He didn’t say anything, just looked at me as if he was choosing his words carefully. “Show me the box,” he finally ordered.

I nodded, standing up and motioning towards the lounge door. “It’s in my room.” Taking a deep breath I walked out, trying not to think about anything else as I marched up the stairs to my bedroom. Luke was following close behind me; a comforting hand rested on the small of my back. As I stepped into my room we both headed over to the closet where I pulled down the box and handed it to him, frowning distastefully.

He opened it, his teeth clenching as he looked at the contents and pulled out the note. He hissed a cuss word under his breath as he read it. “We need to call the police,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

I didn’t answer. I knew the time had passed for me to brush this under the carpet now; I was going to have to face it and tell the police everything. My eyes wandered over my room as Luke put the box down on my dresser and pulled out his cell phone, dialling 911. Something white caught my attention on my bed, resting up against my pillows. I frowned and walked over to it, seeing that it was an envelope. There was no writing on the front of it. I picked it up quickly, ripping it open curiously. As my fingers closed around what was inside I let out a little whimper. Pulling out the card of the envelope I read the two words on the cover, ‘With Sympathy’. It was one of those cards you sent when someone had lost a loved one. I gulped and opened it, expecting to see a typed message in there like from the notes. But other than the standard poem that was printed inside, there was no writing on it at all. Instead, something small and silver slid out and clattered to the floor. My eyes followed it, and I whimpered when I saw that it was Chester’s tag from his collar.

“Oh God,” I croaked as I looked up at Luke and burst into a fresh round of sobs. The person who had poisoned Chester had obviously concluded that he would die from it.

Luke’s eyes widened in shock, his gaze going from the tags to the card in my hand. “How did that… how did that get in here?” He still had the phone pressed to his ear as I threw myself at him and cried into his chest. He cleared his throat suddenly, his arm wrapping around my shoulders as I gripped fistfuls of his shirt. “Yeah, police please.” He gulped. “Someone’s been in my girlfriend’s house,” Luke said into the phone, his voice a little shaky as he spoke.

Chapter 18

It took over and hour for the police to arrive. Our complaint wasn’t deemed urgent because no one was in immediate danger.

Luke had finally managed to calm me down, and he’d also managed to get hold of Alex and tell him to come home from the gym. To say that Alex had been shocked would be a severe understatement. He’d looked from me to Luke several times, asking stupid questions over and over before the penny finally dropped and he switched into overprotective, angry brother mode. He didn’t seem to believe my suspicions over Sandy either.

When the police finally did arrive we all sat down in the lounge while I relayed my tale over and over again, everything that had happened recently, from the silent phone calls, right down to the sympathy card that I’d found on my bed.

“So the card was on your bed?” Detective Inspector Neeson, the kind faced police lady asked, scribbling on her notepad.

I nodded, clutching at the Kleenex I had in my hand. “Yeah.”

A frown lined her forehead as she pursed her lips. “When you came home from tutoring you say that the front door was locked, and that you had to unlock the backdoor to go into your yard?”

I thought back, just double checking in my own mind. I’d definitely unlocked both doors, I remembered it fairly clearly. “Yeah, both doors were locked,” I confirmed.

“And you didn’t go into your room at that time,” she clarified.

I shook my head in answer. “I went upstairs, but only into Alex’s room to see if Chester was in there.” From the corner of my eye I saw Alex’s jaw tighten when I mentioned Chester.

She made a few more notes then before speaking, “When you went to the back yard did you leave your front door unlocked?”

I frowned, thinking hard, unsure as why that would even matter. “I guess. But what does that have to do with anything?”

She smiled kindly, her eyes soft and sympathetic. “I’m just trying to ascertain when the card was placed on your bed. There was no forced entry to the house, so it’s possible that someone snuck into the house and placed the card while you to tending to your dog outside,” she suggested.

I swallowed my anger. Did that mean that Sandy had been waiting for me to arrive home so that she could sneak in behind me and put the card there?

Alex leant forward, cocking his head to the side. “But then how did Chester get outside if there was no forced entry? I didn’t open the cat door, and Maisie said that she didn’t either. My parents aren’t here so they couldn’t have unlocked it.”

DI Neeson nodded along, not seeming shocked so she’d obviously already thought along those lines too. “That’s another thing that I was about to ask,” she answered. “Does anyone have access to the house? A spare key with a neighbour or anything?”

I shook my head in answer, pressing myself into Luke’s side, enjoying the solid firmness of his body. Alex answered before I could. “We do leave a spare back door key in the yard for emergencies,” he muttered.

A disapproving look crossed the police lady’s face as she scribbled on her pad again. “Could you go with Officer Tatum and show him where it’s kept?” she asked Alex, before turning to the male cop who had been sitting there silently at her side the whole time. “Greg, bag it up and we can check it for prints,” she ordered, raising an eyebrow knowingly, as if everything now made perfect sense to her.

Suddenly her thinking became clear to me too. She thought someone used the spare key to let Chester out, fed him poisoned meat, left a card on my bed, and then relocked the door again after themselves so it wouldn’t be obvious. When you thought of it that way, it did make sense.

Alex stood up quickly and marched out of the room, followed by the silent cop.

Luke’s arm slipped around my shoulders as the lady turned back to me with inquiring eyes. “Who knows about the key in the back yard?”

I was a little taken aback by her question. I thought about it now and my mind flicked to Sandy. As far as I was aware she had never been to my house before, so how would she know where the key was? “Um, I don’t know. Just a few friends that have been with me or Alex when we’ve forgotten our keys. It’s not common knowledge,” I answered, still wondering how Sandy knew about it. Maybe she’d been watching me and saw me use it last week.

DI Neeson took a deep breath, seeming to be contemplating everything. “We’ll interview your neighbours and see if any of them saw anyone hanging around your house today,” she stated. “Can you think of anyone that may have a grudge against you? Anyone that would want to hurt you?”

Luke stiffened at my side, his arm tightening on me as he shook his head subtly, as if he was unconsciously dismissing my idea all over again.

“I know who it is,” I replied confidently. DI Neeson’s eyebrow rose in question, her pen hovered over her paper. “Sandy Watson.” Luke let his breath out in a slow sigh, his hand stroking the side of my hip.

DI Neeson scribbled down the name on the paper as she spoke, “And what makes you sure that it is Sandy Watson?” she questioned, studying me carefully. I sighed deeply and launched into telling her everything – Luke cheating, me calling Sandy a dirty tramp at the party, us arguing in the school hallway, her wanting Luke for herself and her admitting that us breaking up wasn’t nearly enough for her. Throughout the whole thing the inspector looked from me to Luke. She didn’t look overly convinced, and I grew more frustrated with every passing second. It seemed that no one was going to take my suspicions seriously.

“So you didn’t see her write on your locker or post the note through?” she asked. I shook my head in answer. “And when you confronted her about the note, she didn’t confirm that it was her that sent it?”

I frowned. “Well no, but she’s the only one that has an obvious problem with me. You asked if anyone has a grudge against me and she’s the only one,” I countered defensively. Somehow I felt now that she was thinking I had some sort of grudge against Sandy instead and was trying to get her into trouble. I hated that no one was taking it seriously just because she was a silly teenage girl. Yes, it did seem a little farfetched that the head cheerleader would be starting this hate campaign against me, but there was no one else, so it had to be her.

DI Neeson nodded thoughtfully, seeming to be choosing her words. “We’ll look into it. At this stage there is nothing but guessing involved so we have to tread carefully. I’ll look into everything, you can rest assured on that.” She motioned to the box and contents that sat at her side having already been placed in clear plastic bags when they arrived. “We’re going to take the notes, box, card and flowers in for evidence. I’d like you to have a think about who may have touched the items. We’ll have to take fingerprints from anyone that has come into contact with the items so we can rule them out of any evidence we collect from the box.” She stood up and ripped out a piece of paper from her notebook, holding it out to me with a pen. “I’m going to bag the rest up and also take prints from the front and back door handles, and also your bedroom. While I’m doing that I’d appreciate it if you could compile the list of names that have had contact with each item.”

“Okay.” I looked down at the paper, my mind a blank as to where to start.

Luke was obviously more on the ball than I was because he took the pen and paper off of me, immediately sectioning it off into columns and then looking up at me expectantly. “So, other than me and you, who touched the box? You said that Alex signed for it, so obviously he touched the outer wrapper. Did you show the box to anyone else?”