Leave Her Hanging: A Noir Thriller

Chapter Three

I waited outside the hall until I spotted Megan coming out. She still had the tissue to her face, and above it her eyes were red and puffy. She was a pretty enough girl in her own way, shorter and curvier than Ella, always wearing her school jersey in a vain attempt to hide the fact that her breasts had gone up two cup sizes in the last year. With all the students pouring out she didn’t see me at first, not until I sidled up right next to her and touched her on the arm.

“Megan,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

She jumped at my touch, her back going rigid. When she saw it was me she softened, but only a little. Her face was slack, like she’d forgotten how to work the muscles. Megan and Ella had been Siamese twins since Ella first came to Mount Eden. Megan was always the good angel on Ella’s shoulder, keeping her adventures from getting out of hand, or trying to, at least. She looked lost without Ella here.

“Oh,” she said, trying and failing to smile. “Yeah. Okay, Spade.”

My real name’s Jack Miller, but somewhere along the line everyone started calling me Spade. I don’t know, maybe I looked like one. Megan let me lead her away from the crowd of students. There was a spot beside the library that had a few trees to provide cover; it’d give us a bit of privacy without going to any of the more unsavoury parts of the school grounds. She wiped her eyes one more time and settled down on the concrete with her back against the side of the library, pulling her blue school skirt over her knees to keep it from riding up. I dumped my bag and dropped down next to her.

“You look terrible,” she said.

I almost laughed, but it hurt too much. “Yeah, well.” I ran a hand through my hair. It’d gotten long in the last few months. I looked at Megan, huddling there with her arms wrapped around her legs. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” she said. Then she shook her head. “No. I can’t….” She opened and closed her mouth a few times. “I don’t understand. She’s our age. How can she be gone?”

The principal hadn’t said how Ella had died, but it would come out soon enough. I reached into my pocket, unfolded the yellow paper, and passed it to Megan. “Suicide. They say she hung herself.”

“Oh my God.” The paper trembled in her hands. “Are they sure? She wouldn’t. Would she?”

I shrugged. The sun was driving stakes into my eyes. Ella was dead, the day shouldn’t be sunny. It didn’t make sense. “I don’t know. I hadn’t talked to her since we broke up.” I looked away so I didn’t have to see Megan’s expression. “I was hoping you might know something. Help me understand. Was it…” Was it my fault? Did I drive her to this? Did I kill her? “Was she doing drugs again or anything?” I said instead.

“I don’t think so.” Megan thrust the paper back at me like it had the plague. “I mean, I haven’t really seen her lately.”

She kept using the present tense, like if grammar said Ella was still alive then she must be.

“You didn’t hang out with her over summer?” I asked. “Or since school started again?”

She shook her head, another tear spilling free. I thought Megan looked pretty when she cried, and then I felt like a jerk for thinking that, I mean, Jesus, what kind of arsehole was I? “She’s been kinda off the radar lately, ever since you guys broke up,” Megan said. She looked at me. “I’ve heard the rumours about you and Ella’s dad, but how bad was it? Do you think this had something to do with it?”

I shrugged and scuffed my shoe on the concrete.

“Spade,” she said, and for a moment she almost sounded like Ella. Almost. “Tell me.”