Chapter One

     "Did you know him?"

     I turned the words over in my head again and again as I stood on a grassy knoll several yards away from the rest of the mourners, who gathered solemnly around the gravesite.

     Arrayed all in black, the crowd extended to well over a hundred people: family, friends, classmates... in all likelihood, the entire population of New Haven and then some were probably in attendance. Some cried, some bowed their heads in reverence; others only looked on in shock and silence.

     A girl I recognized as Stephen's girlfriend, Noelle Nichols, was kneeling next to the casket, weeping uncontrollably into her hands. Stephen's father and J.T. Davidson--who had been Stephen's closest friend--stood over her, each trying their hardest to offer comfort as her shoulders shook with sobs.

     They all seemed oblivious to the distant thunder, and the dark, looming clouds crowding overhead.

     I felt a sudden twinge of guilt. What right did I have to be here? It was if my presence infringed upon the heavy hearts who had actually grown to know and care about Stephen.

     "Did you know him?" Sheriff Dwight had asked as we stood upon the bridge, not six feet from the body that was now being lowered into the ground.

     I had immediately run to the nearest house to call in my unusual and terrible discovery. A concerned, older-looking woman had answered the door, the sleep driven from her eyes by the fear she saw in mine.

     "A little," I had answered the sheriff, not quite looking at him.

     Of course I had known him. Everyone within an hour's drive of New Haven knew the name of Stephen McKnight. I myself had been in the same grade with him since moving here four years ago, but I knew him more by reputation than anything else.

     Stephen had risen to prominence at Bryce Faulkner Academy: he had been quarterback, honor student, and class president for the duration of his high school years. It could have easily been said that it was because he came from money--he was next in the Bryce bloodline, after which the school was named--but it was something more than that.

     Stephen was a figure of inspiration. He seemed to possess a genuinally good heart, and lived life in a way that made others want to live the same way. He unsparingly poured all of his generous resources into school funding, community projects, and local charities. Everyone who had ever met him walked away a better person.

     "What do you think happened?" I asked idly after Dwight had mulled about the dismal with his deputy for quite some time. He looked at me for a moment, as if assessing whether or not I was to be trusted with an answer. Finally, he sighed, and I saw a hint of genuine sadness in his eyes.

     "It looks like a suicide," he answered, his gruff voice just a bit strained as he ran a hand through his dusky gray hair. "The gun was only a few steps away from the body."

     A bit abruptly, he turned and sauntered back to Stephen, whose body was now covered by a black tarp.

     "Did you ever think . . . ?" Riley Cooper, the sheriff's deputy, asked just barely within earshot.

     "Not Stephen, no." The lawman said, shaking his head in disbelief. "He was such a good kid."

     "Had so much going for him," Cooper agreed. Then, loweing his voice to a barely audible whisoer, he asked, "Do you think someone did him in?"

     As one, both Dwight and Cooper both cast a furtive glance in my direction, but I already begun to stalk off. Whatever Dwight's answer was, I hadn't heard it.

     A sudden crackle snatched me back to the cemetery, as a shaft of lightning tore through the sky, shattering the silence. It was followed by an immediate and heavy rain, as if that single bolt had bidden the floodgates open. Several members of the congregation had come prepared, and umbrellas began popping open intermittently, black and gray buds blossoming for the downpour. One man whose face I did not see stepped over to Noelle--who still knelt on the wet ground--holding his umbrella over her head while becoming soaked himself.

     Pelted by bullets of rain, I bowed my head for just a moment, and said a short prayer for Stephen. I pulled my collar close, able to slip away from the funeral just as quietly as I had arrived.

 

     Once I had arrived at Aunt Vicki's house--a place I still could not bring myself to call home, despite having lived there for the last four years--I felt restless, stirred. For nearly an hour, I simply wandered about the house, my thoughts as incessant as the raindrops smattering against the windowpanes.

     The funeral had dampened my spirits. To most, death was a distant notion. To me, it was a dark force that lurked in every shadow, a cruel emissary who periodically arrived to deliver a fateful message.

     I stepped into the long, narrow hallway across from the front door. My feet padded lightly across the hardwood floor--the slightest creak, I was afraid, would awaken the ghosts. This house was a little more than a mausoleum, a morbid tribute to the souls who had since departed from mine and Vicki's lives. One needed to look no further than this very hall, aligned with framed photographs--each one an all but faded memory.

     Stephen's suicide was not the first I had dealt with. Vicki's husband, Edward Danson, had taken his own life several years ago. Upon returning home after two-year stint in Iraq, he roamed about his old life in a daze, at an emotional distance from his wife and friends. One day, Vicki returned home from her office to find their bedroom wall splattered with Edward's brains.

     None of us knew for certain--and no one discuss it around Vicki--but it was generally assumed that whatever he saw during his tour of duty had shaken him to his very core.

     My gaze moved on to the next picture, this one of my own mother.

     I stared for a long time, the images of that day no less horrific now than they were then. A cacophony of perturbing sights and sounds fluttered sickeningly through my mind.

     The room tilted.

     Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk.

     I inhaled sharply, pivoting toward the front door. Over the sound of the rain--and the sound of my own pulse humming loudly in my ears--I wasn't sure if I had heard correctly. Nevertheless, I strode toward the front door, wondering who would bother braving the weather to visit my aunt. I imagined most would still be at the funeral.

     Having crossed the warmly lit living area, I attempted to smooth down my unruly and still-dampened mess of curls before opening the door.

     "Hello, Brae."

     One year, five months, and twelve days had changed little about her. Same soft rosebud lips, same gently sloping nose and sharp cheekbones, same depthless brown eyes shaded by long, dark lashes. A few strands of chestnut hair curled from underneath the hood of her fur-lined coat, framing her porcelain features.

     "Hello, Bianca."

     As our eyes locked, and my surprise at seeing her became something else.

     A faint smile traced her lips. "Aren't you going to invite me in, out of the cold?"

     "I hadn't considered it," I answered, my tone as cold and biting as the autumn wind swirling through the still-open door.

     Her smile faded. We stared at each other for a few seconds more--a chokehold of tension between us--before I finally condeded, stepping out of the doorway ti allow her passage.

     As she breezed past me, I felt violated. She had knowingly stepped foot into a deeply personal space where she was not welcome or wanted. She shrugged out of her coat, which I begrudgingly took and hung on the coat rack, my jawline hard.

     Bianca took a seat on the maroon, wing-backed armchair where Vicki did most of her reading--but did so precariously, as if she might stand up and bolt from the room at any given moment. I leaned against the counter that separarting the living room from the kitchen/dinette, feeling akward and furious and making no attempt to hide either.

     "Sit down, will you?" she implored, anxiety in her voice.

     "I'm fine standing."

     She pressed her lips together. "Right."

     We sat for a few moments in silence, the ticking of an antique clock on the mantle and the steady rain outside the only sounds that gave the room any life at all.

     Too much had passed between us. Far too much.

     "Why are you here?" I finally asked.

     "Stephen's funeral," she answered softly, suddenly preoccupied with the ceramic crystal bowl on the coffee table.

     I couldn't stop the smirk I felt twisting my face. "Still something there, after all this time?"

     "Stop it," she snapped, affronted. After yet another long stretch of silence, she spoke again, her voice distant. "That was a long time ago."

     I turned my face away from her, and looked out the shrouded window.

     "A lifetime," I said, almost to myself.

     I caught a glimpse of her from the corner of my eye, and I could not deny myself from lingering. Her waterfall of wavy brown hair, draping gently over her alabaster shoulders... it was enough to stop a heart.

     But not enough to change what had happened.

     "I'll be staying with Daddy for the next week or so," she said. "It's been a while since we've seen each other."

     "Right," I replied half-heartedly.

     More silence.

     "How is your aunt?" she asked in a poor attempt at forced conversation.

     "She's overworked, if you ask her."

     "And what if I ask you?"

     Still watching the downpour outside, I allowed myself a small smile. "She's completely neurotic."

     Bianca let out an infectious laugh. "No, no, she's upper-middle class. That means she qualifies for eccentric."

     "Yeah, I guess it does," I said.

     Feeling a bit vexed by the sudden ease of the conversation, I faced her with composure.

     "Why are you really here?" I asked her.

     Bianca's large, round eyes stared back at me--she looked lost, even afraid. She spoke slowly, her lips carefully tasting each word as she spoke. "No one expected Stephen to do . . . something like this. Ever. I never would have guessed that he'd do it . . ."

     I waited, but she did not continue. "And?"

     Her words came out in a rush, like the bursting of a dam. "You didn't have anything to do with it, did you?"

     "What?"

     "Trust me, after all you've been through, I could understand why. And given your history--"

     "My history?" I snarled the word. "I've never done anything that would--"

     "Haven't you? I heard you started a fight with Stephen not long before he died."

     I leveled my chin, my voice hard as I bit off each word. "You heard wrong."

     The two of us glared at one another, the room thick with fervent heart. I hardly noticed the rigidity of my stance until I forced myself to relax.

     But hadn't I earned the right to be angry? The years that I'd spent with Bianca--the years that I had so diligently worked to move beyond, to ignore, to forget--had suddenly come barrelling toward me like a freight train. I would not merely spread my arms and accept the blow had prescribed to me. I knew what this girl was capable of.

     Bianca was the one to finally break the silence. I noticed that her eyes had welled with tears.

     "Just tell me you didn't do it, Brae."

     I exhaled angrily through my nostrils. The accusation stung with the debasement of a backhand. After a brief span of time where I could only open and close my fists, I looked her in the eye, careful to leave no room for doubt.

     "I did not do it."

     She look down at her interlocked fingers again and nodded, seeming to affirm the answer to herself. She sniffed, then stood.

     "I'll see you around, okay?" she said, emotion abruptly drained from her voice as she stepped past at me to reclaim her coat.

     I opened the door, but did not look at her. "Sure."

     She hesitated in the open doorway, uncertain. Then she turned around and stuck out her hand.

     Unbelievable, I thought. But then again, it wasn't. One minute she's accusing me of murder, then the next she's reaching out to me, afraid I might reject her.

     Fickle to the bitter end.

     I did not take her hand. I did not even acknowledge the gesture. I couldn't. I only stared past her, through her. Hurt evident in her eyes, she spun on her heels and stomped out the door.

     She glided angrily down the wet walkway, not bothering to pull her hood up. I could not help but marvel at how fierce and graceful she could be at the same time . . . like an angel of wrath. As I closed the door behind her, however, Bianca vanished from my thoughts, along with all accompanying drear and fire her arrival had bidden.

     A single notion--permanently seared into my memory that day on the bridge, now spurred on by Bianca's words--circled my mind like a ravenous predator until it had consumed me completely.

     Stephen truly didn't seem like someone who would take his own life.

 

     The rain had stopped, though dark, threatening clouds still hung low in the sky as I walked up the street. A cold gust of wind chased stilled rainwater from a canopy of leaves and branches overhead. I shivered as the cold droplets permeated the skin on my neck and shoulders.

     Did you know him?

     Had I perjured myself? No, I didn't know him all that well. But what if I had left out a detail that may have been looked at as crucial? A detail, I knew, that could have potentially changed the course of the investigation.

    A detail that would have made me a suspect.

    I rounded the corner and found myself standing in the looming shadow of Bryce Faulkner. With its massive columns, lofty arches, and colossal stone towers jutting toward the smoky sky, it resembled a castle or cathedral than a school.

     The establishment's regal, imposing physical presence also matched that of its political influence; steeped in tradition, the school was the veritable center of the town. Even the residents of New Haven who had never set foot on the grounds would have their lives affected by it somehow.

     I circled the titanic building and angled for the football field, where Sadie would be waiting. I had to admit, I appreciated the fact that she'd be willing to meet after such a cryptic call. Then again, I knew that the obscure nature of my request would intrigue her all the more.

     It was a little past four, though that hardly mattered--school had be canceled in honor of Stephen's funeral. Still, a few teachers were likely bustling about, preparing for the next schoolday.

     After hopping the rusted chain-link fence that wrapped around the field, I quickly located Sadie--she was the only one there, after all--and ascended the stained concrete bleachers to meet her. She was practically beaming when she saw me . . . she was like that. She rose from her seat as I approached.

     "Brae," she said pleasantly as she stepped forward to embrace me. Even now, her displays of affection always caught me off guard. I self-consciously wrapped one arm around her.

     "I have to admit, I was surprised to get your call," she said, releasing her light blonde hair out of her amber-colored eyes. "I mean, you never call. If I remember right, you hate talking on the phone."

     I nodded. "You remember right."

     "I thought so," she replied, inexplicably excited as usual. "I was even more surprised when you said you wanted to meet. And here," she paused to gesture to the stadium with a wave of her hand, "of all places. You're not allowed on school grounds for another couple of weeks, are you?"

     I sighed, glancing toward the school's main building. "No, I'm not. But this couldn't wait."

     She looked at me, her eyes serious but shining with anticipation.

     "What do you know about Stephen McKnight?"

     Though my question seemed to puzzle her, Sadie sat. By her blank stare, most would assume she was bored, with nothing better to do than study the browning grass sprawled out on the field before her. But behind those eyes her mind was working furiously, digging through the numerous files of what she referred to as a vastal mental database. Sadie easily had the most inquisitive mind of anyone I'd ever met, and she was a virtual encyclopedia for every student who had passed through Bryce Faulkner since she had enrolled at the age of fifteen.

     I took a seat on the bleacher in front of her and waited.

     "He was a lot of things," she replied after a short reprieve, in an almost secretarial tone. "You know most of them already. After all, he was the pride and joy of Headmaster Stanton, and the glorious envy of the other students' parents. He was actively involved in student government and every major sport. He was on the debate team--"

     "He was on the debate team?" I queried.

     "Yeah."

     "I didn't know that."

     She went on. "He grades were almost perfect throughout his history at the school. He had a great deal of pull with the school board." She paused, either in thought or to catch her breath; I wasn't sure which. "He and Noelle Nichols had been dating for about a year before he died. Rumor has it they were planning to tie the knot after graduation, but--"

     "Wait, what?" I interrupted.

     She looked at me curiously. "They were planning to get married. You

 didn't know that?"

     "No, before that."

     "Um . . ."

     "He had almost perfect grades?" I honestly couldn't remember a time when he wasn't the only person with a higher grade point average than mine.

     "Well, yeah. His grades had been slipping during this last month. Why?"

     I ignored her question. "Was that the only thing different?"

     She pursed her lips in thought. "He threw a few interceptions during his last game." She gave me a strange look. "And then there was that fight with you."

     So, that was common knowledge. Of course. Stanton had issued me a stern, month-long suspension when Stephen and I were caught brawling in the school parking lot.

     I shook my head bitterly. "I didn't start the fight. He came up to me, screaming like a madman, and just . . . started swinging. I knew he could hold is own, so--"

     Sadie half-smiled. "So you made sure he didn't get the chance."

     "Yes," I said simply. But my mind was far elsewhere now. Between what Sadie had told me and my own memory of Stephen's manic state that day, it was clear to me that something was bothering him. Something that had sent shockwaves through every aspect of his life.

     A vehicle pulled into the parking lot, reminding me of how little I needed to be seen on the grounds.

     "They broke up, right?" I said, pacing the length of the bench now.

     Sadie bounced back into the conversation without missing a beat. "Noelle left Stephen--and on pretty bad terms, if I'm not mistaken."

     "The cause?"

     "Nobody seems to know. If anybody does, they aren't talking."

     I pressed my palm against my forehead, still pacing the same path. Things were too vague now, too open-ended. I could have chased down a dozen different trails while the real one went completely cold.

     Sadie turned, twisting her entire body to look at me.  She waited a long time before speaking.

     "You never told me exactly what . . . this," she emphasized the generalization as if to mark her inability to understand it, "even is."

     I stared silently at the announcer's box, its off-white paint peeling in several places.

     "Brae?" She inquired after my hesitation lapsed into speechlessness.

     "I don't think Stephen killed himself."

     I did not say the words as much as I exhaled them. They sounded ridiculous from the moment they left my mouth. I stayed quiet for a long time, waiting for her reply--waiting to learn whether she thought I was imagining things or that I was just plain delusional.

     Sadie stared back at me with eyes that searched mine diligently. What she was looking for I didn't know, but if her next words were any indication, I'd venture to say she found it.

     "Then we had better find the one who did."

Author's Note

So, the suspense doesn't really pick up in this one, it's more of an introduction to the characters. At any rate, tell me what you think. Is it intriguing or are there problems in need of tuning? Let me know and as always, brutal honesty is always appreciated.

Reviews

[paparapapa]

This is so cool! Well, for starters, this is new for me since whenever I see a lengthy chapter, I just cringe and then while reading it, my mind just flies to somewhere else. But this one really captivated me. I think it has the right amount of suspense for the 1st chapter of the book. And just like any good mystery novels, you left me thinking about a lot of things after reading just one chapter. Thus, this is definitely intriguing! No doubt about that. Oh, and I love Sadie's character. She reminds me of myself. Haha. But I'm more of the gossip girl. =)) And the details are top notch! This could pass as a movie already, well, being played inside my head! :)) Anyway, overall, this is one heck of a chapter and I can't wait to read more! Keep on writing. :)

[ChaoticSoul]

I was half asleep when I first logged onto Writer's Cafe, but after reading this I was wide awake! It really pulled me in. The story is definitely going somewhere interesting and I want to know where that place is. The characters are also interesting and I am looking forward to seeing how they are further developed. I especially enjoyed Sadie so far. She seems rather intriguing. Other than a few spelling mistakes here and there, I don't have any other suggestions. I love the intense feel between the lines; it really sucks you into its plot.