Sadie crossed her arms and leaned back, grabbing a blanket that was puddled on the floor and threw it over her legs. “If you know the story already, why are we talking about it?”
“I’d like to hear it from your perspective.”
She huffed a frustrated sigh. “I left my purse, Audrey found it, and she took it home. When I picked it up the next morning, 200 bucks was missing. That was my allowance for the whole week.”
One week?
Spoiled much?
“Audrey told you she didn’t take the money, didn’t she?” I asked.
“I mean, yeah, but come on. Who else would have done it?”
“Anyone else at the party. Did you have proof that she took it?”
“I didn’t need proof.” Her voice rose, brittle and defensive, then softened just as fast. “The next week, she showed up at school with a new backpack, one she’d been eyeing for a while. I asked her where she got the money for it, and she said she’d opened a store online and was selling some bracelets she’d made. I wasn’t buying it.”
“Had she opened a store?”
Sadie shrugged. “I dunno. All I know is, we weren’t the same after that. She was offended when I accused her, and she said she couldn’t trust me anymore. Funny thing. Trust goes both ways.”
“Did you ever consider the possibility that someone else took the money?”
She glared at me. “You sound like Talia.”
“In what way?”
“She wanted me to believe Audrey didn’t care about money. Please. Everyone cares about money.”
Her tone swung again, confident at first, then becoming a little more vulnerable.
“What happened when you accused Audrey of taking the money?” I asked.
“She cried. Like big, dramatic tears. She was hurt that I’d called her a thief.”
“Did the two of you ever resolve things before she died?”
“No.” She paused. “And now I kinda wish we had. I’ve thought about the day we argued about the money, and you know, even if she took it, I’ll admit she’d always been a good friend to me before that, and I’d allowed it all to be thrown away over a bit of cash.”
The confession surprised me almost as much as it seemed to surprise her.
She glanced away, fingers picking at a loose thread on her sweater.
“When was the last time you saw Audrey?” I asked.
“A few days before she died at a fast-food joint in town. She looked stressed, and she kept checking her phone, but I don’t know why. We saw each other, but we didn’t talk. It’s weird, you know. Her dying in the one place she loved most.”
“In the woods, you mean?”
“Yeah. She grew up playing in those woods. She told me that was the place she went to feel calm. What she found there the night she died was anything but that.”
Her voice wavered, then she cleared her throat.
“Even though you two weren’t speaking much before she died, I hope you try to remember all the good times you had,” I said.
“I do. You … ahh, you’re not here because you think I killed her, right?”
“I’m just here to ask questions and to see where the answers lead. And to get to the truth, to the heart of what happened to her and why.”
