by Dean Murray
If I came forward with the information, Mrs. Shadowford would know I left the house after curfew to search the stadium. I had no doubt she would contact my case manager and send me straight to juvie. Then again, if I could help save Tori's life, wasn't that the most important thing? My mind ran circles around the issue. What if Tori had just run away with her new, possibly older boyfriend? Maybe she wasn't in trouble at all. Was I willing to risk my entire future for a girl who wasn't even the slightest bit civil to me? I felt certain she wouldn't have risked breaking a nail if it meant saving my life, so why did I even care?
For the first part of the morning, I played it safe. I kept my mouth shut and listened to the gossip around me.
“She was supposed to come to the party at Foster's parents' cabin by the lake Friday night, but she never showed,” a brunette to my left was telling her friends.
“That's pretty typical Tori, though, right? To bail on a party?”
“Last year, maybe, but this year she's dating Foster. I don't think she'd ditch him at his own party.”
“Well, what do you think happened to her?”
“I have no idea,” the brunette said. “I just hope they find her and she's okay.”
Then, in second period, I specifically sat near Allison Moore. If anyone knew about Tori's other man, it would be one of the cheerleaders. Allison's face was red and splotchy from crying.
“I can't believe this is happening,” she cried to one of her fellow cheerleaders. I recognized the blonde she was talking to, but I didn't know her name. “We were the last two girls in the locker room, but I had to run home and get my sweatshirt cause it was getting chilly, right, so I left her and told her I'd meet her at the party.”
“So, she just never came home from the game or what?” the other girl asked in a whisper when the teacher turned her back.
“No one has seen or heard from her since I left the locker room Friday night.” Allison's face scrunched up and she began to cry again. “I never should have left her alone in there. If something's happened to her, I'll never be able to forgive myself.”
“It just doesn't make sense.”
“Maybe someone abducted her from the school. It totally could have been some crazy stalker that, like, watched her at all the games or something,” a petite girl with a short brown pixie cut said.
“The weirdest part is that the cops found her car parked on the street just a few blocks away from her own house,” Allison said. “But she drove it to the game that night. If someone abducted her, why would they drive her car to the street where she lives and just leave it there?”
I strained to remember if I had seen Tori's car in the parking lot Friday night. I remembered that the lot seemed empty, no cars. I wondered if the cheerleaders had a special parking lot or if they parked in the main lot, but I didn't want to ask any questions that might raise suspicion.
By lunchtime, I had pretty much decided that if no word came in about Tori's whereabouts by the end of the school day, I would go to the police with my information. I still didn't know who the guy was that Tori was there with, but at least I could give them a description of his voice and what he was wearing. It would make for a record short time at a home for me, but I couldn't keep this secret to myself any longer.
I watched the clock for the rest of the afternoon, feeling as if each second that went by brought me closer to my own deathbed. Then, minutes before the bell that would seal my fate, the news came in.
Tori Fairchild's body had been found.
You'll Need To Come With Us
Tori Fairchild's body had been discovered in the woods near her house at approximately two p.m. that afternoon.
News spread through the school like wildfire. Officers from the local sheriff's department knocked on the door of my seventh period English class roughly ten minutes after the news hit. Mrs. King, my English teacher, talked quietly with a tall, gray-haired officer for a few moments in the hallway, then entered the room with a pale face. To my surprise, she was looking directly at me.
“Harper Madison, the officers outside would like to talk to you.”
Her words pierced through me. Did they know about my secret? Had someone seen me at the stadium that night? I was unable to move, frozen to the seat of my desk.
“Harper?” Mrs. King called my name louder. Her voice had an edge of hysteria to it. No doubt she'd been really close to Tori, being her cheer coach and all. I couldn't imagine what she was going through.
Every pair of eyes was on me. Probably wondering what in the world the new Shadowford freak had to do with Tori's death. Hell, I was wondering that myself. It was possible I had been one of the last people to see her alive, but no one actually knew that.
Unless I'd been wrong and the guy out there with her saw my face.
Slowly, I stood and gathered my things. Outside the classroom, I faced the two officers. “I'm Harper Madison,” I said.
“You'll need to come with us,” the older man said.
“Why?” My mouth went completely dry and I had a hard time swallowing. “What's wrong?”
“I can't discuss the details of the case out here in the hallway of the public school. As long as you cooperate, we'll do you the favor of not handcuffing you here in front of your friends.”
Handcuffing? Jesus, what were they saying? That I was a suspect? The world around me began to spin uncontrollably. I shook my head.
“No, I didn't do anything wrong. I don't understand what's going on here.”
My entire body went cold and my stomach lurched. The younger officer, a middle-aged man with a beer belly and a bushy mustache, grabbed my upper arm and began to pull me down the hall. He pinched my skin a bit, his fingers digging into my arm as I shuffled reluctantly toward the front entryway.
The bright afternoon sun hit me full in the face as we pushed through the front doors. I jerked my arm away from the policeman and stepped back from him. He made a move toward me like he was ready to catch me if I decided to run, but he relaxed when he saw that I wasn't exactly trying to make a break for it.
“I can walk just fine on my own,” I said. But as I made my way past the tall demon statue, I felt the same wave of dizziness I'd felt on my first day of school. I stumbled slightly, then recovered.
“You okay?” the older man asked.
No, I wanted to say. I am most definitely not okay.
Instead, I nodded my head and walked obediently to the waiting squad car. This wasn't my first time in the back of a police car. I hated that feeling of being out of control. Locked away like an animal with no way to escape. It scared me to think what an actual prison cell must feel like. I hoped to God I wasn't about to find out.
The Peachville police station was a tiny building in the center of downtown. A young officer sat at the front desk in the small reception area. He didn't look much older than me, with his fresh haircut and smooth baby face. As we entered the room he stood quickly, knocking over a full jar of pencils.
“Oh shoot.” He scrambled to pick them up, but a few pencils rolled off the desk top and onto the floor. “Sorry sir.”
“Ellis, what did Sheriff Hollingsworth tell you about those damn pencils?” the older officer said.
“I know sir, I just—”
“Just clean 'em up and escort this young woman into an interrogation room. I don't have time for your crap today. We've got a serious investigation to take care of.”
Ellis bent over to retrieve the escaped pencils, then turned his attention to me. “Let's go.”
“Lead the way,” I said.
He brought me down a narrow hallway then led me to a small room that held a single desk and two metal folding chairs. Plastic flooring curled up at the edges of the room and sad, faded yellow curtains covered a single grimy window. From the way the rest of the town looked, with its brick sidewalks and landscaped parks, I hadn't expected the police department to be so rundown and dreary. Maybe a small town like this didn't see enough crime to warrant a fancy
police station.
“Want a soda or somethin'?” Ellis asked.
“No thanks,” I said. I just wanted someone to tell me what the hell I was doing there. Plus, I wasn't totally sure I'd be able to swallow. Every muscle in my body was tense.
They left me alone in that small, slightly smelly room for over half an hour before a petite black woman finally came in. By then, I'd practically chewed off all my fingernails.
She was dressed in a navy suit with a white button down shirt. She didn't look like she belonged in a place like this, and I wondered if she was from DFCS like Mrs. Meeks. She slapped a yellow folder down on the desk in front of me, then sat down.
“Harper Madison. Sixteen years old. Adopted at birth by Heath and Jill Madison of Gwinnett County, Georgia. At the age of eight, your adoptive father was killed in a house fire. A fire that Jill Madison claims you started on purpose.”
“That's not true,” I said.
“Which part?” the woman asked.
“The fire,” I said. “It was an accident.” And why did that matter now? What did any of this have to do with Tori Fairchild?
“The state fire marshal's investigation was inconclusive. According to his notes, the fire was unusual in that it did not have a single point of origin. Rather, he thought it seemed as though fire sprang up in several places simultaneously.”
That last bit she read directly from my file. She paused and flipped through several more pages, then looked up, her eyes meeting mine for the first time. She had caramel-colored eyes that were almost hypnotic. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't.
“You've had a long string of foster homes ever since then, is that correct?”
I nodded. I had lost count, there were so many. It wasn't an easy thing to think about.
“And why do you think that is, Miss Madison?”
I forced my gaze away from hers and she stood up. She paced the room, waiting for an answer to her question. I wasn't sure how to answer her.
“Why do you think that fifteen different foster homes in the Atlanta area had such a problem with you that they refused to house you any longer? According to your file, you never stayed in one place longer than six months. Why?” She raised her voice and moved to stand very close to me.
I leaned my elbows on the desk in front of me and rested my head in my hands. How was I supposed to answer a question like that? Admit that I was a freak? “I thought you guys brought me here to talk about Tori,” I said.
“We will talk about whatever I tell you we're going to talk about,” the woman said, placing her hands on the table and leaning so close to my face I could smell the cinnamon in her gum. “Tell me why you were kicked out of your latest foster home in Atlanta.”
I ground my teeth together and turned my head away. It was one thing to talk to Mrs. Meeks about these things. I had known her since I was eight years old. Since the fire. But this woman? She hadn't so much as told me her name or who she worked for.
“Fine, you want to know who I am?” she said. “My name is Sheriff Daneka Hollingsworth.”
My face flushed. How had she known I was wondering about her name? I swallowed. “I don't want to talk about it.”
“This isn't about what you want,” she said. “Now talk.”
The look in her eyes scared me. It was like she could see through me. Into me.
“We didn't get along.”
“Be more specific.”
“I was only there for a couple of weeks,” I started. “They fought all the time. And when they would fight, the lady, Pat, she would always come into our room and take it out on us.”
“Who else was there with you?”
“A couple of younger kids. Joy and Ashley. They were in sixth grade. We all shared a room with bunk beds.”
“So what happened the night you got kicked out?”
A bead of sweat formed on my lip and I swiped it away. “I don't know. Nothing. They didn't want me there anymore.”
I wondered how much the file in the Sheriff's hands said about me. I didn't want to tell her anything about my past, but I had the feeling she wasn't going to give me a choice.
“Don't lie to me or you'll be sorry.”
I hugged my arms close to my body, then spoke. “They'd had a really bad fight earlier at dinner, so I was expecting her to come after us as usual. Well, just before bedtime, Pat comes into our room yelling about how the house is a mess and it's all our fault. How we don't appreciate what she's doing for us. The younger girls were already dressed and in bed, but Pat grabbed Joy by the hair and pulled her from the bed.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Angry,” I said. “Helpless. I got down from the top bunk and told her to stop picking on the younger girls. She shoved Joy to the side and came at me like she was going to hit me. I guess I just freaked out.”
“What happened?” The sheriff came back around to her chair and sat across from me. Her eyes were locked on my face.
“I don't know.” I was so afraid to tell her the truth.
“Tell me,” she said. “Something happened that night that you couldn't control. Tell me what it was.”
I took a deep breath. “It was like anger was boiling inside of me. Like it had a life of its own, in a way. I felt all of that anger sort of focus in on her and everything else in the room went blurry. Before I knew it, some of the things on the side table...” I couldn't go on. How could I explain what happened that night? She'd think I was crazy and lock me up for sure. I wasn't even sure why I'd told her this much, but I couldn't seem to help myself.
“They rose up from the desk?” she asked, her voice excited. “Like they were flying around the room, right?”
I stared back at her, heart racing in my chest. I thought of Mrs. Meeks words to me that night. “No, that's insane,” I said. “Things don't fly around the room on their own.”
“I told you not to lie to me. The lamp on the desk.” She narrowed her eyes at me, then tilted her head slightly. “You hit her with it.”
“No,” I said. “I didn't do it on purpose. You don't understand—”
“Oh, I understand. You were angry. And when you get angry, you move things with your mind, don't you Harper? You're different from other people, aren't you?”
I hung my head down. How did she know all this? I waited for her to say I was some kind of witch who deserved to be punished. A freak who belonged in an institution.
“That night, your anger was focused on Pat Sanders. That's why the lamp hit her. You might not have known you were doing it, but it was you that hit her with that lamp, Harper.”
I looked away. “I...”
“Sometimes, it's fire, isn't it?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Yes. Just like with Heath and Jill Madison when you were eight years old. When you let your anger get out of control, you start fires and burn people.”
“No,” I said again, louder. “That's not what happened.”
“And that's what happened with Tori Fairchild on Friday night, isn't it?”
My eyes widened. “You think I killed Tori? I would never do something like that.”
“You just told me you hit a woman in the head with a lamp when you were angry with her,” she said. She slammed her hands down on the desk and I jumped back, frightened. “And you killed your adoptive father when you were eight.”
“No, I told you I didn't mean to do it.”
“Then maybe you didn't mean to do this either.” She flipped three pictures over and slid them toward me. “Maybe Tori just made you angry. She was burned alive, Harper. Cooked from the inside.”
The pictures were gruesome. Tori's body was burned and bloody. I brought my hand to my mouth and looked away, shutting my eyes tight. “Oh, God.”
“Look at these pictures, Harper. Look at what you did!”
“I didn't do that,” I said. I felt like I was going to throw up. How could someone think I was capable of such a horrible thing? The images of Tori's
blackened skin were horrifying.
The sheriff came around to my side of the table and stood behind me. She placed her hands on my head and forced my face straight down toward where the pictures lay spread on the table. In my ear, she said, “Then why was she holding your necklace in her hand?”
No One Ever Believed
My stomach clenched as I forced myself to look at the pictures of Tori's body. I kept my eyes focused on the part of one picture that showed her hands up close. My eyes widened as I saw what Sheriff Hollingsworth was talking about. My mother's sapphire necklace was tangled around Tori's limp right hand.
I couldn't speak. Where would she have gotten the necklace? It was possible she picked it up at the field that night, but why? She didn't seem like the type of person who would pick up a random necklace off the ground and keep it with her. None of this made sense. My mind spun.
I pushed the pictures away from me. I didn't want to look at them any more.
“Here's what I think happened,” Sheriff Hollingsworth said, sitting half on top of the desk in front of me. “You're a troubled girl who lets things get out of control when she's angry. You move to Shadowford against your will and on your first day of school, you have a run-in with the most popular girl in the sophomore class. She humiliates you in front of the entire school.”
I listened in horror. This woman actually believed I was capable of murder. I wanted to stop her. To tell her to shut up. But I couldn't speak. My lips were pressed tight together, and my legs were trembling slightly.
This can't be happening.
“You follow her back to her house on Friday night after the game. Lure her into the woods where you get into another argument. Things get heated and you lose control. You burn her, but Tori fights back and manages to pull your necklace from your neck. Scared, you run off, leaving her there in the woods to die.”
“No,” I said. My voice came out weak and dry. “I wouldn't do something like that.”
