15. Liz #2
I take a deep breath. This is the hardest part, obviously.
Going through yesterday afternoon, reliving what happened when Sadie and I first got to the party…
all that is harmless, almost fun. I can pretend I’m not here right now, that I’m draped over Sadie’s bed the morning after the party, and we’re both nursing hangovers and gossiping about what happened the night before.
Going into this part of the night crushes that little daydream with a sledgehammer.
“Do you have any more of those little tissue packets?” I ask suddenly. “I might, uh, need more.”
“Sure,” she says, producing another one from the pocket of her oversized blazer.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Please continue.”
It sounds gentle when she says it, but I know an order when I hear one.
“So I was talking with Ben for a while, like I said, and then he stayed up at the house and said he was going to track down Sadie while I went back down to the bonfire. I told him I thought she was outside somewhere, but he kept insisting she was in the house.”
“So you and Ben Carrera separated at that time? He didn’t walk back down to the bonfire with you?”
“No.”
“Did you see him down there later?”
“Um, no. No, I’m pretty sure he was in the house the whole time. Probably trying to find Sadie, like I was. But I didn’t see her anywhere.”
“Did you see Mason Vreeland?”
I rack my mind, but I can’t remember. I shrug. “I had no reason to be paying any attention to him.”
The detective nods, scribbling away in her notebook. “Go on.”
“I guess close to eleven or so, I figured I should try harder to find Sadie and Jayne. At that point, I thought Jayne had probably tracked Sadie down herself, and they’d left without me.”
“Did you try calling and texting Sadie?”
“No.” I pause for a moment as I try to remember why I didn’t just text her. Then I remember. “I don’t think she had her phone with her. I’m not sure what happened to it, but I remember her saying a while after we got to the party that she couldn’t find it.”
“She had her phone on her when she was found,” Detective Budd informs me.
I shrug. “She must have found it. But like I said, last I knew, she’d put it down somewhere, or Ben borrowed it or something, and she didn’t know where it was. Is that important?”
“No, it’s okay. Please continue.”
“Um, I was just starting back up to the house when I heard screams coming from the old barn. There was music and stuff playing by the bonfire, but once you got a little bit away from it, everything faded a lot. You have to pass by the old barn to get back to the house. It’s where everyone goes to hook up, you know?
So generally, you steer clear of it unless you have something or someone in particular in mind.
Anyway, I was still kind of far away from it, but then I heard this horrible screaming.
Like, I never got what the word ‘bloodcurdling’ meant, but then I heard this.
It was so awful, and I just started running for the barn. ”
“You ran toward the scream?”
“Well, yeah. Like I said, that barn is where people go to hook up, and my first thought was that some asshole had a girl in there and was doing something awful to her. I didn’t really have a plan; I just thought that bursting in would probably startle the guy enough to stop what he was doing.”
“I admire the spirit of the action.”
“Yeah.” I shake my head. I notice that I haven’t actually used any of the tissues in the new packet Detective Budd gave me, but I am slowly shredding the label off it. “What I saw when I got in there, though… I’ll never forget it for the rest of my life. God, it was so awful.”
“Can you describe it for me, please?”
“I ran inside, and it was pretty dark in there, just one old light at the top of the hayloft. But I saw Sadie on the ground, covered in blood. Ben was holding her and sort of rocking back and forth, but he wasn’t making any noise.
Mason was lying nearby, and I don’t know if he was bloody, but I knew without even looking at him real close that he was dead.
And there was Jayne. She was the one screaming.
Her whole body was shaking, and she had her phone out—I think she was trying to call nine one one, or maybe she already had.
But service is so shitty out there. And I remember being confused at first. I thought it must be Jayne who was dead, and Sadie who was alive, screaming her head off. It just had to be.”
“Is there a particular reason you thought that?”
“No. No, no, no,” I say, uncertain of why I’m repeating myself so many times.
“No. I just—my brain didn’t compute. I just couldn’t believe it was Sadie.
I guess maybe because they were dressed alike last night, you know?
I just thought that Ben had to be confused.
He thought he was holding Sadie, but it couldn’t be.
Sadie had to be alive. He had to be holding Jayne. He just had to be. He had to be.”
I whisper the words the last time I say them. Suddenly every ounce of adrenaline that’s probably been coursing through my veins since last night is gone. I have nothing left.
“I need to lie down,” I say, and my voice sounds muffled to my own ears.
“I’m sorry. We don’t have a—”
“It’s fine,” I say. Without another word, I slide out of my chair and lie down, flat on my back, on the cold, filthy linoleum floor. There’s nothing to stare at but the fluorescent lights above, and I try to take a deep breath. Hell, I try to take any kind of breath at all.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I want to scream. I want to pound my fists against the floor and yell until my voice is gone. None of this is how it was supposed to be.
It was supposed to be me and Sadie, best friends forever. No one else, and nothing else. Just us, forever. Even though she drove me absolutely crazy. Even though she could be a complete bitch, and I hated the way she teased me and manipulated everyone around her.
People grow. They change. I figured she’d grow up in college, and we’d be middle-aged women guzzling chardonnay, talking about how awful we used to be.
But that isn’t what the future looks like anymore. It’s gone, forever. Just like that stupid necklace she gave me that ended up meaning so much. Probably lost in the cornfield or charred up in the remains of Trevor’s bonfire. It was cheap, anyway. Not meant to last. But I thought it would.
“Miss Stratton.” Detective Budd is crouching down on the floor next to me, offering a manicured hand. “We’re done with your questioning for now. You’re free to go. And I do need you to get up off this floor.”
I take her hand and feel momentarily dizzy when I finally stand up again.
“Is there someone we can call for you?” she asks. Normally the amount of pity in her voice would tick me off, but I’m too tired and miserable to care.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “No. No one.”
A look of concern passes over her face, but I see it easily replaced with professionalism.
“Well,” she says. “If you do… need someone, I’ll make sure you get the card for the juvenile therapist on staff here.”
I need a therapist like I need a kick in the head.
“Thanks,” I say, more out of habit than meaning.
“I’m very sorry for your loss, Miss Stratton. And I know it may seem tempting to—how do I put this—get out of Dodge. But please don’t go far. Go home, and plan to stick around here for the foreseeable future. In case we have more questions. Can you do that?”
She phrases it like I have a choice. We both know I don’t. And my immediate future includes a hell of a lot more Levi and Mel than I ever wanted in my life.
“Yeah,” I say simply.
“We appreciate your cooperation, Miss Stratton.”
“Cooperation” is an interesting choice of words. But, hey, she’s the one in charge. She can call it what she wants.
She’s staring at me so intensely that I feel like I’m still on trial for something. I know she said I’m free to go, but her stare indicates otherwise.
“Um, is there anything else?” I ask finally.
Detective Budd heaves a sigh, and suddenly she looks very tired. “Just take care of yourself, Miss Stratton. I know that can seem like an impossible task when the people around you who are supposed to do it don’t hold up their end of the deal. But you’re worth the effort. I hope you remember that.”
I look down at the floor. What am I supposed to say to that? I guess it’s a nice idea, whether she means it or not.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
She gives a brief nod, like she’s satisfied that her job here is done. She has successfully imparted her hard-won wisdom to the troubled teen who reminds her of herself or whatever.
“See you around,” I say. And I hope to God I don’t.