Saving Madison

Chapter Twelve

Tyler's p.o.v »»

I should have felt creepy spying on Madison, but I didn't feel the slightest bit of remorse. Leo or whatever his name was had just left Madison's house, annoying me even more than I thought possible.

    "He's not even attractive," I pointed out, staring outside as I tosses a ball back and forth against my wall.

    "Blonde hasn't been a thing since Hannah Montana."

    "You're only saying that because you're jealous." Will said from across the room, laying on my bed with his laptop on his lap. He had been like this for an hour, typing an essay for his world history class while I did little things to keep myself busy.

"He's new, he doesn't know that much about her, she probably likes that." He said, and I hated that he was right. He was almost always right.

    "I don't like him." He was about to say something else when I interrupted. "And not because I'm jealous, because he just showed up out of nowhere, and manages to get to the only girl who just came back from the dead."

    "She's one of the few people without a swarm around her, and mostly hangs out alone." He sat up, sitting criss cross towards me. "Do you want me to find him?" He asked, already typing on his computer.
    "I don't even know his last name."
    "Luke Scott," My eyebrows furrowed and he explained.

    "He's in my Biology class. He keeps to himself, really, not the overly social type." He typed some more, turning the computer to face me when he was finished.

    "William Hastings, color me impressed."
    "Everybody has some form of social media. Most kids get Facebook when they're 13, and it looks like he was one of them." I looked at the page, seeing a slightly younger image of the guy I saw last night.
"This feels like low grade stalking." I admitted, but that didn't stop me from going through the page.
    "It is."
    "He was lucky to hit puberty," I mumbled after a while of going through some old pictures.

"Does she look familiar to you?" I asked, turning the computer around to face Will. The picture on the screen was one of a young Luke with a man and woman behind him, both who looked similar to him. There were no tags, so the woman could have been his mom, an aunt, or any other relative for that matter.

Will tilted his head slightly, his eyes narrowing. "I know I've seen her before. Not recently, but I have a vague memory of her face." I tried to think of where I had seen her, because I know I had seen her before.

"There's no way we know Luke's mother or whoever she is, but he just moved here." I nodded, but I couldn't ignore the fact that part of my brain was trying to place her somewhere.

"Tyler!" We were interrupted by my mom calling my name from downstairs.
"What did I do this time?" I groaned, giving Will the laptop back.
"Yeah, mom?" I asked as I came downstairs, stopping when I saw my mom and Sheriff Hill in the kitchen. Their interaction was starting to make me suspicious, but I decided to question her later.
    "Hey, Sheriff." I said, looking between them.
    "I have to finish asking you some questions about Madison Taylor." I sighed, not feeling like answering questions, but knowing it was inevitable.

"What do you need to know?" He motioned for me to sit at the table while my mom gave me a small smile before she left to her room.

"Madison coming back is a big thing, but we're starting to do more investigation into her death." He began, sitting across from me.

"Her death?" I asked. "You mean her suicide? Why don't you ask her about that?" I didn't want Madison to be bogged down with questions, but I didn't see the point in questioning me about what she did.
"I'm getting there. But a police investigation is 50% what happened and 50% why it happened, I take it you know that."

    "Yeah, my dad told me a lot about police stuff before he died." He nodded, and took out a notepad.
"Who was Madison friends with before she died?"
"She was a cheerleader, I'm sure she had many friends," That was a lie. "But she was close friends with Lily James."
"How would you describe their friendship?"
"Uh, I don't know, I didn't really talk to either of them last year." He wrote that down, pausing for a second.

    "Where were you on the day of Madison's death? February 12th of this year."
    "February 12th? Oh, yeah, I had a baseball game at six that day. Hit four home runs." He chuckled a little at my comment, something I said to lighten the mood.

"How long does a typical Harrison baseball game last? Hour and a half? Two hours?"
"Yeah, that's about right." I said, trying to see where he was going with this.
"So, assuming you got there early to prepare, that puts you on the baseball field from 5:30 to around 8:15."
    "Yeah..."
    "Did you go somewhere after the game?"
    "The team went to the diner."
    "Did you have access to your cell phone at that time?"
    "Sheriff, can you get to the point? What exactly are you getting at?" He rubbed a hand through his slightly graying hair, exhaling deeply.

    "We pulled up Madison's phone records from the night she went to the lake. Can you tell me why you were her last phone call?"