Scarlet had been kept in the office for a while after the other students were dismissed. The vice-principal, already aware of the posters circulating in the school, didn’t think it was appropriate to send her home alone. Her mother was called, and once she arrived, Scarlet was taken home.

  Kevin and his team had already gone there to speak with her, but she wasn’t home when they arrived. Her mother didn’t answer the first few calls and later turned her phone off. I’m not sure if she’s overwhelmed after learning about the bullying her daughter faced, or if something else is going on.

  Apparently, the school administration knew something was going on among the students but dismissed it as harmless gossip. They hadn’t investigated. Their explanation was that they hadn’t understood how serious it was. A teacher had spotted one of the posters only a couple of days earlier and reported it. The administration assumed it would fade on its own.

  It didn’t.

  They said they were planning to look into it.

  Then Emily died.

  Their other defence was that neither Scarlet nor Emily had filed a complaint.

  That was the weakest excuse I had ever heard.

  Students don’t always speak up, especially the ones who are suffering the most. You don’t need a formal complaint to notice when someone is struggling. If you’re paying attention, the signs are there.

  From the limited information I had, Scarlet fit the type - honour student, quiet, no friends, ever in trouble. Someone like her wouldn’t ask for help.

  With students like that, you have to look closer. Some carry more pain than anyone realizes, and that kind of pressure can be dangerous. The quiet ones can be the most unpredictable, capable of things no one sees coming. I need to find out if Scarlet is one of them. She is our strongest lead right now and the person I need to talk to first. After that, depending on what she says, we move on to her classmates and then to whoever made the drawings.

  But before any of that, we need to speak with Emily’s parents.

  Kevin and his team have already met the family, but Sam and I need to go ourselves and introduce our role as lead investigators. I saw Emily’s father, Simon, at the scene, but I haven’t met her mother, Julie, yet. It’s time we pay them a visit.

  Sam and I drive past 112 Central Street once, both of us questioning the address. There are no vehicles outside, no sign that anyone has come or gone. When we circle back a second time, we know this is the house.

  The house is a large two-car garage home, worth close to a million dollars. A For Sale sign stands in the front yard. For a place where a teenage girl has just died, it is unusually quiet. Only Emily’s mother and a close friend are inside.

  “Not many people have come by?” I ask.

  Emily’s mother, fit and well-dressed with noticeable makeup and looking about 40, shakes her head.

  “We haven’t told anyone yet. We had an open house today. A lot of people came and went. We’re only moving within town, but we’ve already bought the new place and are almost finished setting it up. A recent death in the home isn’t good for a sale. It could stop everything. Right now, we can’t afford to carry both houses.” There’s a clear concern in her voice, and surprisingly, it isn’t about her daughter’s death but about the open house.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I understand what she means, though.

  She’s worried the news will spread. People will associate the house with the tragedy. Some might see a death as a bad sign and stay away. Still... Still, I can’t ignore the disconnect. I wonder how that concern related to the sale of her home fits beside the loss of a daughter. Her focus seems to be on moving forward, not looking back. Sam is thinking the same thing. I can see it in the tight set of his jaw.

  We take seats while the other woman brings us two glasses of water.

  “This is my friend Joyce,” Julie says. “She’s the real estate agent for the house.” I give a soft smile and say hi. Julie continues, “We were originally planning to move to Nova Scotia. Our family is there. But Emily didn’t want to leave. She wanted to finish school here before university. She had a good group of friends here. There were five of them... inseparable.” She pauses, takes a sip of water, and gathers herself. “But after we bought the new house, her attitude changed. One day, she said it might be better if we moved to Nova Scotia after all. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. Now I keep wondering if something was bothering her. Maybe someone was.”

  “Did you ask her why she said that?” I ask.

  She looks down. “I didn’t. I’m a speech therapist. I was rushing to a client meeting and didn’t want to be late. I thought I’d ask later. Then everything got busy with the move, and I forgot.”

  I watch her closely. Her voice is steady, and her eyes are dry. There is no visible grief, no emotional break. For a mother who has just lost her daughter, the control feels almost too complete.

  “Are you aware of the rumours at school?” I ask. “The drawings suggesting Emily was in a relationship with another girl?”

  Julie nods. “I heard about that today. The school should have told us. They didn’t. But I don’t think something like that would have affected her much. She was strong and confident. We raised her to handle situations like that.”

  “Did she ever mention it?”

  She shakes her head. “No. We were open with her. And very friendly. She usually told us everything, but didn’t say anything about the pictures. I heard her group may have been involved in starting the rumour, so she might have been embarrassed to tell us.”

  “Did Emily have a boyfriend?”

  “She did tell us she had a crush on someone at school. She said she’d tell us who once things became clear. That was another reason she didn’t want to move.”

  “You don’t know who it was?”

  Julie shakes her head again. “No. I wish I had asked more questions.”

  “You talked about school often,” I say. “Looking back, did anything seem unusual?”

  She hesitates. “To be honest, her father and I have been working a lot these past few months. The new house, the expenses. We weren’t spending as much time with her. She was quieter the last few days. A little withdrawn. I thought I’d talk to her once things settled at home, but…” She doesn’t finish.

  “Do you suspect anyone?” Sam asks.

  “No. But there is something else.” Julie looks up at us. “Emily kept a journal. It was our Christmas gift to her every year since she was in Grade 4 or 5. At the end of December, she destroyed it and started a new one. I searched the whole house. I couldn’t find this year’s. She sometimes took it to school.”

  Sam and I exchange a look. “We didn’t find a journal in her backpack,” I say. “Just books, her lunch box, and a small stationery pouch. Definitely not a journal.”

  “If she had it with her,” Sam says quietly, “it’s possible whoever killed her took it, along with the gun.”

  Julie’s face tightens. “Then they were afraid their name was in it. I wish I knew what she wrote in it.”

  “You never read it?” I ask.

  “No. I respected her privacy.” She swallows. “Now I wish I hadn’t.”

  “Do you or your husband own a gun?” I ask.

  Julie shakes her head. “No, we don’t. We’ve never had one.”

  “Would you mind if we looked at her room?” I ask.

  “Go ahead. The officers were here earlier,” she says. I note the faint impatience in her tone, but after years in this field, we’ve learned well enough to act as if we don’t notice

  “I know. Kevin and his team were here,” I say. “But we’d like to take another look, if you don’t mind.”

  She nods to Joyce, as if to say she’ll return soon, and guides us upstairs.