Chapter Two

Kelly --

Brutally awaken by the blaring of the school bell; Kelly had woken from what appears to be an unintentional nap in class. She felt a little groggy and disoriented, and tried to rid herself of that by stretching and rubbing her face. Being here is such a waste of time. My boss is an idiot. She didn’t communicate much with the department that she is working for, they only call her or email ever so often, but they pretty much leave her be to do her job they just need updates. And she would talk to detectives and officers outside of the department but she pretty much stayed clear of the place.  She would go in if they desperately needed her, but most of the time they didn’t. For about a month she was in undercover at this school and it was rarely necessary considering she was paid to get info on Harry. But they were so close in the same town so she figured it was linked. They said she didn’t look old enough to work as a psychologist, no one would believe it’s legit, and somehow would know she is undercover. Whatever, her boss is still an idiot.

 

By the time she realized what was going on the whole class had sped out of the room, as if to be in a hurry for something. The room was a very formal classroom, as most of the rooms of an upper class private school. The school stood tall and bold, with beautiful old carvings that wrapped around the building like vines. Each classroom was well furnished with clean desks, not at all with writing and scribbles on them as those of most public schools. The wall against the east side carried big windows, which flooded the room with the beautiful sunlight and view of the other classmates as they go about their day in the school yard. Kelly was still sitting in her seat gathering all her stuff when the teacher grazed over as she was picking up trash from the floor on her way over. The teacher was making small talk that Kelly wasn’t too interested in, but she seemed to have a confused look on her face so she tried to understand through her weariness. Kelly put two and two together and realized that she was just confused to see her still sitting after everyone has left.

Kelly quickly reached for her belongings in a fast manner and headed out the door into the hallways filled with students rushing from here to there. She tried her best not to run into anyone as she practically ran right into a couple of her best friends walking towards her. She has only been there a month, but she was good at making friends and had a pretty popular side to her. She is a go getter.

 Startled she erased the tired look from her face to hide the fact she was just napping. She couldn't figure out how she was so tired, all she wanted was to go home. But her chipper friends took her by surprise and gathered around her. Two of them, that’s all she really had, besides everyone on the yearbook staff. They all loved her but she knew that, but she only had two close friends, Sarah and Kathy. Two of the most beautiful people Kelly had ever seen. Sarah was tall and blond like most girls of her kind, the kind that walk around with perfect hair and everything in place. The kind that everyone stops and stares at as she walks by. Kathy was Asian and had beautiful dark brown hair and eyes. They both could stand out in a crowd no doubt.

As Kelly entered the hallway her friends attached to her no less than a minute later, as if they couldn’t be alone. Sometimes that frustrated Kelly, that someone could seem so dependent on her. But she didn’t mind she enjoyed the company, she was one of the more “REAL” girls out of the bunch she decided to cling to. She wore more black than any other color, she is almost always lost in her music and she loved her combat boots that went along well with her dark make up and rebellious attitude she put on. She has dark brown hair and beautiful green eyes that really spark at you.

                “Hey Kelly, what is wrong with you?” Kathy muttered out before Kelly could get away. Sarah stood quietly beside Kathy, she never said much. Kathy was the talkative one of the two and she knew how to take advantage of that skill.

                “Nothing.” Kelly shot back in a moody way.

                “That is a lie and you know it,” she said after noticing how moody she has been lately. “I know that you are hiding something and yet you can’t even tell your best friends, how do you think we feel when you are tramping around with secrets...”

 

Kelly stopped her short, because she knew if she didn’t, Kathy could go on forever. “Whoa, ok… I need to….I don’t know…go do something else.” She really wasn’t too fond of these girls; she just hung out with them to have someone to talk to. Half the time they drove her crazy. She found some excuse to get away from these girls because for some reason at this moment she did not want to deal with them.

               

                “Well...” was all Kathy could get out before Kelly rushed past them to head to the parking lot.

 

Kelly rushed towards her car she couldn’t help but feel confused, she was distracted and annoyed. She knew why she was distracted; it had a lot to do with the wild event at the office a few weeks ago. She works for the school news paper and there was a story she really was curious to catch. She has that type of personality, curious. That makes her a very good journalist, and that was her passion and dream after all. She was chasing a story and got herself in a bind with Lexi. She was hoping that it wouldn’t have played out that way but she tried the best she could to make it look like the man did it. After all… that was her sick plan to begin with.

 

Lexi -

Lexi woke up to the sound of her mother banging on the door at Mark to get out of the bathroom. It was a Saturday so there was no school, she was relieved for that. Feeling groggy she lied on her side, she grumbles and rubs her eyes trying to adjust to the bright sun rays gleaming in through the window practically blinding her. After a couple seconds her eyes grew accustomed to the brightness, she checks her phone seeing she has no messages, the clock reading 8:24 she tosses it on her side table and drags herself out of bed. Today she is determined to get out, there was a few places she wanted to go and some clothes she wanted to buy. After avoiding the bathroom fiasco between mark and her mom she jumps in the shower. She washed off the night and let the hot water beat on her head, wishing it could clear her mind of the terrible things looming in her brain. She just stood there in the hot clattering water letting the drops hit her entire body one by one, it felt very soothing. The bathroom grew with steam and it got very foggy. After lathering up for about a minute the water turned from a comforting warm to a blistering cold. That was her cue to rinse off and get out.

Throwing on some casual jeans and a t-shirt and her favorite converse sneakers, she grabbed her phone seeing she had an unread message, she replied with fast fingers punching many buttons then threw it in her bag. She put the bag on her shoulder, then looking around for her keys forgetting momentarily where they were. She spotted then under some clothes on the floor, kicking the clothes aside she quickly clutched the keys up and clipped them on her belt sailing to the kitchen to grab a bite before heading out.

 

Her parents had the most priceless look of shock seeing her fully dressed and showered; downstairs and talking. Lexi was assuming they expected her to stay depressed in her room for the rest of her life. Fact is she wasn’t depressed at all; she was just very confused and scared. She said good morning to her father and mother giving her an abrupt peck on the cheek, showing a smile and grabbing an apple from the bowl that sat on the counter and tossing it up in the air a couple times as she carried on a small conversation. She gave it a quick rinse under the faucet before taking a bite from it, chewing on apple chunk as she gave her brother a quick playful punch in the shoulder. She laughed as he pretended to be hurt knowing it was a joke. She grabbed her iPod off the counter, gave her family a goodbye and then soared to her Nissan that was parked in the driveway next to her parent’s silver minivan.

 

Plugging up her iPod to the radio she started up the car and lowered her windows a little bit. She enjoys driving with the windows open and wind blowing in her face. She wanted a convertible but it was out of her budget, this Nissan is just as good though. She put on her sunglasses as she backed out of the driveway, glancing in the rear view mirror, cautious not to hit anything. Driving past the neighbor’s house she wondered if he was home, then she spotted his car and knew he was. But then she wondered what he was doing, hoping he wasn’t attempting anything too crazy. She rejected that thought when she spotted him in the yard in on the side of the house with the dog. It was a cute puppy Lexi gathered; he was a small rat terrier type dog probably no older than 9 months, brown fur and has the most energetic personality she ever saw.

As she drove into town she observed everyone around her, all the cars that were driving around and at a stop light she glanced at the car next to her, it was a purple ford ranger truck. Lexi giggled to herself realizing she had never seen such a shade of purple before on a truck like that. The driver was a woman in her mid 20’s and she has some wild red hair. She looked very nervous and disoriented. Lexi suddenly has a strange feeling of hopelessness and denial when looking at this woman and suddenly her mind was being overtaken with deathly thoughts. That was the weirdest feeling ever; she twitched her head over in bewilderment. Why on earth would I feel so much sorrow and denial when looking at some random woman at a stop light? She thought to herself. She felt frozen in time thinking about this woman and how she could give off contagious feelings. She got jerked back to reality when she heard the loud honk behind her, apparently an angry driver. Taking a glimpse at the light realizing it was green and she was still parked motionless. She looked over and saw the car with the woman was nowhere in sight. Taking a loud sigh outward rolling her eyes in the process she slammed on the gas and accelerated forward.

****

She felt like a loser walking around in the mall alone, but she didn’t care. Anything was better than sitting in the solitude of her bedroom staring out the window at what she couldn’t even explain to anyone much less to herself. Walking from store to store she got stopped short at a book store when she saw a very particular book mounted on display. The title was little freaky and it didn’t look like anything that would normally spark her interest but she decided to walk in and get a closer look anyway.

 

After reading the prologue and summary she realized it has a lot to do with the way she was feeling and maybe in her shameful thinking would actually explain to her what was going on. She thought hard before deciding to purchase it, but figured what the heck and put it under her arm. After grazing around at different titles on the shelf and reading portions of some fiction mysteries she thought she would be interested in, but she walked up to the counter and set the book down in front of the cashier. She reached in her bag to get some money she heard the news going on a small TV the cashier had behind the counter. She wouldn’t normally enjoy watching the news unless there was something interesting going on like a murder or a drug scandal. After finding the money she traded it for the book and started to walk out, but before doing so something on the T.V. caught her attention and she took another gander. There was a car wreck in town, the news reporter said. Lexi couldn’t help but be filled with interest so she walked back to the counter to concentrate on the reporter. Lexi observed the background of the scene that was displayed behind the lady with the microphone and realized almost instantly that she was staring right at the street she was just driving on to get to the mall. And having even more interest she saw the totaled car that was revealed from the accident. It was a demolished purple ford ranger, that thing was hard to forget. Lexi had eyes the size of quarters, could that be the same car she just saw? They were widened with shock. It couldn’t be, but it was a very bright shade of purple. It was the exact same truck with the nervous woman in it she saw at the stop light, but this time she is not laughing, she is not talking or doing anything. She got even deeper in concentration while trying to understand the description of the victim. Lexi took in a huge loud gasp and her heart sank in her chest as they reported a ‘female in her mid 20’s, red hair drives straight off a bridge.’