The Good Girls

by Claire Eliza Bartlett

  Lizzy died near Anna’s Run. Do you think it’s a coincidence?

  I know it happened two years ago, but Emma was, like, really interested in Lizzy’s death. It was super awkward, since Gwen is in the same grade as us and she doesn’t want to talk about it. It was an accident, right? What else is there to say?

  Emma was convinced it wasn’t accidental at all. The more she looked into it, the worse it got. She was . . . obsessed. I don’t like using that word, but she was. She kept going back, over and over. She started being late to cheer practice, taking extra shifts at the paper . . . We were all worried, but nobody could stop her from doing the research, right? It wasn’t illegal or anything.

  But then the incident happened.

  CLINE: Tell me about this incident.

  AVERY: It was a mandatory antidrug seminar at the beginning of the year. I think Principal Mendoza and Mr. Garson set it up, so we’d connect to each other? Like instead of getting drop-down drunk and stumbling along the ravine near Anna’s Run, we’d . . . hug it out? I don’t know. The presenter was really nice, and trying so hard. But then Emma raised her hand, and stood up, and said, “Lizzy Sayer didn’t kill herself. And she didn’t die by accidental overdose.” Like she was announcing lunch. “Lizzy was murdered.”

  The whole school went wild. A bunch of people booed—they thought Emma was stirring up trouble, or trying to get attention. Some of the others shouted facts from the case, like she had two empty bottles of Jack in the back of her car, and enough alcohol in her system to make her blackout drunk. The poor seminar lady didn’t know what to do. Principal Mendoza and Counselor Garson led Emma away, and the next time I saw her, she was back to not talking about it.

  And who knows how her dad reacted when he found out what she’d done. I know my parents would flip, and her dad is super strict.

  CLINE: Would this strictness have affected Emma’s relationship with anybody?

  AVERY: It affected her relationship with everybody. She went straight home after school or extras, and at home she wasn’t allowed online. Ever. Like, her dad’s convinced that every girl on the internet wants to bully Emma to death, and every boy on the internet wants to send a . . . you know. A dick pic. It annoyed me, because I put our routine videos on YouTube and I expect my girls to practice. But I started to feel sad for her. I don’t even know what she did when her dad was on shift and she was home. But she never wanted to make him mad. He knew everything she ate, he knew where everything was in her room . . .

  CLINE: Could Emma have sneaked out of the house to meet someone last night?

  AVERY: Like, the guy who pushed her over the edge? I guess. I don’t know who it would be, though. And she wouldn’t have any record of it, in case her dad found it.

  No, wait. She had a journal. I think she only wrote in it when she was here, but she wrote in it daily for sure.

  CLINE: You’ve seen this journal? Do you know where she kept it?

  AVERY: Um, her locker maybe? I never saw her take it out or put it away, now that you mention it.

  CLINE: This has been very helpful, Miss Cross. Really. Thank you for your time.

  AVERY: It’s nothing. I want to help, and I want justice for Emma. Really, I’ll do anything. Just let me know.

  Okay?

  4

  Those Left Behind

  The Sayer house is quiet this morning, as it always is now. Even the neighbor’s dogs don’t bark when they get too close to the dividing fence. The windows are covered in spots, and shingles hang loose from the roof. The rosebushes in the garden have gone to seed and their dry brown stems spill over the postage-stamp yard, filling the drain and coiling around the fence posts. Brown on brown in the crisp, cold December day.

  A delivery kid tosses the morning paper on the stoop, then pedals quickly past. Senator Hunterton’s face, full of righteous rage, crunches on dead foliage. The headline reads: HUNTERTON: I DON’T TOUCH LITTLE GIRLS.

  Inside the house the air is stuffy, like a window hasn’t been cracked since Lizzy Sayer died. The round table still has four cheap folding chairs covered in pleather. They split at the seams, pushing out plastic foam. Only one is currently occupied—Gwen sits with a cup of coffee and a square of toast. Her food is forgotten as her fingers fly over a battered iPhone she got from Heather Halifax at school. She doesn’t even look up as her father comes in, though when he kisses the top of her head, she mutters, “Morning,” and tilts her screen toward the table.

  “All right? You’re dressed for work today,” says Mrs. Sayer. Her voice lilts in the Welsh Valleys tones she moved here with twenty-one years ago. She pours a thin stream of batter into a pan in their prefabricated corner kitchen, all white laminate turned beige after years of stains and burns and general use. She still doesn’t know how to make fluffy pancakes. Next to the pan the electric kettle boils; two cups sit ready with second-round teabags inside.

  “I thought I’d take a half day. You know how Mecklin is.”

  They do know. Mr. Mecklin was the first to offer any help he could give when Lizzy died. The last to pass judgment on her blood alcohol content and what that meant for Mr. and Mrs. Sayer as parents. The only to offer to pay for family counseling.

  But it’s easier to pretend that Gwen’s father has a hard-ass boss, and ignore the truth—that Mr. Sayer hates this house as much as they do, and he’s running away from it.

  “I’m making pancakes,” Mrs. Sayer says softly.

  Her husband kisses her on the cheek. “I’m jealous. I’ll bet they’re delicious. Gwen, take it easy today, okay?”

  Gwen’s still glued to her phone. “Why?” She never takes it easy. It’s a point of pride.

  Her parents hesitate in the kitchen, glancing between her and each other. Their looks are full of things they don’t know how to say. Finally, her mother pours steaming water into the teacups, adding a dollop of UHT milk to each. “We think you ought to stay home from school.”

  The phone falls to the table with a thud. “I definitely don’t.” Gwen’s voice is iron and thunder.

  “You . . . With everything happening, you might need some . . . time to process.”

  “No.” Gwen’s hands turn to fists on the table. Her mother’s eyes fly to them immediately. Gwen forces her fingers open, laying them flat on the plastic rose-print tablecloth. “I don’t need time. The Devino Scholarship is being announced today. I can’t be truant. What if that affects my chances?”

  “It won’t. The decision’s probably been made for weeks. We’ve already called the school and told them that you can’t make it in.”

  “I can’t just skip school. I can’t go the whole day without knowing.” Gwen glares from parent to parent. Her hands tremble.

  Her father’s lips thin. “This isn’t an option, Gwen. I spoke to Principal Mendoza early this morning, and the school’s a powder keg—half the students are staying home, no one’s letting their kid take the bus, limited activities after dark. You’ll be able to focus better if you study at home.”

  Gwen’s breathing like she’s ready to charge. “You can’t be serious.”

  “We’ll ground you if we have to,” Mrs. Sayer says.

  “For going to school? Jeez, Mum, I’m not Lizzy.”

  Everything in the room stills for one terrible moment. Mrs. Sayer’s face drains of blood. Her hand clenches around the spatula. The electric kettle pops.

  Gwen tries to salvage the situation. “I’m not hiding booze and pills under my bed. I just want to go to school. Like it’s a normal day.”

  Mrs. Sayer folds her arms. “It’s not a normal day. You’re not going.”

  Diary Entry

  Emma Baines—Friday, June 16, 2017

  I’ve been dying to get home and put this into words. Uneasiness has been balling in my stomach and dragging me down. I couldn’t eat lunch. Dad drove me home ’cause he thought I was sick. And now that he’s back at the office, I can finally try to untangle this strange, queasy feeling that’s making my hands shake.


  The summer internship’s been boring up to this point. I thought I’d watch the police fight drunken hobos or take statements from rich ski wives about how some vandal keyed their husband’s Audi. I sort of hoped Dad would take me out on patrol. Instead I’ve been in the filing room the past two weeks, sneezing dust. I’ll probably be the only girl in Colorado who comes back from summer break paler than I was before.

  I’ve been reorganizing recent cases by number. The guys at the JLPD don’t understand correct filing. I’m not supposed to read the files, and I’m normally not interested—does it really matter that Claude Vanderly was caught out past curfew at Anna’s Run, again? Does it really matter that Mrs. Cross made sixteen noise complaints this year?

  But then I saw her file. Lizzy’s file.

  It felt like someone had socked me in the stomach. I sat—more like collapsed—on the crappy rolling chair. Her file was heavy in my hands, thick with statements, photographs, reports . . . a whole ream of paper and months of investigation, all of which came down to a simple statement: Lizzy Sayer committed suicide.

  Lizzy was like a big sister to me. And if she’d been my big sister, I’d never have been the little troglodyte that Gwen is. I’d never have let her change the way she did after freshman year. I’d never have let her take her own life. And I’d always, always wondered . . . how did it happen? How did Lizzy go from being the brightest girl at school to showing up to homeroom drunk at 8 a.m.?

  The redacted report has been passed around the school like a dirty magazine. Of course I’ve seen it. But today, I held the unredacted file in my hands.

  Don’t open it, my warning voice said. My warning voice is my voice of reason, or at least of practicality. My warning voice reminds me what Dad would do if he caught me, what would make me look bad for the Devino Scholarship, what would get me in trouble with Principal Mendoza or make the wolf pack look at me funny.

  What if Dad comes in to get something? What if he checks the security cameras? My pulse began to beat double.

  But I always knew that Lizzy’s truth must be different than the redacted report paints it. I always wanted to talk to her one last time. And this file was as close as I’d ever get. I flipped it open.

  A lot of the redacted stuff is personal details, and stuff that my dad would term a “moral danger” to give to the public. Like, there was a torn condom wrapper on the back seat of Lizzy’s car, and fluids showed up under UV light that the police never tested, deeming them “too old” to be of significance to the investigation.

  And there were footprints.

  It rained the night Lizzy died, a brief thundering that made Anna roar and set all the wind chimes in Lorne clattering and clamoring. The storm was over by the time Gwen reports Lizzy left the house. So the dirt would have been fresh and wet, unusual for Colorado. Boot prints are clear in the photos, and from big feet. The police don’t really talk about them in the report. Maybe they’re from before Lizzy parked her car and stumbled down the ravine. It’s a well-used trail, after all.

  Or maybe someone was with her the night she died. Someone who was never found.

  THE LORNE EXAMINER ONLINE

  December 6, 2018, 11:00 A.M.

  Investigation Formally Opened in the Disappearance of Emma Baines

  Police are officially declaring Emma Baines a missing person as of this morning. The teen girl, a dedicated student at Jefferson-Lorne High School, was last seen by her father, the chief of the police force, before he left for his evening shift on Monday.

  “She’s a good girl,” Chief Baines told the Examiner. “She doesn’t mess around with drugs or drinking. She was going to go for a scholarship at Boulder.” Baines further asserted, in claims substantiated by Emma’s fellow students, that Emma spent most of her time at home, studying, or at school-sponsored extracurriculars. She was a finalist for the Devino Scholarship, a full undergraduate scholarship given to students of academic and moral excellence in financial need.

  The entire Jefferson-Lorne community has become involved in the search, and police from as far as Westminster have driven up to take part. A video showing a physically similar girl being pushed over the edge of the bridge at Anna’s Run, posted to Emma’s Facebook profile early this morning, is undergoing thorough investigation.

  Emma Baines is 5’4”, described as slender, with pale skin and pale blond hair cut at shoulder length. She is seventeen years of age.

  Any members of the public with information regarding Emma Baines are encouraged to immediately contact the Jefferson-Lorne Police Department.

  5

  The Overachiever

  Gwen goes to school anyway.

  She waits until her mother’s hanging the laundry on the line out back, then sneaks out the front door. It’s a forty-five-minute walk in the chill air and biting wind. She sends a quick text.

  This side of Jefferson-Lorne is a step down from the mobile home park. The houses are long and thin, propped on cinder blocks, with paint curling back from the rotting boards to reveal all the shades that came before, back when people were proud enough to care what the outside of their house looked like. It’s the kind of neighborhood where you nail a board over broken glass and cover it with plastic wrap because you can’t afford a new window. It’s the kind of neighborhood where all the fathers go around with shovels after a snowstorm, because half the mothers are single and working. It’s the neighborhood where all the miners lived, before the yuppies sank their claws into Lorne, and demonstrated, and lobbied their representatives, and got the mines shut down. Now the lucky ones among those men, people like Gwen’s father, have gone into construction, tearing down the little houses and replacing them with enormous ski lodges, winter homes of the wealthy white people that are ten times the size of the only home Gwen will ever get. If she stays in Lorne, she’ll slowly watch her neighborhood get bulldozed and replaced with carefully cultivated McMansions that loom empty three-quarters of the year. If she’s lucky, she’ll get a job as a housekeeper or a gardener in one of them. Trimming hedges while the Avery Crosses of the world sip spiced caramel lattes that cost an hour’s wage.

  But that’s not going to be her. That’s the mantra she recites as she walks. She pulls her shoulders back and walks as though she owns the road, as though the cutting December wind can’t even touch her through her threadbare coat.

  Her face and hands are red by the time she gets to the front office of Jefferson-Lorne, and she can’t feel her nose. She hands over a forged tardy note to the secretary in the attendance office. Through the thin walls, muffled conversation occasionally rises in volume. “Is Principal Mendoza in?” she asks.

  “He’s at a meeting.” The secretary offers her a smile. “Thanks for coming in, dear.” She doesn’t even check the note.

  Gwen hesitates as she leaves the office. The hall is silent—it’s the middle of second period. She leans against the wall outside the principal’s office, tilting her head toward the door.

  “. . . Give us a few more days, at least,” Mendoza says.

  “The Fund needs confirmation, the name of the college, and to verify credentials. We can’t sit on this. There are a lot of deserving applicants, and if it needs to go to somebody else—”

  “She’s missing, for god’s sake.”

  “We do understand the tragedy of the situation. But remember, a lot of other people are waiting on an answer from us until they decide where they can afford to go to school. We need to be sensitive to their lives, too.”

  Chairs scrape and there’s a thump as someone gets to their feet. Gwen starts, and before she can chicken out, knocks.

  There’s a pause. A few seconds later, the door is wrenched open. A man in a suit pushes his way past Gwen and down the hall. Gwen turns to Principal Mendoza, a lean man with his shirtsleeves rolled up. He wears the kind of face that makes students cry. “What can I do for you?”

  Gwen does not shrink back. If anything, she straightens. Flips her dark ponytail over her shoulder. “I was ju
st wondering. About the scholarship. Will the announcement go out today?” Nerves lend her voice a Welsh lilt, like her mother’s.

  Mendoza stares at her for a long moment. “How . . . ? Never mind. The announcement has been postponed until further notice.”

  He tries to close the door, but it bounces off of Gwen’s faded red sneakers. “How long?” she asks.

  Mendoza takes a deep breath. “Unfortunately, Miss Sayer, there are more important things to be concerned about. Please go to class.”

  He shuts the door more forcefully this time, but Gwen’s already stepped back. The door bangs shut. She whirls around—

  And slams right into Lyla.

  “Oh,” Lyla says. She wears a black skirt, black tights, and a shirt that falls off one shoulder. A black choker wraps around her neck, and heavy eyeliner and mascara complete the look. Her eyes widen as she sees Gwen. “Gwendolyn Sayer, as I live and breathe. Are you coming in late?”

  Gwen shifts from foot to foot. “So?”

  A wicked smile touches the corner of her mouth. “You broke a perfect attendance record. What were you doing last night?”

  Gwen just sighs. “Shut up, Lyla.” She heads toward gym class.

  “Touchy,” Lyla calls after her. “I guess it wasn’t sleeping.”

  Gwen doesn’t reply.

  DISPATCHER: 911, what is the nature of your emergency?

  MAN: There was a girl. A girl in the water.

  DISPATCHER: Where was this girl?

  MAN: Just downstream of Anna’s Run. . . . She was floating. No, she was being dragged. The current wouldn’t let her go.

  DISPATCHER: Sir, could you please tell us your name and where you are right now?