Hannah Jayne - Truly, Madly, Deadly

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.