A Ship Without Sails

Chapter 7

"Kurt, what happened?!" Shayna gasped, struggling to catch her breath. Blake and the rest of the team caught up, panting hard and hugging their sides. Blake was the first to recover from the rapid succession to the stream and stood next to Shayna.

"Hey, what the heck?" he said to Kurt, panting.

"Blake, she's dead," Shayna whispered to her boyfriend. Kurt's head dropped in sadness.

"Did you kill her?" Blake said in a voice so soft, everyone had to strain to hear. "You killed her!"

"Woah, lay off," a guy warned, stepping forward. It was the first baseman. "Let's get some adults over here. Don't touch anything. And hey, Kurt, get away from the edge. You'll, like, fall on the body."

"That body is my sister!" Shayna snapped loudly. She managed to make her way to Kurt and took him by the shoulders. She dragged him away from the edge and let him sit on the trail, slumped with his head down.

"What happened?" she whispered, crouching in front of him.

"Shayna, don't have him say anything till an adult is here," Blake ordered. Shayna stood up so quickly she nearly fell down and said, "I'm not a toddler, I know what I'm doing right now!"

Blake's light brown eyes widened in shock. No one, not even him, had ever imagined that Shayna could snap like that. She was always the quiet, calm, submissive little sister.

"And I don't care if an adult is coming or not, but I want to know what happened, now!" Shayna growled, then turned around and sat with Kurt. "Okay, what happened with you and Kerry?"

"I... I came down to--" Kurt began, then a shout of alarm came from behind them.

"Kerry! Kerry!" Mr. Blackburn yelled. Mrs. Blackburn was right behind him, hobbling down the trail in three inch designer heels.

"Mom! Dad!" Shayna cried, but they dashed by her and reached Kerry's body, leaning over the edge of the banks. Shayna hastily followed and got down to the water level, perched on a flat rock. "Someone needs to get to police here, now," Mr. Blackburn said. Coach Duncan replied, "Already done. They should be here... now."

"Okay, everyone stand back," a deep voice commanded. The group turned to see three policemen and a woman coming over.

The woman sauntered down to the body, then whipped out a camera and began furiously snapping pictures from all different angles. The only sound that cut through the silence was the shutter.

"You may move the body," she said after a while, lowering the camera. Her voice reminded Shayna of Daisy's: demanding and cold, but lined with intelligence and control.

"Yes, Ms. Thorn," one of the policeman said quietly. They then proceeded to place Kerry's limp body onto a stretcher and carried her away. The woman whirled around to face Shayna and Kurt.

"You kids found the body?" she asked, though she sounded like more of a demand. Shayna had to look almost directly up at the woman, who was wearing clunky black ankle boot heels and was naturally at least 5' 10". A chill went down her spine as Shayna realized that she couldn't tell if the woman was actually looking at her-- her ginormous black sunglasses took up most of her face. Her pale skin and bright red lipstick made her look like a doll, except her haircut, a choppy, jagged bob, destroyed any image of a sweet, pretty doll. Her hair was so blonde, it was white, with blunt bangs, and was longer in the front than in the back. In the front, it reached an inch below her chin, in the back it was cropped below her earlobes. It's cut was a straight line, not a hair out of place.

"You kids found it?" she repeated. Shayna snapped out of her trance and stammered, "Kurt f-found it."

"Are you Kurt?" the woman swiveled her face to Kurt, having to look down a little.

"Yeah." Kurt, despite the situation, seemed slightly miffed that a woman was taller than him by a couple inches.

"I'm Astrid Thorn. I'm a forensic investigator with the police force. Tell me what happened," Astrid prompted. She unbuttoned the long tan trench coat she wore, revealing a tight black V-neck sweater over a crisp white collared dress, which looked more like an oversized men's dress shirt.

"Kerry went down to the stream with Daisy, her older sister, but it turned out that they weren't together, so when Daisy came back alone, I went to go find Kerry. Then I found her in the stream, dead." Kurt's hazel-blue eyes watered.

"Are you sure she was dead before you got to her?" Astrid asked. Shayna's amber eyes widened. "You can't possibly think that Kurt did it?" she checked breathlessly. "Because he didn't!"

Astrid took off her sunglasses and stared straight at Shayna with the darkest blue eyes she had ever imagined. "I don't know," Astrid told Shayna, "but I need alibis. Everyone, go back to the picnic area. Now."