Social Suicide

Then I ran.

I raced down the pathway as fast as I could, blind panic spurring me on until I reached the bridge where the bike trail connected with the main road and logic started to seep into my brain.

I grabbed my cell and dialed 911, trying my best to keep my voice from shaking out of control as I described what I had seen at Sydney’s place. The dispatcher talked to me in annoyingly calm tones (hadn’t she heard the dead body part!?) until a police cruiser pulled up to the side of the road and motioned me inside.

I then told my same shaky story to the uniformed officer as he drove me around the block, circling to the front of Teakwood Court, where Sydney’s house squatted in the center of the cul-de-sac. It was a one-story, stucco building painted in a gray-blue with bright white trim. A picket fence enclosed the yard, and a couple of orange trees overburdened with fruit flanked the front doors.

Already I could see two more cop cars parked at the curb. A wooden gate sat just to the right of the house, leading to the backyard beyond. Another uniformed officer stood sentinel beside it, arms crossed over his chest, eyes scanning the street for anyone daring to mess up his crime scene.

Which was not a good sign.

During the short wait for the police to arrive and the short ride around the block in the cop car, I’d been trying to convince myself I’d overreacted. I mean, it was possible that Sydney was just playing dead-holding her breath underwater for fun. Maybe she was fine and right now freaking out about the cops intruding on her lazy enjoying- my-suspension-to-the-fullest afternoon.

A big guy with thinning red hair and lots of freckles stepped through the gate from the backyard. He was a little thick around the middle, like he was committed to keeping up the donut-eating-cop stereotype, and wore plain beige khakis and a plaid button-down shirt. Lines creased his face at the corners of his eyes and mouth, which were both currently set in grim lines.

I slumped down in my seat to avoid his gaze. Unfortunately, I knew him all too well.

I’d met Detective Raley when Chase and I had been pursuing that first case together. He’d been in charge of the investigation, and at the time, he’d been the thorn in my side. And, honestly, likely vice versa. But as soon as the killer had been caught, we’d formed a sort of truce. Mostly because we didn’t have anything to do with each other anymore.

Until now.

Raley spoke briefly to the cop guarding the back gate, then they both turned toward our police cruiser. Even from across the front lawn, I could see Raley’s thick eyebrows lift.

I did a little one finger wave.

Not surprisingly, he didn’t wave back.

He mumbled a couple more words to the uniformed cop, gesturing at the yard behind him, then stomped across Mr. Sanders’s perfectly mowed lawn toward the police cruiser. I held my breath as he yanked the door open.

“Hartley,” he said. Not a question, not a greeting, just a flat monotone statement of fact.

“Detective Raley,” I said, trying to kick the shakiness out of my voice and match his non-greeting.

“They tell me you found the body.”

I bit my lip. Body. The word choice confirmed that Sydney had not been just lounging in her pool in the unlikely facedown position but was, in fact, dead. A weird range of emotions swam inside my belly. I hadn’t been close enough to Sydney to actually call her a friend, but we’d been going to the same high school for two years, so she wasn’t really a stranger, either. And as unnerving as finding a stranger dead might have been, finding a girl your own age from your own school that you’d actually DMed with just last night dead hit way too close to home.

“You okay, kid? You look kinda pale.”

I gulped down a sudden wave of nausea and nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“You’re not gonna throw up, are you?”

I shook my head. “Nuh-uhn.”

“You sure?” Raley squinted down at me, clearly not convinced.

I did another dry gulp, dragging in a big breath of air with it.

“I think so.”

“Good.” Raley nodded. “You think you could answer a few questions for me, then?”

I nodded. “I’ll try.”

“How did you come upon Sydney?”

I did a repeat of the deep-breath thing, then told Raley that I’d been “strolling” along the bike trail on my way home from school when I’d seen Sydney in the pool, freaked, ran, and called 911.

“Wait-” Raley said, putting up a hand, “you were on your way home from school?”

I nodded.

“But you live that way,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction from the trail.

“It was a nice day. I thought I’d take a little detour.”

Raley stared down at me, leaning in so close I could see right up his nose. I tried not to stare, lest that nausea come back.

“A detour?”

“Yep. I’m… a nature lover.”

Yeah, I know. That sounded lame even to my own ears. But I wasn’t sure just yet how much I wanted to share with Raley. He had a habit of interpreting situations his own way, and I figured that me planning to meet a dead girl and spying on her from a tree was not a situation he would interpret in a positive way.

“How did you see Sydney?” Raley asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the back fence is six feet high. How did you manage to see in the yard?”

“Through a crack in the fence?”

“Is that a question?”

I cleared my throat. “No.”

Raley gave me a stare down again, but, thankfully, let it go.

“How well did you know Sydney?” he asked instead.

I shrugged. “Not that well. We go to the same school.”

“Was she there today?”

I shook my head. “No. She’s suspended. She cheated on a test.”

Raley raised an eyebrow. “Suspended. I guess she was pretty upset about that?”

“I guess. Like I said, we weren’t really that close.” I paused. “Why?”

Raley avoided my eyes. “No reason. Just asking.”

Huh.

“How had Sydney seemed before she was suspended?”

I narrowed my eyes. “‘Seemed?’”

He shrugged. “Was she generally a happy person, or did she keep to herself?”

“She was in the running for homecoming queen until two days ago.”

He leaned in. “She lost?”

“She was kicked off the court when she got caught cheating.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Suspended and kicked off the homecoming court. So, I’d guess she was upset.”

I narrowed my eyes at him again, trying to follow his train of thought. “Why does it matter if Sydney was upset? This was an accident.”

Raley looked at me, his face a blank, unreadable cop thing.

“It was an accident, right?” I repeated.

He sighed. “It’s too soon to tell. At this point we need to explore all possibilities.”

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning most teenage deaths that we investigate end up being self-inflicted.”

I blinked at him. “Suicide?”

Raley nodded.

“Oh no. You’ve got this all wrong.” I shook my head violently from side to side. “No, that doesn’t make any sense. Sydney wasn’t suicidal.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know her well,” Raley countered.