Hunted (6 page)

“Hey, Lanie,” Chase greeted as he came to a halt in front of her.  “I didn’t think you’d come out here today.”

Lanie lifted a shoulder.  “I decided to stop by for a while,” she told him.

“Are you doing alright?  I mean, you know, are you okay?” Chase questioned, his sparkling blue eyes filled with sympathy.

“I’m alright,” she answered, trying to keep her annoyance level to a minimum.

“Listen, do you still want to go out tonight?  Or would you rather cancel?” Chase asked.

A little wave of relief rolled over Lanie.  At least she wouldn’t have to reject him again.  “I think we should probably wait a while.  It…it doesn’t seem right, going out and having fun.”

Chase nodded his dark head, his handsome face set with a serious expression.  “I was thinking the same thing.  But, we’ll do something in a few days?”

“Okay,” she told him with a nod.

“I’ll talk to you later, then.  I have to get back,” Chase said and surprised Lanie by leaning down and dropping a quick kiss onto her mouth.  With that, he spun around and hurried away down the field, leaving Lanie to stare after him.

What was that?  What the hell was
that
!  They hadn’t even had their first date and Chase was already kissing her?  Maybe she would re-think going out with him, after all!

Feeling slightly rattled, Lanie turned back to head down the field toward the Spirit Squad, resisting the urge to reach up and swipe her hand across her mouth.  It wasn’t like she hadn’t been kissed before.  She had.  She’d had a steady boyfriend or two during her high school career and there had been a couple of instances when she hadn’t behaved as chastely as she should have, but those instances had been
her
choice.  Clearly, Chase Wylie thought those kinds of moments should be his choice, probably because there wasn’t a single girl who attended Fells Pointe High that would turn him down. 

Well, there was
one
.  And Chase Wylie was going to figure that out pretty quick.

Lanie meandered down to the end of the field, where Johnna caught sight of her and waved her over to the group.  Lanie tried to put on her game face, which was necessary when in the presence of a dozen gorgeous, perky Spirit Squad-ers who despised anyone who wasn’t one of them, yet who was just as attractive.  Those girls did not like anyone they perceived as competition and Lanie Bancroft was in that category, so they always had their claws out.

“Hey, Lanie,” Johnna greeted her brightly.  “We were just talking about fundraiser ideas.  Do you want to help?”

Lanie caught all the cold glances from the rest of the Spirit Squad and actually felt the temperature around her plummet a good ten degrees.  Yikes.  Even in the midst of a crisis, they were still…cheerleaders.

“I’ll just go and hang out on the bleachers,” she told Johnna.  “I don’t want to interfere with you guys doing your thing.”

“Are you sure?” Johnna questioned.  “You can help if you want to.”

There were more icy glares from the Spirit Squad—well, all but Devyn, who was smiling reassuringly at her.  “This is your thing.  Just let me know if you need me to help once you’ve figured it out,” she told Johnna. 

Lanie turned and headed for the bleachers, leaving the Spirit Squad to discuss the fundraiser amongst themselves.  Far be it from her, a lowly non-cheerleader, to interfere in official Spirit Squad business.  She didn’t want her eyes scratched out, now did she?

The bleachers were fairly crowded, so Lanie found a seat on the bottom row at the very end, wanting to put some distance between herself and everyone else.  The number of parents who’d shown up to watch practice seemed a little much.  Did they think that whoever had…done that…to Stacy would show up at football practice and try to nab one of the players or the cheerleaders?  It seemed unlikely.  Whoever was responsible for what had happened to Stacy Miller would be wise to lay low for a while instead of coming to a crowded football field to try and snatch another victim.  Besides, statistics said the person responsible for…doing that…to Stacy was someone she knew and in all likelihood, that person would not commit the offense again.  Hopefully.

Sitting on the metal bleachers, Lanie watched the Fell Pointe Panthers line up on the field and start their warm up exercises, led by Coach Rossi, who was really laying on his whistle this practice.  The team fell into their routine and it wasn’t long before the Spirit Squad began shouting out their cheers as their own practice started up.  Lanie tried to pay attention to both groups, but she quickly lost interest.  She just couldn’t focus on push-ups and pyramids when one of her friends was…gone.

Stacy had always loved to sit and watch practice.  She’d wanted to be a cheerleader more than anything, she was always at every single tryout, and she was pretty good.  She was athletic and could memorize a routine quicker than anyone else, but that never mattered.  She wasn’t one of the privileged people, so the Spirit Squad always froze her out.  It made Lanie angry thinking about it.  Just because Stacy wasn’t as well-off as some people, she wasn’t allowed to do something she’d always dreamed of doing.  Stacy had only been allowed on all the school committees because Lanie was on them and she’d refused to let anyone strong arm her into keeping Stacy out.

Maybe if the Spirit Squad would have allowed Stacy to join them, Stacy would still be alive.  Everyone had met at Devyn’s house last night to watch movies and talk about making up some new routines.  If Stacy had been there instead of…wherever she’d been when it happened…she might still be alive.

Lanie felt the irrational urge to get up off the bleachers, stomp down the field, and punch Heather Langley, the head cheerleader, right in the mouth.  Heather hated Stacy most of all because her boyfriend never missed an opportunity to flirt with the girl.  In Lanie’s opinion, Heather should have been mad at her boyfriend and not Stacy.  Stacy always shot him down right away and had never done one single thing to encourage him.  But, Heather had always blamed Stacy instead of putting the blame where it belonged. 

Stupid, jealous cheerleader! 

With anger swirling through her, Lanie pulled her attention away from the Spirit Squad and looked toward the team, now running a few of their plays while the coach blew his whistle with unnecessary force.  The shrill sound began to shoot through Lanie’s skull and for two cents, she would have walked out onto the field, grabbed the thing, and stuffed it down Coach Rossi’s throat.  The man had a problem!

Quickly realizing that she
did not
want to be watching practice, nor did she want to be surrounded by a small horde of parents, all of them talking in hushed tones and keeping their wary gazes toward their children on the field, Lanie decided that she would be better off just leaving and going someplace a little more quiet.  Someplace where it wouldn’t seem as if she might look up and see Stacy coming toward her down the field, her pink face split into a smile and her eyes bright with happiness.

There was only one place where she knew she would be left alone, one place where no one would want to bother her.  She hadn’t been there in a few weeks, but now seemed like a good time to go.

Lanie stood, hoisted her bag up onto her shoulder, and started back down the game field toward the entrance, pulling out her phone and pecking out a text to Brady telling him where she’d gone.  She didn’t want him to worry about her.  Figuring that she’d be in trouble if she didn’t tell her dad where she was going, she pecked out a text to him, too, and then hurried away from the field.

Since Brady had driven her, she would have to walk there and then walk home, which would take some time and might not be the best idea considering what had happened only the night before, but she just couldn’t stay at the game field.  She needed to be…any place else. 

Once she was away from the noise of the field, Lanie pointed herself down Fairview Drive and took off at a steady clip, wishing she’d driven herself.  Walking was nice sometimes, but not when she was at least twenty minutes away from where she wanted to be. 

It actually took Lanie nearly forty five minutes to walk to The Fells Pointe Memorial Cemetery because she’d stopped at Katy’s Korner on Commerce Street for an iced caramel latte on the way.  Katy’s Korner had the best iced coffee in town, and Marla, the waitress that worked the afternoon shift, always gave Lanie an extra shot of espresso in hers.  She liked her java strong enough to jump start a car engine.

Fells Pointe Memorial Cemetery sat on Cedar Street and was one of only three cemeteries in town.  It was the largest and the oldest and since some of the grave sites had been there for hundreds of years, it was gated and could only be entered for a few hours during the day.  The Mayor didn’t want any of the kids partying in there and ruining the historic site, which probably would have happened because, well, kids were kids, and in a small town where there wasn’t much to do, they’d create their own fun some way or another.

The cemetery was surrounded by a high wrought iron fence and as Lanie stepped through the gates, she was struck yet again by just how lovely the old place was.  Sitting on nearly two acres of land, there were headstone stretching out in all directions, and the entire area was peppered with towering oak trees that had been standing far longer than anything else in town. 

Walking along the gravel path that ran down the center of the graveyard, Lanie took in the atmosphere around her.  The air was different here.  Quiet.  As if even the birds dared not sing out of respect for the departed.  The powder blue sky over head and the barely changing leaves covering all the massive, gnarled old trees should have given the cemetery an almost cheerful look, but instead, the colors only made it seem more lonesome.  Here even the wind was more subdued, whispering gently through the tree tops, creating a soft murmur of sound that reminded Lanie of someone trying to share a secret, only there was no one left to hear it.

Passing by the aged, moss and lichen covered headstones that had stood guard over their owners for centuries, Lanie made her way to the back of the cemetery, to the area that was newer, but that only a select few people could hope to be buried in.  Her mother was one of the few.

Angelina Bancroft was not only the wife of the Sheriff of Fells Pointe, but she had also been the head of the Citizen’s League, the daughter of the Town Attorney, and the granddaughter of the longest serving Deputy Mayor in Fells Pointe history.  Angelina Bancroft had the privilege of being laid to rest in the finest cemetery in town, along with all the other prominent figures in Fells Pointe history.  Both Lanie’s grandparents, her great grandparents, and several Great Aunts and Uncles, were buried there, as well, in what was the official Bancroft Family Plot. 

Lanie was actually proud of the fact that a good portion of her ancestors were all resting in such a beautiful, meaningful place.

Her mother’s headstone was sitting in the far corner of the cemetery, beneath one of the massive oak trees, which Angelina had always found so lovely.  Lanie walked up to the polished marble slab that had been etched with her mom’s name and stood for a second, letting that familiar feeling of loss wash over her.  It was best to embrace it and get past it first thing.  Once that crushing sense of grief had ran its course and Lanie could breathe again, she blinked away the mist of tears filming her eyes and then moved to sit down and lean back against the gravestone.  She could feel the cool marble through her sweater and it was nice.  She liked having something physical that belonged to her mom, a piece of her mom that she could touch and feel. 

Lanie took in a breath of the clean autumn air and let the silence seep into her, soothing the tumult inside her.  This was what she needed.  The space, the quiet, the time away from concerned faces and worried eyes.  This was the only way she’d be able to absorb the fact that her friend had been killed.  That her friend was gone and she wasn’t coming back. 

Lanie had been trying to let it sink in since the night before, since her dad had told her what had happened, but her mind simply wouldn’t allow it.  She hadn’t seen it with her own eyes.  She hadn’t seen Stacy lying in front of her, pale and broken and unmoving.  So, her mind didn’t want to believe it.  Here, though, surrounded by…what was left…of the people who had once walked the streets of Fells Pointe, by people who had once loved and had been loved, by people who had children and who had worked hard to make the town a nice place to raise them, she could believe it.

This was a place where death was real.  This was a place where it wasn’t hard to imagine that a young girl could be taken before her time, that her life had been cut short by cold, unfeeling hands.  There was nothing but death in this place, it permeated everything in sight, it thickened the air and hushed the world, so here Lanie could come to grips with the fact that her friend really was gone.