Hunted (14 page)

Again, Lanie nodded and turned to head back to Johnna and Devyn.  The two girls were standing around discussing who did what that day with the Spirit Squad, while Lanie hovered in the background, thinking that
she’d
actually been the one to do a lot of the things the cheerleaders were giving themselves credit for.   Finn and Brady had gone to stand by the football team, who had created a large wall next to the Flower Sale table. 

Suddenly, Lanie realized that everyone was beginning to light their taper candles from one another and Lanie allowed the woman next to her to light hers, and then she in turn lit Johnna’s, who passed the flame on to Devyn.

As the wave of light slowly rolled over the crowd, Pastor Hawes appeared at the table holding the pictures of Stacy and everyone fell silent, waiting for the large, grey haired man to speak.  The pastor cleared his throat and began leading a prayer for Stacy Miller, his deep voice filling up the night, blotting out the sound of the wind in the tree tops and the song of the crickets that were left over from summer.  And then, he began to recite a verse from the bible in his hands and several people standing next to Lanie began to sob quietly.  And then several more people began to sob.  It wasn’t long before Lanie looked around to find nearly every person in the crowd weeping bitterly.  Even Heather Langley and the other Spirit Squaders were holding onto one another while they sobbed, the flickering light showing up the tears staining their cheeks.

And seeing those tears caused an unexpected surge of anger to swell up inside Lanie, heating her cheeks and choking her throat. 

Looking around, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.  There was hardly a person who wasn’t weeping over the loss of Stacy Miller.  And a lot of the people had absolutely no right to be sobbing over her loss! 

Stacy Miller had been alive only hours before and most of the people who were now weeping hadn’t cared a thing about her.  She’d gone to school for her entire life with these people and not only had they not cared about her, but they had done their best to shut her out, to make her feel less than just because she wasn’t as well off, just because she was prettier than they thought someone like her should have been.  And now, hours after she’d been killed, everyone who’d ignored her or made her miserable was suddenly weeping as if she’d been their best friend.

Hypocrites! 

All these people were
hypocrites
!

They had never even bothered to get to know Stacy.  If they had, they would all know that this sort of thing was not really what she would have wanted for herself!  She’d said a dozen times that when she died, she just wanted to be quietly lowered into the ground and then forgotten about.  She’d always said she didn’t want a bunch of people who hated her blubbering over her corpse and
pretending
to be sad that she was gone!

All these people were hypocrites!

With her anger suddenly overwhelming her, Lanie spun on her heel and began pushing through the people surrounding her.  She needed to get away from the weeping people holding their candles to honor a girl they hated and from the Pastor who was praying for a girl he didn’t even know!  She had to get away from the lot of them before she exploded and made a fool of herself by disrupting a memorial service!

Once she had shoved her way out of the crowd, Lanie blew out her candle and tossed it into the garbage can next to the Flower Sale table on the way by, wanting to give a very unlady like hand gesture to the two cheerleaders standing there, weeping quietly on each other’s shoulders.

Hypocrites!

All these people were hypocrites!

Lanie stormed by the girls and out into the darkness, her chest squeezing tight and her throat going closed.  She wanted nothing to do with the people who were pretending to mourn Stacy when they really hated her guts!  She’d wanted to have the memorial to help out the Millers, or maybe just to feel like she was doing something productive, something that was helping Stacy somehow, but this was wrong!  It wasn’t what Stacy would have wanted!  And tomorrow, once everyone had gone, she was coming back to take down all the signs and candles and she was tossing them in the garbage!

Stomping away from the crowd, Lanie found that she was too angry to even cry, which was what she really wanted to do at that moment.  Not because she was sad, but because she was…she was…
outraged
!  She was furious that a good person had been taken away from her life and her family and while she was alive half the people who were…
howling
at her memorial service hadn’t bothered to get to know her, so they had no idea what a loss it was that Stacy Miller was no longer in Fells Pointe! 

Needing to put some space between herself and all the empty, shallow people pretending to care about a girl they really despised, Lanie walked on through the darkness and the maze of trees, needing the movement and the feel of her feet hitting the earth.  It helped to drive some of the rage out of her.  And with that rage spurring her forward, Lanie walked on and on, walking until the sound of Pastor Hawe’s deep, melancholy voice was no longer audible and the flickering glow of candle light could no longer be seen.  She walked until she could no longer hear the sound of the soft sobs arising from the crowd, until she could no longer envision herself grabbing up all the signs covered in glitter and hollow condolences and tearing them to shreds with her bare hands.

Once she felt far enough away from all the people she hated at that moment, Lanie stopped, leaning against the trunk of a massive old tree and trying to get her ragged breathing under control.  The sound was harsh in the stillness and it grated on her nerves somehow, but she couldn’t seem to calm herself enough to breathe normally, especially with the anger still roiling around inside her.

If there hadn’t been a few dozen people just across the park from her, she would have sucked in a breath and screamed out her frustration over the…injustice of it all.  Yes, the
injustice
of it all!

But, she couldn’t scream.  And she couldn’t cry.  So, the only course of action left to her was to move, to walk until the anger inside her had ebbed enough so that she could rejoin the memorial service and not make a total ass of herself by punching out one of the Spirit Squaders. 

Not wanting to be that kind of person, Lanie filled her lungs with the chill night air and pushed away from the tree trunk, pointing herself in the opposite direction of the candle light vigil and taking a few steps forward.

And that’s when her gaze landed on the figure standing out in the darkness…

CHAPTER EIGHT

A jolt shot through Lanie and she froze, her heart leaping up into her throat.  She instantly recognized that figure, even through the inky blackness separating them.  She recognized the long coat hanging down, the light colored hair that even the darkness could not completely conceal.  It was…
him
.  Something inexplicable went through Lanie, something so strong that it moved her forward a few steps, toward the figure standing there in the gloom. 

But, then she saw the shape lying on the ground.  

For the space of a heartbeat, for just one split second, Lanie’s mind refused to accept what she was seeing.  However, the next heartbeat brought that acceptance and with it an icy wave of fear. 

There was
a person
lying on the ground at the young man’s feet.

Oh God.  She had been wrong.  She had been…so, so wrong!  He…he
had
killed Stacy.  And maybe someone else.

A gasp flew out of Lanie before she could stop it and in that same instant, the young man’s head whipped around toward her.  Terror spiked inside Lanie, racing through her in a jagged line and she spun on her heel, her body bolting forward through the darkness, her mind screaming at her to
run
! 
Run
! 

Her heart was thudding as hard as it could and her legs were pumping beneath her and her only thought was of getting back to her dad, or at least close enough for her dad to hear her scream. 

As that thought sped through her mind, Lanie heard footsteps pounding the ground behind her and she knew he was coming after her.  There was no time for her to react, no time for her to try and put some distance between them.  It seemed that within a split second she could hear those pounding footsteps right in her ear.  Out of reflex, she opened her mouth to scream, but it was too late.  A weight hit her from behind and she was lifted upwards, her feet leaving the earth and the breath whooshing out of her lungs.  She felt as if she was spiraling through the air and the next moment her back hit something with enough force to rattle the bones beneath her skin. 

She couldn’t say how long it took for her brain to catch up with her body, but when it did, Lanie found herself upright, her feet firmly planted on the earth, her back pressed up against a tree trunk, a large hand clamped down over her mouth, and a very handsome, very angry face hovering over her.

Lanie’s body went numb as she realized what was happening to her and the only thought she could cling to was that she’d been wrong.  Her gut had been wrong.  She’d misjudged what she’d seen in those sparkling green eyes.  This person had been the one to kill Stacy.  This person had just killed someone else. 

And now…he was going to kill her.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the young man whispered hoarsely, his handsome face tight.  “I know what it looks like, but I didn’t kill her!”

Lanie stared into that ruggedly handsome face, hearing the ragged breaths bursting out of her, and wondering what her dad would do when he realized that she’d been killed right across the park from him while he was praying for another girl’s soul to make it to heaven.

“I didn’t kill that girl!  I swear it!” the young man insisted. 

Lanie, terror shooting through her like hot knife blades, tried to nod her agreement.  Maybe if she agreed with him, he’d let her go.  But, if he let her go, he had to know she’d run straight to get help.  Surely he’d seen all the people just across the park from them.  And if he had, there was no hope that he would simply let her walk away.    

No.  He was going to kill her.

She was going to die right there in the park. 

Just like Stacy.

Then the young man’s vehement words actually sank in, and Lanie felt sickness wash over her.  So, that shape lying out in the darkness was a girl?  And this young man was telling her the girl was…dead?

“Please.  You have to believe me.  I wasn’t the one who killed her,” he stated, his green gaze boring to hers and his tone suddenly calm.  “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

Lanie, having no choice but to look into those large green orbs, saw something there that struck her like a fist, even through the terror coursing over her.  It was stark and it was deep and it was something that spoke to her, something that she…trusted?  No.  No!  Did she honestly think she was seeing something she thought she could
trust
! 

She could not trust this man!  She’d just found him standing over a body in the middle of the park!  Trusting him was not on the table!

Lanie’s heart was threatening to fly right out of her chest, and her rational mind was screaming at her to
run
! 
Run
!
  Get help
!  She knew she should have been fighting him, clawing at him, do anything she needed to do to get away from him.  And she could!  She knew how to fight back!  Her dad had made sure that she could at least try and defend herself! 

Yet, she wasn’t fighting.  She wasn’t trying to defend herself from this person who was towering over her, whose hands were so large he could easily break her bones and choke the life out of her.  And she wasn’t fighting this person because that little place inside her, that place of indefinable awareness she called her gut, was still speaking to her, insistent and nagging, telling her that she didn’t have to fight him. 

Her gut was telling her that she could…trust this person.

“It wasn’t me,” he told her again, his voice softening a fraction.  “I found her there.  I swear it.  I followed you here and I walked over this way and I…I found her lying there.”