2. Jayne
JAYNE
“WE’RE GOING TO have to get started with the questions soon, all right?”
The voice sounds like it’s far away, or like I have my AirPods in and someone is trying to talk over the music. I shake my head, trying to get my ears right.
“Miss Cooper?” the woman’s voice comes again. This time it sounds clearer.
I look up and force myself to focus. There is a uniformed officer sitting across the table from me, and she’s the one whose voice I hear. Next to her sits a man who I think introduced himself to me as the lead detective when I first came in here.
Wait, how long have I been in here?
“Medical said she’s calmed down some, but she may still be in shock,” the officer is saying to the detective.
“I respect that, but we need information,” he replies. “The more time goes by, the less fresh it’s going to be in her mind.”
“I can talk,” I choke the words out. “And you can call me Jayne.” I’ve been crying for hours. My voice is so hoarse, it doesn’t even sound like my own anymore.
Honestly, talking is the last thing I want to do right now. But I know I have to. I have to tell them what happened last night. I was a witness. I held my dying sister in my arms. I need to explain what happened.
It all feels like a dream. But it’s not a dream.
This is real.
And I hate to hear them talking about me like I’m not even here, or like I can’t understand them.
“Jayne,” the detective says, pushing a PowerBar and a cup of what looks like tea toward me across the table.
A sad little lemon slice is floating in it.
“I’m not sure if you heard me earlier, but I’m Detective Adrian Hunt.
I know you’ve just been through hell, and I’m sorry that you’re with us now.
I promise, we’ll get you out of here and back to your parents as soon as we can.
I just need you to tell me anything you know that might help us understand what happened last night. ”
“ ‘What happened’?” I ask, my voice shaking. “What do you mean, ‘what happened’? You know what happened. Mason stabbed my sister, and Ben tried to save her, and Mason went after him, so he had to—” My throat closes up as I try to finish the sentence.
They know what he had to do. They know that Mason is dead, just like Sadie.
“Ben tried to save her,” I say again. “And then Mason went after him, too. It was self-defense.” They have to understand that. I search their faces to see if they believe me.
“No one is questioning why Ben Carrera did what he did,” Detective Hunt says gently. “We just need to hear—from you, while the memories are still fresh—exactly what happened. Can you do that for us?”
I nod, wiping away more tears with a tissue from the box that has materialized on the table.
“I just don’t want him to get in trouble,” I say, trying to collect myself. “Ben would have done anything for my sister. He’ll never forgive himself that he was too late, and I just… Is he here now? Is someone talking to him? Is he okay?”
“Relax, Jayne. He’s talking with another one of our detectives. He’s okay. But we really need you to focus right now, and hopefully, you can help us make sense of what happened last night. Can you do that?”
I take a sip of the tea in front of me. It might not be good, but tea is supposed to be soothing, isn’t it?
Our mom, Carly, always makes me and Sadie green tea with honey and lemon when we’re having a bad day.
If I close my eyes, I can almost put myself back in our kitchen on a rainy afternoon, Sadie talking about the latest drama in her relationship with Ben.
It’s always something with you two—that’s what Carly would say.
But she just didn’t understand how their relationship worked.
I understood. Sadie and I are twins; I understand everything about her. Or, at least, I thought I did.
“Jayne? I said, can you do that for us?”
“Yes,” I say. “Yeah. Of course. Honestly, I don’t know what I can tell you, but I’ll do anything I can to help. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
I bite my lip and stare up at the low ceiling.
“Nothing will bring her back,” I say finally, my attempts to compose myself falling to pieces in a spectacular fashion.
“Will it? Nothing I say. Nothing I tell you. Nothing is going to bring Sadie back. And I just don’t know how I’m supposed to keep going, because she’s only been gone for a few hours, and I feel like one half of me has been torn away, and there’s just a void.
And nothing can fill it—nothing can ever fill it again because we were part of each other.
I’ll tell you everything I know, Detective Hunt.
I swear to God, I will try to remember every single detail of every minute. But it just doesn’t matter.”
I look him in the eye, willing him to understand what I’m telling him.
“She’s gone,” I say again.
Detective Hunt is quiet for a few minutes while I pull more tissues from the box and try to take a few deep breaths. The uniformed officer places her hand on the table between us, palm up, and I put my own in it. She gives it a reassuring squeeze.
“You’re right, Jayne,” Detective Hunt says finally, heaving a deep sigh.
“Sadie is gone. I’m not going to insult you by suggesting we can do anything to change the facts.
But you’re still here. And if there is anything that we can do, together, to help bring justice for your sister, then we need to try. That’s all I’m asking.”
He’s right, of course. Sadie is gone, and I’m here. It’s up to me to be her voice now. It’s funny; I was always the quieter of the two of us. Now I’m the only one who can speak.
“Where do you want me to start?” I ask.
“Why don’t you tell me a little bit about what happened leading up to the party last night?”
“You know, I told her not to go.” Once I start talking, the words tumble out. “Maybe that’s why it’s just so hard to be sitting here right now. If she had listened to me, it all could have been different. If she had listened and just stayed in rather than letting Liz talk her into going—”
“When you say ‘Liz,’ you’re referring to Elizabeth Stratton?”
“Yeah. She was a bad influence on my sister. I mean, I feel bad saying that, but she just… she just was. But they’ve been friends since we were kids, and I feel like Sadie just didn’t know how to let the relationship go, you know?
Sadie was too nice. Even when Liz started to spin out of control last year, Sadie was always defending her behavior.
Even after what she did. I still don’t know how Sadie ever forgave her. ”
“Forgave her for what, exactly?”
I pause for a moment. “I don’t think it’s relevant. And I don’t want to get anyone else in trouble.”
“Jayne, please. Let us decide what’s relevant. If there is anything at all you have to tell us that could help, just be honest.”
I bite my lip as I consider what the detective just said.
Would telling them what Liz did somehow help put an end to all this?
Maybe there is some kind of connection that the police would see.
Something that would explain what happened to Sadie last night.
Anything could be important. That’s what they keep saying.
And if that’s true, then I actually have a lot to say.
Starting with that time Liz slept with Ben last year.