“You can say that,” she sighed. “It’s rough to go to a funeral of someone who you barely knew, especially when you wished you had known them. Does that make sense?”
Dan looked at her, somewhat clueless. He shrugged. “For me, it’s really hard. He’s been my best friend for years. We were pretty much like brothers.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she uttered, not sure what else to say to comfort him.
“I saw you talking to Gabe earlier,” he said. “You two friends?”
“No. Not yet, at least. I knew his brother, Kevin when I was younger. What makes you ask?”
“The kid’s a freak,” Dan said, raising his eyebrows and running a hand through his hair. He rubbed the back of his neck and turned his head to look her up and down. “You should be careful around him.”
Lexi gave him a questioning look, to which he responded, “He sticks to himself a lot. And when he does hang out with anyone, he always gets himself into trouble. Like last weekend when he was at Seneca Falls, he got a fine for hurting a small animal.”
Lexi laughed at that. “What, was he fishing or something?”
“No,” he replied, his face becoming stern.
“Gabe doesn’t seem like a guy that would hurt an animal for no reason,” Lexi thought out loud.
“You don’t know him, Lexi. He’s freakin’ weird.”
“Maybe he’s just shy,” Lexi persisted. She didn’t know why she was trying to defend Gabe so much; she didn’t even know him. Yet, a small voice in the back of her mind told her that she wasn’t wrong. Gabe wasn’t a malicious person, or else he wouldn’t have seemed so sympathetic about Austin.
“Well, it’s not the way to be in a small town like this. It makes people talk. I’ve heard other stories about him, but I won’t go into it right now…it doesn’t seem like the right time to,” he said, glancing around. “Anyway, I’m just warning you. Be careful.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said, suddenly feeling agitated. “But thanks for your oh so important lecture.”
The chirping of his cell phone distracted him. “It’s my mom. She’s got a flat tire. I gotta get going,” he told her, without looking up from his cell phone. “Tell Violet and Tommy that I’ll be over on Tuesday to mow their lawn.”
“I will. Bye,” she said. Lexi was relieved that he was leaving. She was tired of people feeling like they had a right to tell her what to do. It was time for her to make her own decisions and Briar Creek was the best place for her to start.
****
Chapter 3
“I hope that you’ll be comfortable in here. If you need anything at all, just let me know.” Violet pulled the decorative pillows off the bed that Lexi would be sleeping in and piled them into the corner of the room before softly closing the door on her way out.
The room belonged to Lexi as a child and, mostly, it was still the same. The walls were painted the same shade of lilac; her furnished Victorian dollhouse was just as she had left it. Dozens of stuffed animals stared down at her from the hammocks that were strung in the corners of the room.
Lying down, Lexi stared at the ceiling and sighed. She really had the urge to check her Facebook, but there wasn’t even a television in her bedroom, let alone a computer. Lexi hadn’t thought to bring her laptop to Briar Creek with her. After all, they would only be there for a few days at the most.
An idea came to her mind. She was sure that Austin must have had a computer. Since he wasn’t around, he couldn’t tell her that she couldn’t borrow it. She wondered if she should ask Aunt Violet. No, she silently scolded herself for even thinking of asking. It would seem really sick if she asked her aunt if she could borrow her dead son’s computer only hours after his funeral. Not only would that make Lexi seem heartless, but bringing up Austin’s name so soon was bound to upset her aunt.
Oh well, she thought, what they don’t know won’t kill them. Turning off the bedroom light, Lexi peered into the hallway. All of the upstairs lights were off, except for the nightlight that dimly lit the hallway. Deciding it was safe, Lexi tiptoed out of her room. Although she knew her mom wouldn’t care if she borrowed Austin’s belongings, she held her breath as she crept past her room.
Holding her breath, she tiptoed into the hall and quietly turned the knob on Austin’s bedroom door. It was the same room that he, too, had slept in as a child. The walls were the same shade of lime green, and there were still posters of Michael Jordan on his walls. Even though Austin played football, his love for basketball must not have worn off. The rest of the room was mostly bare (Not that Lexi was surprised about that. She had been convinced that Austin’s belongings were in the boxes that Lexi had seen downstairs earlier).
The room was dimly illuminated by the basketball shaped nightlight that was plugged into Austin’s wall, and the fish tank screen saver of the laptop that sat on his computer desk.
Perfect. No one will notice if Austin’s laptop disappears for a few hours, Lexi thought happily, sweeping the laptop up into her arms.
When she got back to her room, Lexi plugged the laptop in and opened it. She pressed the power button and climbed onto the bed, sitting Indian style with the laptop in front of her. As the password prompter loaded, she sighed, resting her elbows on her knees and pressing her hands against her forehead. How could she guess Austin’s password? She barely knew him.
Lexi wished that she could call Justin. Once, when she changed the security code on her cell phone, she had forgotten what she had changed it to right after, and was locked out of her phone for a few days. He helped her hack back into it. Maybe he could help with this too, she thought, glancing at her phone. She knew that he wouldn’t mind her calling so late, but she didn’t want to wake him up. Thinking hard for a few minutes, Lexi tried to rummage through what little memories of Austin she did have.
She typed “Bruno,” which was Austin’s childhood Beagle, and pressed enter. The computer responded with an “incorrect password” message. She tried his name, only to find that it was also wrong. She went through a list of words, ranging from his favorite childhood food to his Aunt Gloria’s name. All wrong.
Just as she was about to give up, Lexi noticed a word written in black Sharpie next to the mouse pad. Squinting harder through the darkness of the room around her, she was able to make out the words “Bloody Mary.”
Deciding to give the password one last shot, she typed the words and pressed enter. “Welcome, Austin,” the screen announced immediately. Her jaw dropped and she let out the breath she had been holding.
Waiting for the computer to load, she wondered what Austin’s password could mean. Was he an alcoholic? And what guy drank Bloody Mary’s anyway? Tomato juice and alcohol (which didn’t sound like they went very well together anyway) sounded more like a girly drink.
When the computer was ready to use, Lexi closed Austin’s Instant Messenger, taking note of his username – QBAustin87. She assumed that QB stood for quarter back and that 87 was his football number.
Lexi pulled up Facebook in a browser window. Austin’s email and password had been saved and were ready to log-in. Although she knew that she probably shouldn’t, Lexi hit the enter key. It was her one opportunity to find out all that she could about Austin.
His homepage loaded to reveal dozens of notifications. She quickly set his Facebook chat to offline before anyone could notice he was logged in, and clicked to view his profile. Austin’s profile picture was of him at a party, dead center of a group of self-absorbed looking guys, holding a plastic red cup. Beneath his white baseball cap, he wore a huge, cocky grin. His Hollister t-shirt radiated conceitedness. Lexi had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Had she known her cousin, she probably would have avoided him. She absolutely hated those types.
Lexi recognized Dan, the bossy guy from the funeral, standing on Austin’s left. She looked at the tagged names and didn’t recognize the other three guys in the picture with them.
Lexi browsed through the rest of Austin’s p
hotos. Picture after picture was of the same exclusive group, each seemingly taken at the party of the week. As she got to the oldest pictures, she was greeted with various photos of a smiling Austin in his football jersey. The oldest and last photo was of Austin with his arms around a pretty brunette. Lexi moused over the girl and the tag read “Mary-Kate Lawrence.” Where had she heard that name recently?
Lexi clicked on his wall, only to find five pages of “I can’t believe you’re gone” and “I miss you already” comments. Anxious for information about his life, she decided to try his messages instead.
The most recent message was from the pretty brunette named Mary-Kate Lawrence. Lexi opened it. “Don’t worry baby. You’ll get used to it. Meet me later tonight and we’ll try it again xoxo” Looking closer at the date, Lexi realized that the message was sent on the same day Austin had died. Going into his sent folder, Lexi was unable to find any previous messages to Mary-Kate.
As she scrolled down through the rest of his messages, Lexi quickly realized that she wasn’t going to find anything else that was interesting. Most of the messages just mentioned football practices or addresses to the next party of the week. Nothing, besides that one message from Mary-Kate, seemed unusual or out of place.
What could Mary-Kate have been talking about? Lexi wondered, shutting off the laptop. At first, Lexi thought it might be sexual. Then again, she thought, Austin did not look like the type of guy to have any problems in that area.
Glancing downstairs again to make sure that all of the lights were still off, Lexi slid back into Austin’s room to return the laptop to his desk.
A light bulb lit up inside her head. She realized that Mary-Kate was the girl that blonde girl and her friend had been talking about earlier today. Her last name was Lawrence. She was the mayor’s daughter who had been the last person to see Austin before he died. One of the girls had made it sound like Mary-Kate was a slut, so there was a chance that the message really had been referring to something sexual, but the girls also made it sound like Mary-Kate had been involved in Austin’s death. Before she drifted to sleep, Lexi couldn’t stop thinking about what they could have been doing that night.
*
When the sunlight poured across her face the next morning, Lexi groggily got out of bed and stumbled her way downstairs. A note on the refrigerator read: “Went to the grocery store. There are bagels for breakfast. Don’t get into any trouble. Love, Aunt Violet and Mom.”
Glancing at the digital clock on her cell phone, Lexi realized that it was nearly 12 o’clock. Between Mary-Kate’s Facebook message and being back in her old bedroom, Lexi had tossed and turned all night. While the room brought back lots of good memories, some of those memories made her miss her dad. She was able to push away her thoughts of him while she was living in New Jersey, but being back in Pennsylvania made them come crashing back to shore.
One memory in particular was a “royal” tea party. She had given her dad a Burger King crown to wear, while she pranced around her room in a Snow White costume.
He had said, “Well if I’m a King, then that makes you Princess Lexi,” and the nickname had stuck. She had heard Tommy complaining about it to her aunt later, saying that her father shouldn’t be putting such silly fantasies in her head. Tommy thought she already acted like a spoiled brat, and calling her “princess” would eventually just make her head even more swollen than it already was. Still, her father had continued with his nickname for her.
Even though Lexi was a kid at the time, she still remembered what her father smelled like – citrus and the forest. She could have sworn that the scent of his cologne still lingered in the room.
Not sure what else to do with herself, Lexi went downstairs to eat breakfast. She grabbed a blueberry bagel out of the bread box and cream cheese from the otherwise empty fridge. Her aunt and uncle must have been too upset to go grocery shopping; there was a tiny carton of eggs and a case of Budweiser on the bottom shelf, but other than that it was completely bare.
Lexi couldn’t stop thinking about the message from Mary-Kate that she had read the night before. Though she couldn’t put her finger on what, there was something about the message that unnerved her. Lexi wondered if Dan knew what Mary-Kate and Austin had been doing the night he died, or if he knew if they were dating, period. Didn’t guy best friends tell each other stuff like that? She knew that if she had a date planned, the first thing she would do is call her BFF (not that she had one). Maybe she would ask Aunt Violet for his number later.
There was a newspaper at the kitchen bar. She picked it up, curious to see if Austin’s obituary had been published yet. It hadn’t been.
Flipping through the newspaper, she spotted an advertisement of the annual Briar Creek carnival. Lexi remembered going to the same carnival as a kid, eating cotton candy, drinking fresh squeezed lemonade, and spinning on the Tilt-a-Whirl until she was about ready to puke her guts out. The advertisement said it was taking place a week early this year, on this coming Sunday.
The last time she went to the carnival, Aunt Violet and her mom took her and Austin out of pre-school early so that they could go to it. They weren’t allowed to go at night, when the older kids went. It struck Lexi as odd now that Kevin had also been at the carnival. He probably should have been in school.
Why hadn’t Gabe been at the carnival too? He had been Lexi’s age, so it would only make sense for him to have been there to ride the Go-Karts or try to win a goldfish. For some reason though, no matter how hard she tried, she simply could not remember him. She guessed that maybe his mom had been one of those mothers who were more protective of the youngest child. She decided to ask her mom about Gabe later.
Throwing the rest of her bagel away, Lexi gazed longingly out the window at the L-shaped in ground pool that sat in her aunt and uncles backyard. She wished she could go swimming, but the water was green, indicating that it had not been cleaned yet for summer. Still, it was too nice out to stay cooped up in the house all day.
She put on her flip flops and went outside. Lexi had only been in Briar Creek for a couple of days and she already felt as though she were becoming more low maintenance than she had been at home. At home, she would never be caught dead outside of the house without eyeliner, let alone in sweatpants. Looking across the street at the little green rundown house, Lexi stopped dead in her tracks. Gabriel lived there. The last thing she wanted was him seeing her in her sweats. Before she could go back into the house and change, she saw one of the dark curtains move to the side. Shit, she cursed in her head and forced herself to calmly walk back to the front porch.
As she was about to open the front door to go back inside, a silver Ford pickup truck pulled into the driveway. A short, burly man got out of the truck, carrying an overflowing basket.
“Hello, there,” he greeted her, with a friendly smile on his face. “Are Violet and Tom around?”
Although she hadn’t actually looked for Uncle Tommy this morning, she assumed that he was also out. “No, I’m sorry. They’re not home. Can I help you with something?”
“I’m Greg Lawrence, Austin’s football coach. My family and I were unable to make it to the funeral. My wife and our daughter, Mary-Kate, put some things together for Tom and Violet,” he explained, handing the basket to her. “Please tell them how deeply sorry we are for their loss. He was our star player. My daughter was also very fond of him.”
So, the mayor was also Austin’s football coach. Meaning, Austin was not only seeing the mayor’s daughter, but he was also seeing his football coach’s daughter.
“I will,” Lexi smiled at him. “Thanks for stopping by.”
As the mayor got back in his truck, Lexi thought that, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a movement across the street again. Was Gabe…or someone else…watching her?
*
That night at dinner, Lexi sat across the table from her mom and picked at her chicken breast, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Though it had been a long time since she and her mom h
ad eaten anything but a salad or vegetarian takeout for dinner, the past few days had been extremely unnerving and she could never eat when she was stressed.
“Um, Aunt Violet…can I have Dan’s phone number?” Lexi asked.
“Sure,” Violet said, drizzling more gravy on her potatoes. “You like him? He’s a very nice boy.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Lexi wondered why she hadn’t thought of that reason as an excuse. She hadn’t known what to say if Violet asked why she wanted his number. Her aunt seemed pleased that she had asked for it, so maybe an excuse wasn’t too important anyway. “He seemed nice enough,” Lexi lied.
“He was asking about you, you know. He thinks you’re cute.” Violet’s eyes danced up excitedly at Lexi.
“He asked about me?” Lexi was taken aback. She hadn’t sensed that he was attracted to her, but it also may have explained his reaction to the possibility of her having a friendship with Gabe. Maybe Dan told her to stay away from him because he was just jealous. He might have even made up that story about Gabe hurting an animal.
Her mom, who had remained quiet until now, cleared her throat. “Don’t get too attached, Lexi. We’ll be going back home in a few days.”
“I won’t. Oh, Aunt Violent, I just remembered that Greg Lawrence stopped by today with a basket that his wife made. He asked me to send his condolences. He seemed really nice.”
“Oh, Mayor Lawrence is a very nice man! He was Austin’s football coach.”
“He mentioned that he was his coach. He also mentioned something about his daughter…Mary-Kate?” Lexi couldn’t help but notice that Aunt Violet seemed troubled by her question.
Violet took a large gulp of her wine and choked. Recovering she said “Oh. She’s had a crush on Austin for years.” Violet gripped her glass so tightly Lexi thought it might shatter into pieces in her bare hand. Setting the glass down, she tentatively continued, “He never seemed to like her though – not the way she wanted him to. Poor girl never let it go.”
The Briar Creek Vampires 01 - Kiss of Death Page 3