“You’re going to need it soon anyway once you start school,” Aunt Violet said, gripping the mug of coffee in her hand.
Lexi hadn’t even thought about what school she would be going to now that her mom had died. It wasn’t until now that the reality had set in. Lexi wouldn’t be going back to Abington High in New Jersey. She would be going to Briar Creek High School. The idea of being a new student made her feel uncomfortable and school didn’t even start for two months. Worst of all, her mom wasn’t even around to help her get through this rough patch in her life.
Lexi reminded herself that there would be one good thing about going to Briar Creek High. It was the one place where she would be able to see and talk to Gabe as much as she wanted, as long as Dan didn’t snitch on her again. Feeling the anger rise in her cheeks, Lexi realized that she had forgotten about Dan telling her aunt and uncle that Gabe had been over when they were away. She decided that she was going to have to talk to him about that the next time she saw him.
“Lexi, there’s another thing I want to talk to you about. Now that you’re going to be living here permanently, we’re going to need help, if you know what I mean,” Violet said.
Lexi stared at her aunt blankly. What was she trying to say?
“I know your mom just let you run around and do whatever you want,” Violet went on. Lexi winced at the mention of her mother. “But things are going to be different for you here. Between Tommy’s job as a plumber and my meager teacher’s salary, we struggle to make ends meet around here as it is. When we add the cost of Austin’s funeral expenses to the picture, we’re pretty broke.”
“Well, won’t I be getting the money from my mom’s estate soon? That should help a little bit in terms of room and board, right?”
“Your mom was in a lot of debt, sweetheart. By the time it all gets paid, there won’t be much left.”
Lexi wondered what her mom had been in so much debt over. Her mom had taken her on a few shopping sprees recently, but was it enough for her to have to max out her credit cards? Lexi knew that being a single parent wasn’t easy financially, but her mom was a doctor. She had never complained about her financial problems to Lexi, but she also probably hadn’t wanted to worry her if she did have any.
“So, what are you saying? That I need to get a job?” Lexi asked.
Violet nodded, monitoring Lexi’s face closely for a reaction.
“Whatever. It’s not like my life can get much worse than it is right now,” Lexi said.
“What do you mean your life can’t get much worse? You have met a great guy! That’s something to be proud of.”
Lexi sighed. “No one has ever said that it would turn into a long-term relationship,” she said, adding, “or even a relationship for that matter. He’s nice enough, but…”
“But what, Lexi? Don’t tell me that you’re still hung up on Gabe! He’s not good for you.”
“So you keep telling me,” Lexi said, jumping up from her seat at the kitchen table and noisily tossing her bowl into the kitchen sink.
When Lexi was upstairs, she searched for something to wear. She slipped into a pair of dark wash skinny jeans, a blue halter top and white studded flip flops. Reaching for her Coach bag, she unzipped it and looked for the note card that she knew she had stuffed inside. Sure enough, the card, which was crumpled up, was there, right next to her sunglasses, keys, and wallet. Unfolding the card, Lexi looked at the address that she had written in bubbly handwriting a few days ago. “125 Birch Street,” she read out loud. She wasn’t sure where 125 Birch Street was, but she was going to find out.
****
Chapter 17
Lexi nervously tapped her flip flop against the wooden planks as she waited on the front step, trying to figure out what she was going to say to the person who would open the front door. She had known that she would come here eventually, but had yet to figure out what she was going to say once it actually happened. Crossing her fingers, she hoped that the right person would answer the door so that it wouldn’t seem so strange.
Listening, Lexi did not hear anyone moving closer to the door. After a few moments, she assumed that no one was home. Just as Lexi was about to turn and walk away, the front door creaked open and a pair of hazel eyes stared back at her.
“Lexi,” Mary-Kate said, a warm smile crossing her face. “It is Lexi, right? I don’t think you ever told me your name, but my dad mentioned it.”
Lexi nodded. “Yes, it’s Lexi. I hope you didn’t mind that I stopped by. My aunt told me where you live,” she lied. She didn’t want Mary-Kate to think she was a total creeper for looking through the phone book to find her address.
“Of course I don’t mind! Like I told you, I’m always here if you need to talk…which I’m guessing might be now?” Mary-Kate asked, stepping back to let Lexi in. Lexi glanced around at the large foyer. The walls were lined with mirrors, which led to the gorgeous staircase that looked like it belonged in an old romantic movie.
Following her into the mint green, spacious living room, Lexi nodded. “Yeah, I do. I’m just going through a really hard time right now. I have no friends in Briar Creek and I don’t think anyone else really knows what it’s like to lose someone they really love.”
“And you think that I understand because I lost Austin,” Mary-Kate concluded. Lexi nodded in return.
Mary-Kate paced back and forth, glancing out the large picture window. When she turned back to Lexi, her eyes looked hollow. She no longer looked like the same girl that had taken topless pictures blowing a sinful kiss at Austin not long ago. She looked fragile and incomplete, as if a part of her had died with Austin. Lexi felt sorry for her.
“I miss Austin,” Mary-Kate said softly, her bottom lip trembling. “They say that time is enough to heal anything, but I don’t believe it. I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling sad about Austin or that you’ll stop feeling sad about your mom. I think that, in time, we’ll just find a way to pretend we’re not as sad.” Mary-Kate was probably right. Just thinking about moving on from her mom’s death made Lexi’s heart feel like it was going to crumble into pieces.
Remembering that the reason she had come to visit Mary-Kate wasn’t so that she could talk about her mom, Lexi tried to pull herself together. “It’s strange, but I don’t know much about Austin,” Lexi said. “It would be nice if you could tell me about him.”
Smiling, Mary-Kate twirled a brown ringlet around a perfectly manicured finger. “Are you sure? Most people get sick of me talking about him.”
“I’m positive,” Lexi replied, hoping that Mary-Kate would tell her something – anything – that would lead her in the right direction.
“I met Austin when we started middle school. We went to different elementary schools,” she began. “It’s kind of crazy but I believe that it was love at first sight for me. Austin would walk into the darkest room and light it up completely. He was the class clown. That ended up getting him in a lot of trouble in high school.”
“What type of trouble?” Lexi interrupted.
“Oh, you know, high school football player trouble,” Mary-Kate said, giggling. “He would pick on the dorky kids and if it was in front of a teacher that didn’t care if the Briar Creek Cougars won, they would give him detention.”
So Austin had made enemies with some of the kids at school, Lexi thought, not that she was surprised. From the look of his Facebook profile, he was exactly the type of person she pictured who would be too stuck up to be friends with anyone that wasn’t a football player or cheerleader. Lexi wondered if maybe one of the dorky kids who Austin had picked on may have wanted to get revenge on him.
“Austin was also really stubborn,” Mary-Kate went on. “For the longest time, he pretended that he wasn’t interested in me at all. About a year ago, he admitted that he had feelings from the very beginning though. It still upsets me that he waited so long to give us a chance.”
Lexi nodded sympathetically, encouraging her to continue talking. She truly did feel sorry f
or her.
“Our relationship wasn’t perfect, even though everyone thinks it was. They all think ‘What could possibly go wrong between the mayor’s daughter and the star football player?’ A lot of things went wrong between us though…” she said, trailing off. The distant look in her eyes let Lexi know that she was getting lost in her own memories. It was the same look that Lexi probably got when she thought about her mom.
Lexi wondered if their problems had anything to do with why Mary-Kate had been cheating on Austin with Dan. Lexi didn’t think it was ever okay to cheat, but maybe Mary-Kate had actually had a good reason to do it. Maybe Austin had actually driven her to do it, and she wasn’t just a slut after all.
“What type of problems did you have?” Lexi asked after Mary-Kate had gone silent for a few minutes. Lexi hoped that she didn’t seem too nosey, but the look on Mary-Kate’s face told her that she didn’t mind the question.
“Well, first, there was the drinking,” Mary-Kate said, adding, “and then there was the car accident. When Austin killed the guy in the other car, something inside of him snapped. It was like he was a completely different person and he started pushing everyone away…including me.”
“I didn’t know that someone died in the accident,” Lexi said softly. She wondered if someone who knew the guy in the other car had been torn up enough about it to seek revenge on Austin.
“Yeah, it was devastating. I tried to be there for him, but it was like he didn’t even want me around,” Mary-Kate said. “Anyway, after that, Austin got really moody. He would snap at me for the smallest things. He started getting into fights with other people too. Then, he got into a fight with his neighbor, Gabe. That’s when things really got worse between us.”
“He did? What did they fight about?” Lexi asked, completely shocked that Gabe hadn’t told her about this earlier.
“Whatever it was about was over something serious enough for Austin to refuse to tell me,” Mary-Kate said, shrugging her shoulders. “I know that after that, his parents got a lot stricter with him. They wouldn’t let him go out as much anymore, which meant that he and I didn’t see each other that often. It really took a toll on our relationship.”
Lexi realized that Austin and Gabe fighting probably had something to do with why Violet and Tommy were so against him. Maybe they knew what the fight was over, which made things worse? It sounded pretty serious for Austin to not even tell Mary-Kate what had happened. Lexi wondered if she could trick Gabe into telling her what he and Austin had fought about, without letting him know that she had visited Mary-Kate.
“Then there was the cheating,” Mary-Kate said, an angry tone in her voice. “I tried to ignore it because I didn’t want to lose him completely, but it was really hard.”
“Who did he cheat on you with?” Lexi asked, a little bit surprised to hear that Mary-Kate wasn’t the only one who had been cheating. It was also very believable, especially considering the cocky vibes that Austin gave off in the pictures she had seen of him. Maybe that was why Austin didn’t care that Mary-Kate had cheated on him.
“Mrs. Jensen,” Mary-Kate said. “She’s our high school English teacher. Austin was having trouble in her class and she wasn’t like the other teachers, who all gave him passing grades so he could keep playing football. Austin said that Mrs. Jensen told him that if he agreed to have sex with her, she would give him an ‘A.’ The problem is that he continued to have sex with her, even once grades were in.”
“Mrs. Jensen? So, she’s married?” Lexi asked. Mary-Kate gave her a funny look.
“Yeah,” she laughed. “Have you never heard of someone cheating on her husband?”
Lexi’s cheeks grew hot, embarrassed that Mary-Kate was implying that she was a prude.
“Of course I’ve heard of it. But Austin just…didn’t care? He didn’t mind that he may have been wrecking a marriage?”
“Austin didn’t care about much,” Mary-Kate said quietly. “Football was all that really mattered to him.” Lexi felt slightly bad for Mary-Kate, but she had also come to a realization. Of all the suspects that Mary-Kate had just made her think of (like the dorky kids Austin had made fun of and people who knew the guy he had killed in the car accident), Mrs. Jensen’s husband stood out the most.
If he had found out that Austin had been having an affair with his wife, he may have snapped – and Lexi had learned in her high school law class that the murder would only be punishable as a crime of passion in a court of law. Chances are Mr. Jensen would get off if he was ever found guilty.
“Do you know where Austin was the night he died?” Lexi asked. She could have sworn that she saw Mary-Kate stop breathing as her skin turned a ghostly shade of white.
“No,” she answered, her chin twitching. “I don’t know where he was.”
“Oh, okay. My aunt said that he was supposed to be meeting you that night,” Lexi lied again.
“Well, he was. He just never showed up. I called him and never got an answer, so I ended up going to bed early that night. The next morning, his mom called me to tell me that he was dead,” Mary-Kate said, her eyes glazing over.
“I’m sorry,” Lexi said. “If you want to stop talking about this, we can.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s good for me to talk about it. My dad’s sick of hearing about it and so are all of my friends. Everyone thinks that I need to just move on already, but it’s not that easy.”
“Dan mentioned that you were seeing Dave,” Lexi lied, yet again. She hoped that Mary-Kate never found out that she had lied to her three times so far, but it was really the only way for her to find out the answers that she was looking for.
“Dan needs to learn how to keep his mouth shut,” Mary-Kate muttered, running a small hand through her chocolate brown hair. “I’m not seeing Dave. We’re just friends.” Friends with benefits, Lexi thought to herself. She decided, on second thought, that she wasn’t going to pass judgment. So what if Mary-Kate and Dave wanted to have fun? On the other hand, Lexi reminded herself that this type of behavior wasn’t exactly characteristic of someone who was supposedly mourning the loss of her dead boyfriend.
“Did you get along with my aunt?” Lexi asked, hoping that Mary-Kate didn’t think it was weird that she was asking her this type of question.
“She was nice to me if that’s what you’re asking,” Mary-Kate said. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I liked her though. I was civil with her because I knew that otherwise, she wouldn’t let me see Austin.”
“How do you know that?” Lexi questioned. Mary-Kate shrugged.
“Austin had other girlfriends before me. When his mom didn’t like them, he always ended up breaking up with them – even if he was really into them. I just always figured that it was Violet forcing him to end the relationships.”
“Did Austin date a lot of people?” Lexi asked.
“He dated enough for me to question how faithful he was being to me,” Mary-Kate said, looking down at her pedicured toenails.
“Do you think he cheated on you with anyone besides Mrs. Jensen?” Lexi questioned, feeling slightly bad about asking so many personal questions, but also sensing that Mary-Kate actually wanted to talk about it. Maybe it was therapeutic for her?
“No, I don’t think there was anyone besides her. I think that he might have liked being with an older woman and sneaking around. He knew that dating me was what was best for him though.”
“Why was it best for him?” Lexi asked confusedly.
Mary-Kate looked up at her. “Oh, um. Austin was the school quarterback, I’m the head cheerleader. Cliché, I know, but that’s what people expect. Also, my dad got Austin out of trouble when he got into the accident. He could have just let him take the fall for it, but he loved Austin, so he covered it up.”
“Covered it up?” Lexi managed to squeak, feeling even more confused.
“I’m not really supposed to talk about that, but my dad made it so that Austin was less guilty than he really was.”
Lexi gulpe
d. She knew that Mayor Lawrence had made it so that Austin had gotten out of trouble, but she didn’t realize that he had actually screwed with the evidence. That just didn’t seem right. Glancing at her watch, Lexi realized that it was almost dinnertime at Aunt Violet’s. As much as she didn’t want to leave (she was actually beginning to like Mary-Kate), she knew that she better or she’d get in trouble.
“I should probably get going or my aunt’s going to be calling me,” Lexi said, getting up. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom before I go?”
“Not at all,” Mary-Kate said, smiling at her. “It’s upstairs. Second door on the left.”
“Okay, thanks,” Lexi said, quickly climbing the steps. When she reached the top, she found herself looking around. The Lawrence home was really beautiful – their rooms were large, spacious and superiorly decorated. She glanced into the first bedroom on the left. Glancing into the first bedroom on the left, Lexi couldn’t get over how beautiful the Lawrence home was.
The walls, which were a shade of burgundy, complemented the sage curtains and comforter that lined the Victorian-style bed. A loud snoring sound interrupted Lexi’s thoughts. Looking closer, she realized that the lump that was curled up inside the queen-sized bed was actually a person. As if on cue, the woman in the bed began coughing fiercely.
“Who are you?” The woman, who appeared to be in her early forties, asked, sitting up in bed.
“I’m Lexi, a friend of Mary-Kate’s,” Lexi responded.
“Oh, my daughter has mentioned you. I’m glad that you’re here, Lexi. It’s very nice to meet you,” she managed to say in between coughs.
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Lexi said, surprised that Mary-Kate had mentioned her. She wondered what she had said. “I really have to get going though,” she added. “Take care.”
“Not so fast, doll. You were looking in my bedroom. Now it’s time for you to pay the price.” Mary-Kate’s mom extended a frail leg out of the bed, followed by a second leg. Before Lexi could even realize what was going on, the woman was grabbing her arm roughly.
The Briar Creek Vampires 01 - Kiss of Death Page 13