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.”

“You know that I didn’t do this, right, Dad?”

But the only answer that came was a dial tone.

Sawyer ran up to her stepmother’s room and held her breath, knocking gently. “Tara?” she whispered.

There was no answer, so Sawyer pushed the door open cautiously, poking her head in. “Tara?” she asked again.

The bedroom was pristine, and Sawyer cocked her head when she heard the rush of the shower. The door to the bathroom was shut and locked, and Sawyer knocked hard. “Tara? I’m home. Dad wants you to call him when you’re done, okay?”

The house was darkening. The gray of the sky was being edged out by an inky, all-encompassing blackness that seemed to weigh on Sawyer’s chest. She crossed the hall to her own room and flopped down onto her bed, feeling the weight of the day—the days, actually—pulling on her limbs. Everything ached. She pressed her palms against her eyes then blinked up at the ceiling, letting the tears roll over her cheeks, drip onto the bedspread. She squinted then, seeing the tinge of red.

When she rolled over onto her stomach, every aching muscle in her body pricked with a primal fear. Her heart hammered against her ribcage, and she launched herself from the bed, backing up so rapidly that she thunked against her desk, sending a shower of jewelry and pens clattering to the ground.

She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the wall above her bed, from the gashes of red paint she had grown to despise—from the words I see everything scrawled above her headboard.

FIFTEEN

Bile rose in Sawyer’s throat.

She dashed across the hall and kicked at the bathroom door, yanking on the knob and using the heel of her hand. “Tara, Tara, get out here! We have to get out of here right now!”

Sawyer was sobbing openly now, looking back toward her room as if the words would come to life and follow her.

“Tara!” She kicked at the door again and finally pressed her ear against it, praying to hear the sound of the water softening, the tap turning off, Tara coming to her rescue. But the shower remained a thunderous rain. Sawyer stepped back to kick open the door and stopped, astonished, when her feet sunk into the carpet.

It was soaked.

“Oh my God. Tara!”

Sawyer shouldered the door, hard. She heard the splinter of the wood frame and hit it once more, sending the thing vaulting open and her tumbling into the bathroom. She slid on the tile floor, a sheen of water making the entire room slick.

The first thing Sawyer saw was Tara’s bare feet, resting one on top of the other. They were kicked against the glass shower door, a rivulet of shower water pouring out underneath them.

“Oh no.” Sawyer gripped the sink and made her way to the shower, where Tara was slumped. Her naked body was crumpled on the tile floor, her blond hair floating on a quarter inch of water. Her cheeks were pink and flushed, her shoulder and pregnant belly a deep red where the water was pelting her.

Sawyer’s tears were steady now and she felt herself gasp—and smile—when she saw the light rise and fall of Tara’s chest.

“Oh, thank God!”

She really did feel relief, her tears turning to joy, when she turned off the tap and snatched a towel from the rack. She laid it gently over Tara’s body, covering her. She tapped her cheeks lightly, then harder. “Tara? Tara!”

Tara’s head lolled listlessly, her mouth hanging slack. “Oh please, Tara, wake up!”

Sawyer sloshed through the water and snatched the phone from the nightstand next to her father’s bed. She dialed 911 and took huge, gasping breaths of air, then stopped when she realized the line was completely dead.

“No, no, no!”

She was going for her cell phone when she detected motion out of the corner of her eye. A car was coming down the street toward the house, coasting along the slick blacktop. As it got closer, Sawyer’s heart began to pound.

It was a police car.

She began to back away from the window when she realized that Stephen Haas was driving it. It was only then that Sawyer noticed the car pulled up tight against the house.

“Oh God, Chloe.”

She ran downstairs and snatched the door open, throwing her arms around Chloe as she stood on the porch. “Get inside.”

“Sawyer, the police—”

Sawyer slammed the door hard. “Where’s your cell phone? We have to call 911.”

“But the police are right—”

“No!” Again tears stung Sawyer’s eyes. “I don’t trust him! He’s coming for me. Call 911 and get an ambulance.”

Chloe gripped Sawyer’s shoulders. “What is going on?”

Sawyer wagged her head, her breath caught in a plastic bubble that refused to burst. Her skin felt tight; her forehead seemed to shrink against her brain. She doubled over, rubbing her eyes with her fists.

“I think it’s Stephen. He’s Logan’s brother. I think he’s after me—I think he killed Kevin and Maggie or he’s covering up for Logan.”

“But why?”

Snot and tears rolled down Sawyer’s chin. “I don’t know.”

Chloe’s eyes were wide when Sawyer straightened up again. Her mouth dropped into a little o of surprise; there was warm concern in her eyes. Her grip on Sawyer’s shoulders tightened, and Chloe stepped around her, nudging Sawyer back into the house, shutting the door solidly behind her. Sawyer heard the lock tumble into place.

“Sawyer, you’re about to hyperventilate.”

“You don’t understand, Chloe. We have to get out of here! Logan—Stephen—he knows where I live! He’ll be back, and we have to save Tara—”

Sawyer was crying hard, big hiccupping sobs that wracked her shoulders and made the ache in her chest that much greater.

Chloe pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed, pressing it to her ear. Sawyer listened to Chloe give her address, speaking slowly, asking Sawyer if Tara was still breathing.

Sawyer nodded frantically, and Chloe hung up the phone. “They’re on their way.”

Sawyer physically crumpled, and Chloe snaked her arms around her. “Shh,” she said, “it’s going to be fine. Everything is going to be okay.” Chloe brushed a soft, comforting kiss on Sawyer’s forehead.

There was a heavy knock at the door, and Sawyer stiffened. Her heart lurched. She felt her eyes widen, the fear coursing through her veins and making her limbs leaden. “That’s him.”

Chloe lowered her arms and stepped around Sawyer, the picture of calm. She rolled up on her tiptoes and pressed her eye to the peephole. “It’s a cop.”