I’m glad you called.”

Sawyer glanced at the clock on her screen. “Isn’t it almost time to knock off?”

Her mother smiled apologetically. “There is no quitting time around here. We’ve got a huge trial coming up.” Angela leaned toward the screen, studying her daughter. “You look good. Healthy. How are you?”

Sawyer cocked her head, rubbing small circles on her temples with her index fingers. “Seriously, Mom, please don’t fall into shrink mode.”

Her mother’s eyebrows went up, and Sawyer watched her pick up a carton of Chinese takeout and dig into it with a pair of chopsticks. “Shrink mode?”

“You know.” Sawyer dropped her voice into a high-pitched, saccharine-sweet tone that dripped with insincerity. “How are you doing? How does that make you feel?”

“Can’t a mother worry about her daughter?”

Not from 3,000 miles away. The thought bounced around Sawyer’s mind before she had a chance to stop it, and it left a pang of guilt—and pain—niggling at her heart.

The divorce hadn’t even been finalized when Angela Dodd packed up her closet and her office, and moved to Philadelphia. The offer—senior partner at one of the top law firms in the country—was epic; at least that was what she told Sawyer. It didn’t come as a complete surprise to Sawyer, nor did it seem all that different. Her entire childhood her mother would generally pepper her head with kisses as she walked out the door each morning, Sawyer with a bowl of cold cereal in hand and cartoons on the television. Angela usually had a cell phone pressed to her ear as she mouthed for Sawyer to “be good” and “listen to Daddy.” By the time she’d come home at night, hair mussed, briefcase groaning with unfinished briefs, Sawyer would be in bed.

It wasn’t that she was a bad mom. Angela Dodd taught her daughter to be strong and self-sufficient; she was nurturing and doted on Sawyer—when she was around—but Sawyer always got the distinct impression that her mother’s career, not her husband or her daughter, was her first love.

Sawyer swallowed hard, another memory of Kevin flashing in her mind.

They were stretched out on the living room floor, “studying.” Not a single book was cracked, but Sawyer’s lips were chapped and the feel of Kevin’s lips on hers, his fingers on her bare skin, made her whole body buzz. He pulled away, a sly smile on his face, and brushed a thumb over her bottom lip.

“I should probably get going. Your parents are going to be home soon.”

She looked into his eyes; the twilight breaking through the blinds seemed to make them glitter and shine. She shrugged. “No one will be home for hours.”

Kevin wagged his head, his eyes still locked on hers. “I don’t see how your parents could leave you alone for a minute, let alone whole days at a time.” His hand dipped to her collarbone, tracing the curve there until Sawyer’s whole body erupted in gooseflesh. “I can barely get through two periods without seeing you.”

She didn’t know why, but the idea that Kevin wanted her near him—that he needed to see her—was the most incredible feeling to Sawyer. Her parents had their jobs, their crumbled marriage, but to Kevin, Sawyer was all there was.

“I love you so much, Kevin.”

Sawyer shook off the memory, hammering down the disgusting need that sprang up. “I’m fine, Mom. Dad didn’t need to call you.”

Angela feigned innocence, and Sawyer shook her head. “Cut out the Meryl Streep. He told me he called you.”

“We talk, Sawyer. And we worry. Besides, Dad told me that one of your teachers passed away. I’m really sorry to hear that.”

Sawyer gripped her bedspread, pressing the puckered fabric between forefinger and thumb so hard her finger went numb. “It was an accident,” she said, her voice a hollow whisper. “He had an allergic reaction to something he ate.”

Or was fed.

Angela cocked her head, her eyebrows pressing together. “That’s terrible, sweetie. Is there going to be some sort of memorial? Did they cancel classes or anything?”

“Look, can you just tell Dad that you talked to me and I’m okay?”

Sawyer’s mother opened her mouth—to protest, Sawyer guessed—but Sawyer held up a hand. “I’m going to make an appointment to see Dr. Johnson, who will also tell you that I’m fine. But please, until then? I’m fine. I’m adjusting. I have friends and eat vegetables and don’t cut myself. And”—Sawyer pointed a silencing finger—“I’m not selling myself for drugs or sex or Beanie Babies.”

“Beanie Babies?” Sawyer’s mother shoveled some chow mein into her mouth and grinned, chewing steadily. “How do you even know what those old things are?”

“I pay attention in history class. Do we have a deal?”

There was a shrug on the other end of the line. “You certainly seem like the old Sawyer.”

Sawyer squinted at the screen. “What are you eating? Did you make your famous call to the Chinese restaurant tonight?”

Angela jabbed at her screen with her chopsticks. “Now I know you’re the old Sawyer. And the deal is you only have to eat vegetables until you’re eighteen. Then you’re a legal adult and can fill up on takeout and Red Bull like the rest of us.”

“Oh, the joys of adulthood. So, vegetables, yes, cutting, no, et cetera. Do we have a deal?”

“About vegetables? We made that deal when you were ten.”

“Mom.” Sawyer felt her nostrils flare, even though deep down her mother’s razzing felt familiar and comforting. Almost like things were normal.

“Okay, okay. But I want you to check in every day, and I want to hear how your appointment goes.”

Sawyer crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Doctor-patient confidentiality, prosecutor.”

Angela smiled. “That’s my smart kid. Oh.” There was an off-screen tone and Sawyer’s mom leaned toward it. “That’s my next client. Love you, baby, be good. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Bye.” Sawyer’s screen went blank and she sighed, closing her laptop. “Bye, Mom, love you too.”

Sawyer sunk chin deep in strawberry-kiwi-scented suds and blew bubbles, then rubbed her eyes. The house settled—even new houses did that, Sawyer assured herself—with a spine-tingling creak, then dropped into steady silence. Sawyer groaned, leaning her head against the cool marble slope of the tub.

“Note to self,” she said out loud, her voice reverberating through the sterile, tiled room, “unpack stereo ASAP.”

The bathroom was still, the tub water unmoving. Sawyer breathed in and out in long, supposedly calming breaths until there was a soft thump against the front door. Sawyer shifted in the tub, cocking her head to listen; when no sound responded, she cupped her hands and dug into the hot tub water, dripping it over her head.

There was another thump.

Sawyer stiffened, her heart and her mind racing. Probably just a branch, she told herself, or a bush. Sawyer was able to comfort herself with that thought for a breath before she realized that there were no branches or bushes outside—just a desolate wasteland of spray-painted outlines of someday-grass and orange-topped landscape flags.

Despite the hot water, Sawyer felt a chill that covered her skin with gooseflesh. She stood up, snatched her robe from the hook by the door, and slipped into it. Her wet feet left damp imprints on the heavy pile carpet as she stepped out of the bathroom, tiptoeing to the landing, her breathing shallow and forced.

“Hello?”

There was no answer.

Sawyer leaned over the staircase, her fingers wrapping tightly around the banister. She swallowed. “Dad? Tara?”

The silence of the house pressed against Sawyer’s chest and her stomach played the accordion while her breath hitched in a throaty rasp. She silently prayed for the comforting noises of a populated neighborhood—car alarms, children shrieking, a thumping car stereo bass.

But there was nothing but the silence.

Had Sawyer been wearing pants she might have peed them when she heard the knock on the front door. It was determined, insistent, loud. The hollow sound bounced off the house’s high ceilings and half-furnished rooms. She ran downstairs and pressed her eye to the door’s peephole, her heart thundering against her chest the whole time. Finally she sighed—a great, bone-jellying sigh—when she saw the dirt-brown uniform of an annoyed UPS guy, his head enormous and distorted through Sawyer’s fish-eye peephole.

“Yes?” she called through the still-closed door.

She watched the UPS guy check his handheld device. “Tara Dodd?” he asked the door as he gestured to the package he held.

Sawyer yanked the door open, tightening the belt on her robe as she did so.

“Sure,” she said. “Sorry about that. It’s just—” She shrugged.

The UPS man offered an easy smile. “I get it. Pretty freaky around here with all them empty houses.”

You don’t know the half of it, Sawyer thought. Instead, she reflected the man’s smile and said, “Totally.”

He looked over his shoulders. “You the only one who lives here?”

Sawyer quirked an eyebrow, half nervous, half fearful. “Um, no. My dad. And brother. Big…brother. And we have a dog.” She vaguely considered appropriating a growl or yelling, “Stand down, Chomper!” over her shoulder into the empty house.

“No, I meant up here.” He waved his one free arm. “It’s just, I’ve never delivered anything out here before.”

“Oh.” Sawyer swallowed. “There’s people,” she said vaguely, pushing more of her body behind the door. “Tons of people. They probably, you know, use FedEx or something.” She held out a hand, her eyes gesturing toward the box. “Can I?”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” He gave her an embarrassed once over, took her signature, and pressed the package into her hands. Sawyer shut the door and leaned against it, breathing heavily until her heartbeat returned to a normal, nonlethal pace.

Maybe a dog named Chomper wouldn’t be such a bad idea, she thought to herself.