Page 60 of Good Girls Lie

Still, next time...a little heads-up would be nice. Also heard you met one of my girls today?

Three dots greet her. She waits. And waits. Then the screen clears, and there’s nothing. She shoots the rest of the whiskey.

“Thanks for nothing, Rumi.”

It takes ages to fall asleep, but she finally drifts off, only to be jerked awake by a scream, loud and piercing, over before her heart beats again.

The concussion carries, sounding for all the world like a cantaloupe dropped from a height.Whump.It is a sickening noise, and Ford, not knowing exactly what she’s heard but fearing the worst, is out the door and sprinting toward Main Hall before the glass she is holding crashes to the flagstone tiles.

38

THE STORIES

She fell.

She jumped.

She was thrown.

Boo. Hoo.

She was a bitch.

39

THE BODY

The body is small, broken. The nearest lamppost shows this, but nothing more, not the face, not the identity, not the cause of the fall.

Blood. So much blood.

Ford is shouting, she can hear herself, shocked at how together she sounds even when the voices inside her are wailing, gnashing,this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, but aloud, she’s giving instructions.

“Call 911, immediately!”

She realizes she’s screaming to the ether, to the air. No one is here but the dead girl and her headmistress. Ford looks up at the bell tower, assessing the drop. A hundred feet, more.

Wait.

A shadow, is that a shadow, lurking at the edge of the precipice?

It is gone as quickly as she thinks she’s seen it, and she turns her attention to the girl at her feet. Feels for a pulse. There is nothing.

Her phone. She has her phone. She dials, hands shaking. There is blood on the screen.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“This is Dean Westhaven at The Goode School. One of the girls has fallen, we need an ambulance.”

“Can you tell me the nature of the fall?”

Ford looks up again at the darkness above.

“From the bell tower. She fell from the bell tower.”

* * *

It doesn’t take long for the crowd to form. Girls are hanging out of the windows, rushing down the stairs, squealing in the dark.