“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.”