Page 36 of Don't Say a Word

It hurt way more than I expected.

Our four-year on-again, off-again relationship ended in January. I don’t see us rekindling it. I understand, Rick is Sam’s father. Maybe I should have told him about the online bullying after her first kiss, even though she swore me to secrecy. But I helped her, I was there for her, and Rick cut me out of her life. And damn, I missed it.

I miss Rick, I miss Sam, I miss what I thought we had.

It was dark when I walked into my house. I opened the refrigerator and stared, as if willing food to magically appear. Sighing, I grabbed the bread and jelly that were pretty much the only edible things I had, closed the door, took the peanut butter from the cabinet and made a sandwich. Not the best meal because I didn’t have milk to go with it, but it filled the void.

I was halfway done eating at my counter when my cell phone rang. It was Josie.

“Hey, Pussycat,” I said.

“Margo, I just got an email from command. There was a stabbing at Sun Valley High School.”

“That’s awful. A student?”

“No. The guidance counselor, Lena Clark. She’s dead. Didn’t you talk to her today?”

“Yes,” I said, my stomach churning. I tossed the rest of my sandwich in the trash and drank water. “What happened? Do they have a suspect?”

“I don’t know, I’m not on duty. It’s not public yet—I mean, the name of the victim hasn’t been released.”

“Can you send it to me?”

“Yeah, don’t share it.”

“What time? I saw her this afternoon, before school let out for the day.”

“Um, it says she left a volleyball game at 5:05 p.m. and was found dead in her office at 5:25 p.m.”

“Twenty minutes—that’s a narrow window.” Then I remembered something else. “Shit, Josie, I talked to her this afternoon.” I scrolled through my phone. “She called me at 5:14.” My stomach twisted and I felt lightheaded. She was dead ten minutes after we talked.

“What did you talk about?” Josie asked.

“We scheduled a meeting with Angie Williams for tomorrow.”

“I’ll see if I can learn more.”

“I’ll call Jack,” I said. “Thanks, Josie.”

I ended the call and two screenshots popped up into my messages of a memo headed:NOT FOR PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION.There wasn’t much more than what Josie told me. I brought up Phoenix PD on social media, but the public information officer hadn’t issued a statement yet.

I forwarded the info to Jack with acall mein bold. Ten minutes later he did.

“Still at Whitney’s?” I asked. Did I sound snide? Mean? I hoped not. But I couldn’t say his ex-wife’s name without an edge of disgust.

I was working on it.

“No, I’m home. Is this the same counselor you talked to today?”

“Yep. The thing is, I’m expecting the police to talk to me tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“She called me at 5:14 this evening.”

“That’s specific.”

“I just looked it up. We talked for two minutes.”