The Graduation Trap novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Same Table

Joanna's POV

Daphne answered him in the corridor, with a school officer holding her by the elbow.

"Something from the clinic cart," she said. "A student nurse can sign for it. It was only to make her sleep."

Nobody in that hallway breathed.

"I was going to wake her before the end of the night," she said. "I was going to be there."

She turned her wet face to him.

"Braden, I was always going to be there."

Braden closed his eyes.

When he opened them he turned to the officer and said, "Please write that down."

They took her out through the loading door with her torn sleeve held over her shoulder.

Four hundred people parted for her, and not one of them spoke.

I gave my statement at the police station until three in the morning.

I handed the detective the folded note from my mother's recipe tin.

I gave her Braden's printout of the door log.

I gave her the original phone with the file on it, in a clear plastic bag.

She read the note twice.

"In your own handwriting," she said. "Three days after."

"Yes."

"I wish everyone wrote things down."

Sullivan sat beside me through all of it, with his hand on the chair arm near mine.

He did not touch me until we were back in the truck.

Then he put his forehead against my shoulder and stayed there.

"Seven years," he said, into my coat.

"I know."

"I'm tired, Joanna."

"Then be tired," I said. "I've got you."

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