Sawyer hiked her backpack onto her shoulder and stepped away from her locker, but that meager line—“You’re welcome”—was like an invisible string pulling her back. She spun her combination lock and reached for the note, her fingers hovering tentatively over it as though it would burn her. Finally, she snatched it up and tucked the note into her bag, heading toward her AP biology class.

Chloe appeared in the hallway halfway to Sawyer’s class and fell in step with her. She leaned in. “You look awful,” she whispered.

Sawyer swallowed heavily and licked her lips. “There was something in my locker.”

“Like a dead mouse?” Chloe shuddered.

“Ahem,” Mr. Rhodes said from inside his classroom. “As soon as Ms. Dodd is through with her conversation, we will begin our class.”

Sawyer looked from Mr. Rhodes to Chloe. “Gotta go.”

Chloe peeled off into her own class as Sawyer beelined through the open door and pulled it shut behind her, whispering apologies as she did.

“Nice of you to join us, Sawyer. Take your seat.”

“Sorry.” She ducked into her desk at the back of the room and pulled out her biology book, working to rein in her mind as it shot off in multiple directions. As the day wore on, Sawyer tried to put the note out of her mind, but each time the bell rang, her heart would start to punch against her ribs. She purposely avoided her locker—which was easy to do, since her speech class didn’t require a book and she was planning to buy her lunch anyway—but she couldn’t avoid it at the end of the day. She sat in her last class, doing her best to avoid the clock. But each time another minute ticked off, a hot coil of dread burned through her. When the bell finally rang, she took her time gathering her things.

Chloe poked her head through the doorway from the hall, glaring at Sawyer.

“Oh my God, Sawyer, the glaciers are melting,” she moaned. “Come on already!”

Sawyer slung her last book into her backpack and hitched it over her shoulder. She followed Chloe into the crowded hallway, and as they approached the junior hall, icy fingers of anxiety—or fear—pricked at Sawyer. She tried to shake it off, to remind herself of her well-constructed flower theory, but the note—and its message—hung heavily in the back of her mind.

“Hey, are you okay?” Chloe asked.

Sawyer shook her head, shrugged.

“Didn’t you say you got something?”

Sawyer sucked in a stomach-quivering breath, her eyes focused on her locker. Would there be another note? She fumbled with the lock and tugged it open, letting out a whoosh of air when she saw that her locker was just as she had left it: her neat stack of books, two tubes of Chapstick, a picture of her and Kevin—and no note.

“Earth to Sawyer?”

“Sorry, Chloe. I’m just—I’m just tired, I guess. I’m not sleeping very well.”

“I thought your doctor gave you some sleeping pills or something.”

Sawyer nodded, swapping the books in her locker for the ones in her backpack. “He did, but if I take one of those I’m dead to the world.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

Sawyer rolled her eyes. “Heaven with the teensiest bit of hallucinatory crazy tossed in.”

Chloe bounced on the balls of her feet. “Oh, IPO-paid hallucinogens? Sign me up!”

“And then I run like molasses the next morning.”

“You dropped something.” Chloe bent down and plucked the mint-green envelope from the linoleum. “What’s this?”

Sawyer swallowed. “It’s nothing.” She snatched the envelope back while Chloe cocked an eyebrow.

“Grabby.”

Sawyer bit her lip, then forced a nonchalant smile. “Call me later?”

“Will do.”

Sawyer felt like she was sleepwalking all through track practice—and Coach Carter told her the same. She was glad when he finally let the team leave after their timed trials.

“You okay, S?” Coach Carter asked as students trickled off the field.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, Coach, I was just—” Sawyer bit her bottom lip, suddenly certain that Coach Carter could see right through her, would know that she was lying. “Distracted.”

Coach nodded. “That’s not like you.” He broke into a friendly grin and trotted backward. “You’re going to bring it next time though, right?”

Sawyer smiled back, for once glad that Coach Carter cared about nothing more than her performance on the track.

“Sure,” she mumbled, forcing herself to smile.

Sawyer skipped changing in the locker room and went directly for her car in the school parking lot. She threw her backpack—note safely tucked in the front pocket—on the passenger seat. She drove a brand-new midnight blue Honda Accord with all the extras. Though she was thankful, she wasn’t as wowed by the thing as her friends had been. Where they saw shiny new wheels and imminent freedom, Sawyer saw her parents’ last unified attempt at appeasement—or apology—while her mother moved two thousand miles away to run a corporate office and her father and wife number two moved Sawyer to the outer regions of hell. Her parents had presented the car as a reliable necessity for Sawyer. Her father’s new subdivision and her new, just-like-every-other-house-in-the-tract home were thirty-three miles away from Chloe, Hawthorne High, and every other bit of civilization in Sawyer’s life.

She sunk her key in the ignition, plastic Fighting Hornet keychain dangling, but didn’t start the car. Instead, she bit her lip and listened to her heartbeat speed up, grimacing as hot needles pricked at her spine. She unzipped her pack and pulled out the note, studying the envelope as if some new, revealing clue would suddenly appear. There was nothing. On a sharp breath she plucked the card from its envelope and opened it, reading the handwriting font once again:

You’re welcome.

She said the words out loud, and they seemed to fill up the whole car, to squeeze the air out of the cab. Sawyer chewed her bottom lip, glancing from the newspaper article back to the note. I’m welcome for what?

She heard the football coach’s whistle blow in the distance, signaling the end of their practice. Football players, muddied and sweaty, began to trickle into the parking lot, their hoots, howls, and general chatter muffled by the Accord’s rolled-up windows. The team girlfriends hung back with the cheerleaders, who walked into the lot in bunches, talking animatedly, ponytails bobbing. A group of band members lugged their instruments, and from behind them Sawyer watched as a group of varsity football players ambled by, all wearing matching shirts—hornet green, the words “We Will Never Forget You” printed above a bright white number twenty-one and the last name Anderson.

Kevin.

Sawyer looked from the jerseys to the note in her hand. Her breath hitched and her fingers—and the note—began to tremble.

Someone knew.

* * *

A navy blue sedan was blocking Sawyer’s driveway when she came home from track practice. Sawyer parked behind it and stepped out of her car, the dusk already setting, already pushing the estates into a hazy darkness. She blinked when she saw the spark of a cigarette from the side of the house. Sawyer guessed the owner of the sedan was checking out the bones of the houses nearby; it wasn’t unusual for potential buyers to check out the Dodd family’s “model home.”

“Hey, Dad,” Sawyer started, “it looks like someone’s looking at the—” She paused, looking at the three heads that swung to look at her.

Her stomach rolled over on itself as she felt all eyes fixate on her, studying her with a look she was starting to recognize—and loathe—sympathy mixed with curiosity, with just the tiniest hint of frustration.

Sawyer’s dark eyes washed from her stepmother to her father. “What’s going on?”

Andrew Dodd blinked at his wife and cleared his throat. They were perched on the new ecru couch, pillows undisturbed, but their faces were drawn. A man sat on the couch directly across from them, a small leather notepad balanced on his knee.

“Is this your daughter?” the man asked.

“Yes,” Andrew Dodd said, jumping up and going to her. “This is Sawyer.” He put his hand on the small of Sawyer’s back and ushered her into the living room. “Sawyer, this is Detective Frank Biggs.”

Frank Biggs looked exactly like you’d expect a man named Frank Biggs to look—like a mustached fireplug in a short-sleeved, button-down shirt; a stained blue tie; and khakis that could use an iron or a dumpster.

Sawyer shook his hand and he smiled, breathing out a whoosh of overly minted, Nicorette smelling air. “Nice to meet you.”

“Dad, what is this about?”

“Detective Biggs just wants to ask you a few questions about Kevin.” Andrew cleared his throat a second time, avoiding Sawyer’s gaze. “About what happened to Kevin.”

“Just a few routine follow-up questions,” Biggs said, flipping a black ballpoint pen over his hairy knuckles.

Sawyer nodded. “Okay. But I told the other officer everything I knew.”

Biggs nodded and flipped open his notebook. “So did you see Kevin the night of the accident, Sawyer?”

He pronounced her name Saw-yah and fixed her with his flat, brown eyes.

“Yes. I saw him before”—a sob lodged in her throat—“before the accident.”

“Were you in the car with him at any time?”

Andrew let out a hissing sigh. “Is this really necessary? She already said that she had been on a date with Kevin and then walked back to her car.”

Sawyer turned to her father. “It’s okay, Dad.”

“So you were in Kevin’s car. Up until when?”

“I don’t know; nine o’clock, maybe?”

“And that was on the hillside.”