Killing Britney (8 page)

fifteen

This
was unheard of: the mighty Rabid Raccoons, the undefeated state champs, usually so vicious, so pitiless and awesome, were playing as though they’d just learned how to skate. Their shots were wild, nowhere near the goal. Their passes were slow and obvious—easy to pick off. Their defense just wasn’t there. On the day when they should have come storming onto the ice, full of unquenchable bloodlust, focused like cruise missiles on showing the world that Ricky’s death had not been in vain, they were playing like they had no heart at all.

The Portage Possums, the worst team in the league—their record was the mirror opposite of the Raccoons’—had scored first and second and third. Now they were into the final period, and the Raccoons still hadn’t retaliated.

The fans had grown restless and angry. Deafening boos and shouts of “You guys suck!” circled the rink like thunder. During a time-out near the end of the second period, someone had thrown a Big Gulp of Pepsi over the glass at Digger; it missed him, but the brown liquid had splattered everywhere.

In the front row, the hockey wives huddled together, their shoulders slumped, glum expressions on their faces. They were in shock. Erin had roused them into leading a few cheers early in the game, but as the clock clicked forward, they found inspiration harder and harder to come by. Now they watched morosely, elbows on knees, frowning faces embedded deep in their fists, as their men threw their pride away.

Britney felt like it was all her fault. If she had just kept Ricky with her for five more minutes that night—even if it had meant five more minutes of fighting—he wouldn’t have been at that gas station at that precise instant. All of history would have been altered.

As she sat there brooding, she obsessively fingered the hockey pin on Ricky’s letter jacket. Except for the funeral, she’d worn the jacket every day since his death. Like a badge of fidelity.

Cindy said, “To think I turned down the Tomlinsons for this. They pay fifteen dollars an hour, and their baby just lies there and sleeps. I could have watched
American Idol
and walked away with forty-five bucks tonight.”

Usually someone would have responded to this. Jodi would have said, “Yeah, but you’d have to change diapers. You’d have to touch nasty baby butt.” Or Erin would have told her that she should have taken the job anyway. “What you should have done is wait there until the Tomlinsons were off to dinner and then pack the baby up and bring him here with you.” But they were all too unhappy for this kind of patter.

Britney was worried about her place in the group. Now that Ricky was gone, she feared the other girls might gradually distance themselves from her. They’d all been friends forever, since freshman year at least, and she knew from experience—from all those times before she’d been accepted when Erin had seen her in the halls and called out to her mockingly, “Hey, I
love
your blouse. Where’d you get it? Wal-Mart?”—how cruel they could be if they wanted to.

“Well, it looks like Troy’s not getting any perks tonight,” Erin said as she munched on a stale nacho coated in liquid cheese.

The other girls nodded sagely.

Erin could turn on people so quickly, and since she was without question the leader, if she decided Britney was no longer worthy, the other girls would all follow suit.

She’d have to go back to sitting at the games with her father and Melissa. She loved them both, and sitting with them wouldn’t be that horrible, except now all Melissa wanted to do was talk to Adam, and Britney didn’t think she could tolerate that. Earlier in the game, when it still looked like the Raccoons had a chance, she’d popped up to say hi, and Melissa—who was making herself more attractive by the day, styling her hair and wearing more and more fashionable clothes—had been so engrossed in Adam’s inane chatter about “the best album ever” that she barely acknowledged Britney’s presence.

“Hey, everybody,” she said, trying to pull the hockey wives into a huddle. “Don’t you think we should make some noise? Let the guys know we’re still behind them?” The shrugs and signs that greeted this idea were just about what she’d expected. “Well, if nobody else will, I’ll do it.”

“You can do what you want,” said Daphney, “but it’s not going to help. I just hope this game doesn’t ruin the party.”

“Oh, it’ll ruin the party,” said Erin. “You can count on that.”

Britney was sick of this. She was sick of everything.

Jumping to her feet, she began to shout. “Come on, Raccoons, show us what you’re made of.” Her voice was strong and when she raised it, it climbed up the register. It pierced the silence of the stands. She could feel people turning to look at her, but nobody was joining in yet.

The wives all had their heads in their hands. Well, if they’re too embarrassed to support their boyfriends, thought Britney, that’s their problem. I’m going to make sure the guys know I appreciate them.

“Do it for Ricky!” she shouted. She liked the sound of that. She liked the idea that anyone who looked would see her, in Ricky’s oversized letter jacket, shouting his name. She said it again.

“Do it for Ricky.”

Digger, who was on the team bench just across the glass from Britney, craned his thick neck to look back at her. Everything about him was big, but still, he had an especially large mouth, which naturally turned down at the corners. When he’d been younger, the upperclassmen called him Fish Face, but now there was no one left who could beat him up. When he did grin, his face was all teeth. He was grinning now. He raised a clenched fist in Britney’s direction, a show of unity and strength. Then he started chanting with her.

“Do it for Ricky.”

Seeing Digger chant, Cindy joined in. She didn’t want him to think she didn’t care. She was a big girl, tall and wide-hipped, and though most people saw her as one of the cutest girls in school, she’d confided in Britney once that she believed Digger, with his beefy thuggish looks, was the best she’d ever be able to do for herself. She was jumpy when he was around, always trying to do whatever she thought he might think she should be doing.

“Do it for Ricky.”

A few more people joined in with each recitation.

“Do it for Ricky.”

And the team began to play with more vigor. They got meaner. They bodychecked. They looked for one another on the pass and set up for face-offs like they actually cared. Within a minute, they’d scored their first goal.

The stands erupted. Everyone was chanting now. Clapping. Hooting and hollering.

As the chant made its way around the rink, it gradually morphed. Britney almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Do it for Britney. Do it for Britney.”

They stomped their feet in rhythm with the chant, and so many people had joined in that the stands vibrated like they were going to collapse.

When Digger was put back into the game, he immediately elbowed one of the Possums’ forwards in the jaw. The refs didn’t see it, but they saw the Possum retaliate, grabbing Digger by the neck and punching at his face. Digger was a whole lot bigger than the guy; he just shrugged him off. He could have beaten the guy to a bloody pulp, but he’d already gotten what he was after. The guy was thrown in the penalty box, and the Raccoons had a one-man advantage. They capitalized five seconds later, getting their second goal.

From then on out, they had the Possums on the run. The tide had turned. Final score: 4-3, Raccoons.

As they skated off the ice, each Raccoon in turn pointed a finger in Britney’s direction.

“Well, Britney,” Erin said, a little wryly, “you’re getting big props tonight.”

Britney beamed.

For the first time since Ricky died, she felt almost normal again.

Almost.

Just as everyone was getting up to leave, an explosion of gunshots filled the air. They echoed off the walls and, a second later, one of the two scoreboards hanging at either end of the rink exploded in sparks.

There was utter chaos. Everyone screaming. Rushing for the exits. Standing on tiptoes in search of the shooter. Bodies pressed and pushing up against bodies in a jumble by the doors.

Britney thought she saw Detective Russell, blond hair flying at her back as she ran in the opposite direction, toward the place where the shots seemed to have come from.

The hockey wives clung to one another’s coats, huddled together in hopes of feeling safer. Jodi and Daphney were crying. Erin kept repeating, “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this.” Britney held tight to them.

She knew those shots had been meant for her. As she and the other hockey wives ran across the parking lot toward Erin’s SUV, she had the feeling that someone was watching her, waiting for the opportunity to get her alone, and then …

It sent chills down her back just thinking about it.

Twice she heard footsteps running toward her back, and both times she spun around to find no one there.

When small groups of people moved past her, she thought she heard them whispering her name. She couldn’t tell if this was her imagination or if it was real. She kept thinking she heard them say things like, “Not now … but soon.”

sixteen

“Have
you made up your mind yet?” asked Adam.

Britney was watching TV—or trying to watch. She’d been conscious of him staring at her for a while, and no matter how hard she tried to ignore him, she couldn’t—he was worse than a fly buzzing around her head.

“About what?”

“Our truce.”

In everything that had happened since then, she’d almost forgotten all about this truce of his. She glanced at him skeptically to let him know she was hearing him, but she didn’t say anything.

“I mean, it’s been like four days. How long does it take for you to make up your mind?”

He looked like he hadn’t washed his hair in three days. It hung in limp, spooky spikes toward his eyes, making him look a vampire.

“I don’t know, Adam. I’ve been really freaked out, you know?”

“So you haven’t even thought about it.”

He nodded in an I-told-you-so way, as though he’d proved something to himself about her.

She turned back to the TV. It was Sunday night.
Alias
was on. Her favorite show. But she couldn’t concentrate.

“Look,” he said. “I know I can be a dick, okay?”

He scooted to the edge of the chair he was sitting in and playfully boxed at the air around her head.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” she said.

“I’m just messing around.”

He had the most mischievous grin she’d ever seen. She hated to admit this, but it was charming. It was harder to remain annoyed with him when he grinned like that. She wished he’d stop.

“If you’re trying to get on my good side because you’ve got a crush on Melissa, it’s not going to work,” she said.

“Who said I’ve got a crush on Melissa?”

She threw a pillow at him. “See, that’s why you’re so frustrating,” she said. “Can’t you give a straight answer to anything?”

There was that smile again. “Maybe I’ve got a crush on you.”

“God help me.”

“You’re blushing,” he said.

She touched her face and scowled at him. Then she went back to watching her TV show. There was some sort of chase going on in Siberia, but she’d missed so much of the story by now that she had no idea why.

“What do you want to know? I’ll give you a straight answer.”

“Do you have a crush on Melissa?”

“Ask me a different question. Anything but that.”

“What did you do to get shipped out here?” Britney asked.

He tapped his lower lip in an exaggerated show of how hard he was thinking. “My parents just thought it would be better for me to be away for a while.”

“But I know you did something. My dad told me you’d gotten in some sort of trouble.”

“It was just stupid stuff. Smoking pot and things like that.”

“See, you’re lying,” she said.

“Okay, you want to know the truth?” His whole demeanor had changed. He usually flayed himself out in a lazy way, arms and legs everywhere, but now he seemed to shrink, to pull inward. “I got kicked out of school.”

“For something bad?”

He nodded gravely. He seemed to be actually telling the truth. It sent a chill down her spine.

Then that grin popped back onto his face. “I’m
crazy loco,”
he said in a gurgling, mock-scary voice. He crossed his eyes and puffed out his cheeks. “And I’m coming for you next. What will it be? The tickle attack or the nudgie?” He rolled the tips of his fingers together as though he were scheming nefariously.

Britney tried to remain unamused, but she couldn’t stop the grin from breaking across her face.

She laughed. They both laughed.

“God,” she said, squeezing the tears away. “That’s the first time I think I’ve laughed since Ricky died.”

“So, truce?” Adam said, holding his hand out for her to shake.

“No,” she said, and snapped back to attention over the TV. Maybe she was going to forgive him—in fact, she was sure of it—but it seemed only fair to tease him a little since that’s what she knew he would do in her shoes.

“Fine,” said Adam, “but I’m going to operate as if you said yes. I already have been, actually. You’re not going to believe me, but the other night I protected you from an intruder.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I caught someone spying on you. Right out back there.”

“Who? When?” She felt like someone had just wrestled a plastic bag over her head.

“On Friday. While you were taking that bath.”

“But who was it?”

She was sweating suddenly. If there was one place she thought she was safe, it was here at home.

“I shouldn’t tell you. You’re going to say, ‘I told you so.’”

“It was Bobby, wasn’t it? Bobby Plumley was spying on me!”

“Don’t worry about it, though. I chased him away and told him I’d kick his ass if I ever caught him over here again.”

Bobby Plumley! That freak of nature.

For all she knew, he might be watching her right this second. She had to get out of here. She had to go somewhere where she could think. There was only one place. The Sanctuary. She hadn’t been there in months—not since she first started dating Ricky—but she was sure it would still have the calming power it always used to have over her. There was something special about that patch of earth, like someone or something protected it.

As she ran out the door, she could hear Adam shouting after her, “Hey, where are you going? I didn’t mean to … Don’t be … Jesus, I’ve pissed you off again, haven’t I?”

She didn’t have time for his noise right now, though. If she didn’t get out of the house right this instant, she was sure she would pass out.