Truly, Madly, Deadly

Truly, Madly, Deadly, Part 4

Author’s note: Thanks for reading! Please vote, comment and like! Truly, Madly, Deadly is the first of my YA thrillers published with Sourcebooks – coming soon in January is See Jayne Run. All of my books are available in print and digital from any major retailer.

Copyright © 2013 by Hannah Jayne

 

The only palm in Pacific Palms Park was four feet high and sat at the gated opening to the development. With its abandoned, chipped-paint guard shack and grass that was more yellow than green, it didn’t look like much of a park, either. Sawyer veered through the once-white latticework gates and snaked around the neighborhood of prefab houses rooted to cracked concrete. When she pulled up to the Coulter house, Chloe was already outside, pacing the carport.

“Hey,” she said when Sawyer pulled her car to a stop. “What took you so long? I thought you were coming straight here.”

Sawyer cocked an eyebrow. “Keeping tabs on me now?”

“Yeah, I’m the jealous boyfriend.”

Chloe laughed, the comment innocent and flippant to her, but it struck Sawyer. She forced herself to laugh it off. “Are you ready to go?”

“No, and neither are you.”

Sawyer looked down at her jeans and black T-shirt ensemble. It wasn’t exactly couture, but she thought it would pass for football attire.

“You look nothing like a Fighting Hornet fan.”

Sawyer tried to smile; this would be the first football game she would attend since Kevin’s death. As it was, Chloe had had to beg Sawyer for ten minutes straight to come to the game. “It’s a big one,” she reminded her friend, “and you’re going to have to go to a football game again sometime.”

Though she wasn’t crazy about the idea of the game and was less crazy about the idea of dressing up for it, Chloe was hard to turn down when she was beaming at Sawyer, her enthusiasm boundless—and catching.

“Come on in,” Chloe said, “unless you mind slumming in the double wide a minute.”

Sawyer grabbed the screen door behind Chloe. “It’s not a double wide. It’s manufactured housing.”

“Whatever it is, it comes with wood paneling and Astroturf.”

They stepped into the living room—a perfect square of wood paneling and shag carpeting, the smell of a thousand cigarettes ground in. The windows were covered with heavy drapes in a nauseating pattern of swoops and flowers, and the only light was coming from the enormous TV. It took up nearly one whole wall, and Chloe’s grandmother was in the chair directly opposite it, a cigarette clamped in the corner of her mouth. Though it was midafternoon, she was still in a housecoat and slippers, and Sawyer knew that the old lady only changed for church or for bingo.

“Hey, Nan, you remember Sawyer.” Chloe clapped the back of her grandmother’s chair.