Sarah Benadine is Dead

Chapter I, Part II

Liam Malone, lifelong Catholic like his wife, often said that if there was food in heaven, it was cooked by the ancestors of Rosa Guaraldi. His daughter didn't know about heaven, but she was certainly convinced that the cooking done by the Guaraldi matriarch was the best on earth. She could understand why Gianni ate so much, if this was what he got every night.

Toni, true to her word, had at least passed the entire dinner without mentioning the mark on Shannon's palm. For that, Shannon was grateful, because the last thing she needed was the entire Guaraldi family—bar Gianni—questioning her about it. Toni's older brothers had even less tact than she did and Shannon couldn't even begin to imagine what they'd say about it. She certainly didn't need them giving Toni any ideas, either.

Toni dragged Shannon to her room the second dinner was over. Shannon was pretty well convinced that her eagerness could mostly be attributed to getting out of doing the dishes. It was only fair, to Toni, that if Gianni didn't have to do anything because he was at the Puckett's, then she shouldn't have to do anything either.

Toni flopped face first onto her bed dramatically when the girls made it to the room. Shannon rolled her eyes as she sat down next to her, poking Toni in the side. Toni made a show of rolling over, groaning as if it took all of her strength to do so. She didn't sit up, but instead propped her head on her arm and looked at Shannon with a thoughtful expression.

"What do you think it's like to die?" she asked. Shannon's eyebrows shot up.

"I don't know," Shannon said, giving Toni a funny look. "I always thought it wouldn't be a whole lot of fun."

Toni shrugged. "Depends on how you go out. Jumping off a cliff could be fun, until you hit the ground."

Shannon blinked. "You must do different things for fun than I do."

"I'm your best friend," Toni said with a vaguely disapproving look on her face. "I do all the same things for fun that you do."

"I don't jump off cliffs."

"Well neither do I, dummy. I'm still here, aren't I?" Toni sat up then, seeming somewhat agitated. "But that's beside the point, anyway. I mean—what do you think it was like for Sarah?"

Shannon didn't answer right away. Toni's question unsettled her; she didn't really want to think about what it was like for Sarah. With all the whispers and the rumors that were circling around the town, it was almost impossible not to think about it, and that bothered her. She didn't want to think about Sarah's death because she didn't want to have to reason it out; she didn't want to try to understand why someone would've killed a sixteen year old girl, and she didn't want to think about what else a person like that might be capable of.

"What do you think?" Shannon responded, deflecting the question back to Toni. Toni chewed the inside of her lip and looked at the ceiling.

"I think," Toni said slowly, "that Robbie's dad is wrong."

"Huh?"

Toni sighed impatiently. "You know, what Robbie's dad said about it. That it was her boyfriend or something."

"Sarah didn't have a boyfriend," Shannon interjected, the fact just occurring to her. As it so happens, she had learned that from Mary Dent as well; a person could learn just about anything they wanted to from Mary, as long as they had the patience to listen to her and the ability to decipher when she was telling a bold faced lie.

"Even if she had had a boyfriend, I wouldn't think he had done it," Toni said firmly, crossing her arms. Shannon peered curiously at her.

"Who do you think did it?"