She Lies Alone: An utterly compelling psychological suspense novel, page 24
The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy or disorder of the universe will increase over time.
I reread the statement, stunned by my accidental foreshadowing. The Second Law of Thermodynamics had caught me in its cyclone. My world had come unhinged, shards of regret and suspicion spinning around me. Yanking my eyes from the board, I turned to the email from the substitute who’d covered my classes the previous four days. It hadn’t been Mrs. Hemsworth, but another woman who I’d never met. She’d emailed me detailed notes regarding her discussion of the pH scale with my students. There hadn’t been time or energy to gather the necessary supplies for the related experiment, so I’d turned to my reliable friend, YouTube, today.
A man’s voice droned through the thin wall from room 102, replacing Elena’s usual sing-song banter and the muffled laughter that sometimes followed. The unfamiliar voice turned my skin cold, and I fumbled with my laptop, searching for the play button on the video.
“We’re going to watch some experiments that demonstrate how to measure acids and bases on the pH scale. You can take notes while you watch.”
A few mumbles and whispers cut through the silence. Chairs slid out and students stretched their legs as I dimmed the lights.
I wondered if Elena was floating above us somewhere. Could she identify her murderer in this classroom? Could it have been Rowan or Phoebe? Or the two of them together? The police wouldn’t have allowed them to come to school if they were real suspects, would they?
I’d arrived early, hoping to scour Elena’s classroom for clues. I’d poked my head inside her door, finding the police had beaten me to it. Of course, they would have already cleared everything out, searching for fingerprints or threatening notes. They’d even replaced her desk with a new one.
The thirteen-minute experiment played out on the screen at the front of the room, the excited, upbeat voice of the lively and compact man conducting the experiment in direct contrast to my own demeanor. McKenzie sat in the front row, flattening her mouth and strumming her nails against the table. Dawn leaned next to her chomping strawberry gum, the artificial scent wafting around me. The recent events had not made the two girls any nicer to Phoebe. I couldn’t help wondering how far they would go to get revenge. Framing Phoebe for murder seemed like a stretch. My eyes scanned the tops of my students’ heads, searching for some sort of clue: Christopher, Austin, Liam, Peter, Ravi, Ava, and Marisol. I’d spotted all of them at Geeks and Goblins on Wednesday night.
I dragged my gaze back to the laptop on my desk. Was I really searching for a murderer among the kids in my fourth-hour AP Chemistry class? My hands gripped the edge of my desk, keeping me anchored to something. This must be what it felt like to go crazy.
I closed my eyes and waited until the video neared its end, then I played another one. When that one ended, I started another one.
“Didn’t we already see this experiment?” Christopher asked.
My mouth pulled back. Just bear with me, kid. “It’s slightly different.” My voice stretched with tension.
Christopher was right. It was the same experiment, only conducted by a different person with different shades of food coloring mixed into her solutions. Thankfully, my students let it slide.
Five minutes later, the bell rang. I’d made it through another hour. My class stood and crowded their way toward the door. Phoebe and Rowan languished toward the back of the line, Austin waiting behind them. Phoebe glanced at me and then over her shoulder.
Austin’s face hardened, a curve forming in the corner of his lips. “Hey, Phoebe,” he said, loud enough for people further up the line to hear. “Got any more Taco Loco knives hidden in your backpack?”
Phoebe turned away, lips pinched between her teeth, her chest rising and falling beneath her black jacket. Her fingers tightened around the straps of her backpack. Rowan squared his shoulders, his dark eyes brewing.
Austin puffed out his chest and grinned at Rowan. “What are you going to do about it, freak?”
Before I understood what was happening, Rowan lunged forward, his fist connecting with Austin’s jaw. A sickening thud cracked in the air. Austin tumbled backward into a table, his hands covering his face.
McKenzie screamed. A few other boys yelled, “Fight!”
A police officer rushed in from the hallway, attracted by the commotion. He surveyed the scene. I nodded toward Rowan. The officer grabbed Rowan by the arm, patted him down, and led him toward the office.
Beads of sweat dripped down my forehead, my breathing heavy. I kicked myself for not calling in sick again like I noticed Nick had done. My eyes glued themselves to the open doorway Rowan had just been pulled through. A part of me admired how quick he’d been to jump to Phoebe’s defense, but he’d just made the suspicion surrounding him a hundred times worse.
Phoebe’s mouth hung open, her arms wrapped around herself. Austin moaned from the table, blood dripping from his mouth. Liam hunched toward him.
“Are you okay, man?”
I grabbed a wad of paper towels and shoved them toward Austin, who took them and pressed them against his face. “Liam, can you walk with Austin down to the nurse’s office?”
The boy nodded, working his jaw. “Yeah.”
The stragglers funneled into the hallway. Everyone except for Phoebe. She lingered in place, staring at the wall.
I inched toward her, struggling to make eye contact. “Phoebe, let’s hang back for a minute and talk.”
She didn’t respond. Thick mascara weighed down her eyelashes.
“Ms. Mayfield was my friend, too,” I said.
Phoebe’s combat boots squeaked against the tile floor as she turned to face me. Her tears had pushed through her eye makeup and streamed in grayish rivers down her cheeks. She wiped the wetness from her face, her pained eyes finding mine. “Ms. Mayfield wasn’t my friend.”
She stammered out of the room, leaving me standing alone.
I paced toward the door, then back to my desk, feeling like Phoebe had slugged me in the gut. I was failing. I’d swapped teaching my lesson plans for a few tired YouTube videos. Under my watch, my students had accused each other and punched each other. I hadn’t taught them anything.
Even worse, I hadn’t been a good friend to Elena. For the thousandth time, I swore at myself for not meeting her at the soccer field, or even asking her what was so important. And, if I couldn’t be a competent teacher or friend, how would I ever become a mother? No wonder I’d already messed that up, too.
My shoulders slumped under the weight of my missed opportunities as I sucked in a shaky breath. It was lunchtime, but I wasn’t hungry. Still, I forced myself to lift my lunch bag from my bottom desk drawer and face the teachers’ lounge. The bag was light, and I remembered how I’d barely bothered to shove a granola bar and an unwashed apple into it this morning. I passed a brightly lit room where a woman with puffy blonde hair and tortoiseshell glasses crinkled her nose at me from behind a table. I continued walking, realizing she was one of the two grief counselors on duty.
“I’m sorry about Elena.” Annie Babcock had somehow materialized in front of me. Her glossy lips twisted to the side, and a wet sheen covered her eyes. She shook her head, her auburn tendrils trailing over her shoulders. “You have to know, I had no idea anything like that would ever happen.”
Sweat percolated across my skin, a disturbing memory bubbling to the surface—Annie and Nick pressed together in his truck, her head on Nick’s shoulder, his lips lowering toward her. My instinct was to slap her across her rosy cheeks, to yell at her for telling Elena about the necklace, to accuse her of murder. Instead, I pressed my arms to my sides, refusing to let my emotions get the better of me.
Annie cleared her throat, placing her hand on my arm and giving a gentle squeeze. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I wish I’d gotten to know her better.”
I nodded, unable to form an appropriate response. Phoebe’s poem shoved its way into my mind. “Suddenly / Kindness matters.” The words she’d written were uncomfortable but truthful. Now that Elena was dead, everyone wished they’d been nicer to her.
Annie blinked a few times and moped away.
The door to the teachers’ lounge loomed in front of me. I leaned my shoulder into it, pushing it open to get as far away from Annie as possible. The noon light spilled through the windows and washed the room in an overexposed haze. The stench of egg salad curdled in the air. Two PE teachers sat at a table in the corner and nodded at me. My legs froze in the doorway.
The table where Elena, Nick, and I always ate sat vacant. A wiry guy in a white shirt and a navy tie pulled a brown bag from the refrigerator. I’d never seen him before. Probably a substitute. He wandered toward our table. My eyes followed, silently begging him to keep walking. Elena’s smiling face, her easy laughter, and annoyingly healthy lunches belonged at that table, not this random guy in a wrinkled shirt. He stepped closer. His hand touched Elena’s chair.
Leave our table alone, I wanted to scream.
Oblivious to my silent warnings, he dragged Elena’s chair out from beneath the table and slumped into it, his gigantic hands unwrapping a sandwich.
“No.” My voice was quiet at first. I stepped toward him. “No!”
The man’s head jerked up. His hands stopped moving.
“You can’t sit there.” My voice was scratchy and loud.
His mouth opened, but no words came out. He looked over at the other two teachers who stared at me, foreheads creased.
My face was hot. My eyeballs stung. Something dripped on the back of my hand, and I realized it was a stream of my tears. I was crying. I spun away and shoved through the door, humiliated by my outburst, by my inappropriate show of emotion. What the hell was wrong with me?
My feet clipped faster along the hallway as I caught a few confused glances from students. An open doorway appeared in the distance, the bright light offering an escape. I picked up my pace and jogged toward it, my heart racing. I wiped tears from my eyes as I ran. At last, I ducked into the cover of the room, pulling the door closed behind me.
The nice woman in the tortoiseshell glasses gave a sad smile. She motioned toward the empty chair in front of her. I collapsed into it and sobbed.
Twenty minutes later, I felt lighter with some of the burden of Elena’s death lifted from my shoulders. The grief counselor’s name was Leanne. She listened to me cry and talk about Elena. She listened to me complain about how I didn’t know who to trust, how everyone was a suspect, and how I’d failed at everything. She assured me that Elena’s death was not my fault, that I could never have foreseen that not meeting her at the soccer field would result in her death. And she asked if I’d ever considered that Elena might have still been killed even if I had gone to meet her, or if maybe we both would have been killed?
No. I had to admit. I hadn’t thought of it like that.
Finally, Leanne suggested I get some closure by attending the student-led memorial on Monday night. It was being planned right here at school. Albright must have sent an email, but I’d probably skipped over it.
If I’m murdered today, Nick did it. OX
I sent the message to Craig while my car idled outside of Nick’s townhome. With Leanne’s help, I’d survived a full day at school, but I couldn’t last another minute without confronting Nick. I needed to know the truth about what I’d seen in the parking lot near the river trail yesterday. I hadn’t run the idea past Craig first. He wouldn’t have approved.
I cut the engine, my wobbly legs carrying me toward Nick’s front door. I smoothed down my hair and pushed the buzzer. A few seconds later, Nick peered through the side window, his face relaxing as we made eye contact.
The door opened. He wore jeans and a wrinkled blue T-shirt. He looked older, his eye sockets and cheeks more concave than the last time I’d seen him.
“Hey, Jane. What are you doing here?”
“Hi. I, uh…” My mouth went dry. “Just checking in. I noticed you weren’t at school again.”
“Yeah. I couldn’t do it.” He widened the door. “Do you want to come in?”
I hesitated, realizing going inside could be dangerous. But I was the one who’d barged in on him. “Sure.”
I followed him into a darkened hallway, the air thick with the scent of rotting garbage and dirty socks. He glanced toward a pile of unwashed dishes on the kitchen counter.
“Sorry about the mess.”
“It’s okay. My place would look the same if I didn’t have Craig cleaning up after me.”
He pulled out a kitchen chair for me. “Have a seat.”
My knees bent, my butt finding the chair. I scanned the room, but I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. A photo of him and Annie on a tropical island? The broken clasp of Elena’s sunflower necklace?
“Did you hear about the memorial on Monday?” he asked.
“Yeah. I just found out about it.”
“I’m going to speak at it.”
I nodded. “That’s good. I don’t know if I can.”
We sat in silence for a minute.
My fingernail picked at the lining of my pocket as I gathered my courage. “Listen, there’s something I have to ask you.”
He raised his eyes.
“I took Moose for a walk yesterday, on the river trail.”
Nick’s mouth pulled down, eyes lowering. He seemed to know where this was going.
“I saw you—and Annie—in your truck. I thought…” I stopped, my voice cracking. “You said—”
He held up his palm. “No. You’re right. We were there. I don’t know what you saw, but it wasn’t whatever it looked like.”
“It looked like you were hugging and kissing each other.”
Nick’s eyes closed, his head tipping back. “No. Annie wanted to meet me in person. She was really upset. We decided to meet there because it was private.”
I studied his face. “What was she upset about?”
He shifted in his seat. “She felt horrible about telling Elena about the necklace. She said she took away the joy Elena could have had the last few hours of her life, but there was no way she could have known. I told her that.”
“It was still pretty childish of her to torment Elena.”
“Yeah. No doubt about that, but I didn’t want to kick Annie when she was already down. I guess I hurt her pretty bad when I broke up with her. I didn’t realize it. She got a little too close in my truck. I let her lean into me because she was crying, and I felt bad for any pain I’d caused her, but it wasn’t anything more.”
“You had your arm around her. I saw you kiss her head.”
“I was only comforting her. It wasn’t romantic. I would have done the same for you.”
An unexpected jolt traveled through me at the thought of Nick’s lips on me. I shoved away the warm feeling, wondering if his smooth voice and sea-blue eyes had this effect on all women.
I crossed my arms in front of me. “Okay. I’m just wondering about something, though.”
“What?”
“If Annie was still so upset about you ending things with her last year, she could have been the one who stabbed Elena in a jealous rage. That would explain why Elena’s necklace was missing.”
“I admit I had the same thought, but it wasn’t Annie.”
“How do you know?”
“She left the fundraiser at 9:30 and went out with a group of her friends. They were at a wine bar downtown all night. All eight of her drinking buddies vouched for her.”
My chest deflated, simultaneously disappointed and relieved. If Nick was telling the truth, I could eliminate Annie from my pool of suspects. Still, I felt no closer to knowing who had murdered my friend.
Twenty-Seven
Amy
The student-led memorial service for Elena Mayfield consisted of a candlelight vigil on the front steps of the school, along with short and emotional speeches by a few students and staff who had special connections with her. Elena’s funeral was postponed due to the investigation, but it would be limited to her close friends and family, not a place for the wider school community to find closure. Phoebe had wanted to speak at the memorial, but Scott’s attorney friend, Christina Vasquez, advised against it.
Amy had joined forces with Scott, as far as hiring an attorney went. She put Christina on speaker so that Phoebe could hear the advice directly from the professional.
“They’ll be dissecting every word you say, searching for any inconsistency in your story. Better not to let them set you up like that.”
Phoebe’s forehead crinkled. “But I didn’t do it.”
“It doesn’t matter. Thousands of innocent people are arrested every year. We’re not going to let that happen to you.”
After overhearing the conversation between Phoebe and Rowan in the library, Amy knew Christina was right. Apparently, Nick Bell hadn’t received the same legal counsel. He wavered on the top row of steps, eyes puffy, hair uncombed. Even in his haggard state, he was devastatingly handsome. It wasn’t a wonder half the school had a crush on him. This was a man who needed a hug, and Amy found herself wishing she was the one who could give it to him.
The crowd fell silent as he lifted the microphone. “I only knew Elena for a short time. Less than eight weeks.” He closed his eyes and inhaled, the microphone picking up the uneven static of his breath. “Most of you know that we were dating. I loved her. I never told her that, but I did.”
The crowd released a few gasps. Principal Albright crossed his arms, eyes blinking with worry. Amy turned and exchanged a shocked glance with a woman standing nearby.
Nick sniffled and wiped the back of his hand across his nose. “Elena was the bright spot of my day, every day. She was a wonderful teacher. She cared about people. She loved all her students, even when it was hard to do.”
Amy’s stomach flipped as Nick’s eyes pinpointed two pairs of slouching shoulders in front of him. Phoebe and Rowan sidled up next to each other, holding candles. Neither of them flinched. Off in the distance, Principal Albright cringed, his mouth pulling back and his forehead creasing. This speech wasn’t making his teachers look great.
