For your enjoyment, here's chapter 2 of
Virginia Creeper.
2.
“Ohmigod!” Kelli squealed when I
told her what had happened. “Chelsea’s dead?”
I held the phone away from my ear,
grimacing. This is why texting is so much better than calling: it’s not so hard
on the eardrums. “Yeah. But that’s not the problem right now, OK, Kel? I need
to talk to your dad. My folks are out of town, and Sheriff Thayer took Jared
down to the police station. He needs an adult there with him.”
“Oh, right. Sure.” She didn’t
bother to move the phone very far from her mouth when she yelled for her
father, and it made my ears ring again. Then she lowered her voice to a
whisper. “But she’s dead? Really?”
“That’s what the sheriff said.”
“Wow,” Kelli breathed, with—I
couldn’t help but notice—a lot more excitement than sadness or shock. Not that
I was feeling all that grief-stricken myself. I hadn’t really liked Chelsea. Still, I was
shocked at what had happened, and even more shocked that Jared—Jared, who
worshiped the ground Chelsea’s
designer shoes had walked on!—was suspected of hurting her.
“How?” Kelli wanted to know.
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t think
I wanted to find out. Still, from the questions the sheriff had asked, I
thought I could assume that someone had beaten, or at least hit, Chelsea.
For a second my head reeled at the
thought of Chelsea,
beaten to death. Her pretty face pummeled, her nose broken, her teeth
shattered, her skin bruised and bloodied...
The kitchen started to spin, and I
got a grip on myself by clutching the edge of the counter. “The sheriff didn’t
say, and I didn’t want to ask. I’m sure your dad will find out. Is he coming?”
“In a minute. What did the sheriff
say?”
I repeated the few details Sheriff
Thayer had let slip. They weren’t many, just that Chelsea was dead, discovered this morning at
the trailhead on Pecan Street,
and that it had happened last night sometime. If it hadn’t, why would the
sheriff ask me if I’d seen anything out of the ordinary on our walk home from Falcon Park?
“I didn’t notice anything,” Kelli
said when I asked. “Just a bunch of people walking and driving around. I didn’t
see Jared’s car at all. Rufus drove by a couple of times, though.”
“He did?” I hadn’t noticed, and I
was usually pretty aware of Rufus.
She nodded. I could hear the clink
as her dangling earring hit the phone. “Once when we’d just turned onto East Main. He was leaving the ballpark and going towards
home. Once about fifteen minutes later, going the other way, when we were near
the Tavern. And once coming back again just after we’d turned onto Maple. I
guess maybe Jared asked him to keep an eye on you, to make sure you got home
safe.”
“Maybe.” I wouldn’t put it past
Jared, putting Rufus on guard-duty if he couldn’t keep up with me himself. “You
didn’t see him anywhere near Pecan
Street, did you?”
Kelli did a sort of mental
eye-roll, one I could hear through the phone. “He was in a car, Jo. It’d take
him—oh—two minutes to get to Pecan. What do you
think?”
“I was just wondering if he might
have noticed something,” I said. “If he happened to drive by the trailhead last
night.”
“You could ask him,” Kelli said.
“I would,” I answered, “except I’ve
got a few other, more important things to worry about right now. I really do
need to talk to your dad, Kel. Can you call him again?”
“He’s coming down the stairs right
now.” She moved the phone away from her ear, and I heard her voice, muffled and
from a distance, explaining things to her father. “It’s Jo, dad. Sheriff Thayer
has taken Jared downtown to talk to him about Chelsea Jacobsen’s murder. She
was found dead this morning at the trailhead on Pecan Street. They think Jared did it.”
My stomach clenched when I heard
that last sentence. I hadn’t told Kelli that, not in so many words, and I
hadn’t let myself put the thought into words, either. Hearing it said like that
was shocking, like a splash of cold water in the face. I struggled for a
second, breathlessly, trying to get on top of anger and a sense of betrayal.
Then I forced myself to breathe and relax. Kelli hadn’t meant it the way it
sounded. She knew Jared; she knew he’d never hurt Chelsea. She was just explaining things to
her father in the quickest possible way. I should be grateful that she didn’t
beat around the bush.
“Jo?” Owen Stanley’s usually mellow
voice was shriller than usual. “Are you OK, darling?”
“I’m fine,” I said, not quite
truthfully.
“Tell me what happened. Everything,
from the beginning.”
It was hard to stand there and go
over it all again, calmly, when I wanted to scream at Mr. Stanley to get over
to the police station now. But I got
through it. “I called our parents,” I ended the monologue, my voice shaking,
“but they’re in Williamsburg,
and although they cut the conference short and they’re coming home, they won’t
be here until late this afternoon. Jared needs somebody with him now.”
“I know, darling,” Mr. Stanley
said. “But if I don’t understand the situation when I go down there, I’ll do
more harm than good. So Jared admitted to having an argument with Chelsea last night?”
“He admitted it to me. Not to the
sheriff. Although he probably has by now. Mr. Stanley...”
“I know, Jo. Just bear with me,
darling. Did he say what the argument was about?”
“He said he didn’t want to talk
about it. He said it was—” I swallowed, “private and personal, between him and
Chelsea.”
Owen Stanley was quiet for a
moment. “Any idea what he might have been talking about?”
“None. I’m sorry. It must have been
serious, though. I mean, she really
scratched him.”
I wondered if Jared had bothered to
put Neosporin on those scratches last night. And then I wondered if I was
insane for even thinking about that right now.
Mr. Stanley was quiet for a moment.
“Anything else you can tell me, Jo?”
“No,” I said. Both because I really
couldn’t think of anything I’d forgotten to mention, but more because I really,
really wanted him to get going. Our
parents were making tracks, but wouldn’t be back in Abingdon for hours, and in
the meantime, Jared was alone and probably scared. He tries to act grown up, as
if things don’t bother him, but this had to be frightening. And if he hadn’t
killed Chelsea—and
of course he hadn’t—he must be floored by the news that she was dead. More so
if they’d argued last night and hadn’t worked things out afterwards.
“OK,” Mr. Stanley said. “I’ll head
down to the police station now, and stay with Jared until your folks get there.
What are you planning to do, Jo?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. I hadn’t
thought past getting Mr. Stanley on the phone and sending him after Jared. “I’d
like to go to the police station myself, but I guess that doesn’t make any
sense, does it?”
“Better not,” Mr. Stanley agreed.
“Just stay where you are. Do you want me to send Kelli over?”
“No.” My rejection was automatic.
Then I tried to soften it. “I don’t think I’d be very good company, and I’m
sure Kelli has other things she wants to do.”
Like texting everyone she knew, to
tell them the news. She’s my best friend, but she’s also a bit of a gossip. And
this—the murder of a classmate—was the biggest story to hit Abingdon in years.
Plus, if I had disliked Chelsea, Kelli had
absolutely loathed her, and although I wouldn’t go as far as to say she was
happy that Chelsea
was dead, she didn’t seem to be feeling much pain, either.
“Can I talk to her again?” I asked.
Mr. Stanley handed the phone over
and left. I could hear the Stanleys’
heavy front door open and close behind him. Kelli came back on. “Do you want me
to come over and hang out with you, Jo?” She sounded willing, if not exactly eager.
“You don’t have to,” I said, and
tried to ignore the relief coming through the phone at me. “Do me a favor,
though, Kel.”
“Sure,” Kelli said.
“When you text everyone, please
don’t tell them that the police think Jared did it. I’m sure they’ll let him go
soon, and that’ll be it. They’re probably just talking to him about whether he
saw anyone hanging around last night. Or maybe Chelsea mentioned that someone had been
bothering her, or something.”
“OK,” said Kelli.
“There’s no way they can really suspect
Jared. You know him; he was crazy about her. And I don’t want all of Abingdon
to think he killed his girlfriend. So if you could just not mention that, I’d
appreciate it.”
“Sure, Jo,” Kelli said. “I won’t
say anything about Jared being the main suspect.”
I flinched, but told myself that
she hadn’t meant it the way it sounded. Kelli wasn’t mean; she just liked to
talk, and didn’t always think about what she said before she said it.
“I’ll let you know how it goes,
‘kay?”
“OK, Jo,” Kelli said. “I’ll call
you later.”
She hung up. I looked around,
blankly, thinking about the countless hours stretched out in front of me, empty
of anything but fear and worry.
I do have
other friends, but there was no one I wanted to see. If I couldn’t trust Kelli,
who’d been my best friend for as long as I could remember, I certainly wasn’t
going to trust anyone else. It’d be hours before my parents got back, and when
they did, they’d go straight to the police station. I didn’t want to go
outside, just in case I met someone I knew—which was practically all of
Abingdon. Even if they didn’t know that Jared was down at the police station
being interviewed—my mind shied away from saying, or even thinking,
‘interrogated’—the whole town knew that he and Chelsea had been going out, and
it’d be natural to ask how he was taking the news. No, I was better off staying
inside, where no one could find me. Even if that meant I’d be spending the day
alone, climbing the walls.
I tried to
read, but nothing kept my attention. I tried to watch TV, but there was nothing
on except religious programs—thou shalt
not kill—movies with murders and stabbings and pretty girls getting killed,
and nature programs. And I didn’t need any reminders of the Creeper Trail right
then, thanks very much. Whenever I closed my eyes, and sometimes when I didn’t,
I saw that picture of Chelsea
from earlier: her long, blond hair sticky with blood and her body crumpled in a
heap in the grass and spring flowers.
Jared
hadn’t had time to straighten his room this morning before being hauled off to
the police station, and I told myself I’d be doing him a favor if I did it for
him. So I made the bed and emptied the trash and stacked the books and
straightened the desk, and then I pulled the laundry basket from under the bed
and started piling it full of dirty clothes.
There was
laundry all over the floor, including the dirty socks and underwear I’d smelled
earlier. It would never occur to me to leave my used panties and bras on the
rug in my room, but boys are different. Several pairs of Jared’s boxers were on
the floor, and I picked them up with two fingers, and dropped them in the
basket. Gross!
The
baseball uniform from last night was crumpled in a pile in the corner, and when
I shook it out, I couldn’t help noticing a few things. One was a tiny spatter
of rusty brown spots across one shoulder and side; it was probably where some
of Jared’s blood had landed after Chelsea
tried to gouge his eye out. I’d have to pre-treat that with stain remover
before I put the shirt in the washer.
On both
sleeves, standing out against the blue of the undershirt, were three or four
evenly spaced spots, mud or dirt, just above where Jared’s wrists would be.
It took me a moment to realize what
they were, and when I did, I felt lightheaded, like all the blood was running
out of my head and pooling somewhere in my stomach.
They were
finger marks. In exactly the spot where they’d be if someone had grabbed both
Jared’s arms last night. To try to—for instance—stop him from hurting them.
Before I
had time to decide between leaving the shirt in Jared’s room, where someone
else might find it, or putting it through the permanent press cycle, the
doorbell rang.
It was a
tough decision, and I was glad for an excuse not to have to make it. Washing
the shirt would remove any evidence that might be on it, but I would be setting
myself up for a possible charge of accessory to murder, or at the very least,
of impeding the investigation. But leaving it where it was meant someone else
could get hold of it and maybe use it to make the case against Jared look
worse.
It was
hours too early for mom and dad to be back in town, but that didn’t keep me
from hoping as I launched myself down the stairs, Jared’s shirt still in my
hand. I dropped it on the bench in the hallway on my way past, my heart beating
double-time, both from the headlong rush and from the anticipation when I
grabbed the knob and yanked the door open.
“Oh!” I
stopped on the threshold, my heart doing an extra somersault before settling
down into a slightly steadier rhythm. “Hi, Rufus.”
Rufus
nodded. We looked at each other for a moment.
“Won’t you come in?” I stepped
back. Rufus moved silently across the threshold and into the house, brushing
against my arm on the way. I felt a little zap of electricity. He headed toward
the kitchen while I closed and locked the front door, my thoughts in the usual
jumble. He has this way of scrambling all my circuits.
I’ve known Rufus pretty much my
entire life, and I’ve had sort of a crush on him almost as long. Not so much of
a crush that I don’t get interested in other people occasionally, but it’s
basically always there, sort of underneath everything else. He doesn’t know
about it, thank God. At least I don’t think he does. And of course he doesn’t feel
the same way. If he did, I’d have no need to get interested in anyone else.
Jared knows, from watching me blush and stumble over my words and my feet for
long enough to guess what the problem is. But although he gives me a hard time
in private, so far he seems to have been gentleman enough to keep his knowledge
to himself. I can’t imagine it’s been easy, either, considering how close they
are.
Or used to be. Since Chelsea came into the
picture, Jared’s had less time for Rufus. A whole lot less time. It was several
months since Rufus had been over to the house. No wonder he looked different.
At least that’s the excuse I gave myself for staring at him. Truth is, I don’t
think I could have looked away if I had wanted to.
I didn’t notice that his lips were
moving until he’d said a word or two. “...know, Jo, it’s not a good idea to
open the door without looking outside first. I might have been someone else.”
No problem guessing how that
sentence had started. Lucky break. Sometimes he says things I totally miss, and
I sound like a real idiot trying to catch up. This time, maybe I wouldn’t. “I’d
never mistake you for anyone else, Rufus.”
Or maybe I should just resign
myself to sounding like an idiot anyway. I wanted to knock my head against the
kitchen counter, but I thought it might look a little weird, so I just bit my
lip instead, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.
Rufus smiled. My breath stuttered.
Here’s the thing: Rufus is quite
possibly the most beautiful boy—or person of the opposite sex—I’ve seen in my life.
And that includes the movie stars on TV, and Josh Turner the year he dropped in
to play the Highland Festival. And for that matter Mr. Hawkins, our Language
Arts teacher, who looks like a painting of Lord Byron. I’ve never been able to
figure out why Chelsea
would choose to go out with Jared when she could have had Rufus.
Not that there’s anything wrong
with Jared. He’s tall, dark, and handsome, he gets good grades, and he’s
popular, too. Any girl would be lucky to have him. I’m not arguing with that.
But Rufus is... well, like I said, he’s beautiful. Ridiculously,
heart-stoppingly beautiful. And Chelsea
would have to be blind as well as stupid not to notice.
Or maybe it’s just me. Sometimes
I’m able to look at him—from a distance, usually—and just see a pale, slight
boy with reddish-brown hair and good bone structure. The problem is the rest of
the time, when I get caught up in the flawless porcelain of his skin, or the
way his hair changes color from dark cinnamon to bronze to chestnut in the
sunlight, or how his eyelashes—long and thick and smudgy—could make him a
fortune as a Cover Girl model.
This was one of those times. From
the neck down, he looked just like any of the other boys at AHS. Faded jeans,
scuffed sneakers, and a long-sleeved oatmeal-colored T-shirt that put some
color in his cheeks and brought out the green in his eyes, both at the same
time. From the neck up...
“...doing, Jo?” Rufus said. I
pulled myself together again. Luckily, it wasn’t too hard to piece together the
parts of this sentence that I’d missed, either.
“I’m OK. You?”
He made a sort of impatient noise,
and I caught up, finally. “Oh, you mean about Jared? Did Kelli call you?”
He nodded. Waves of amber grain...
sorry, waves of chestnut hair fell over his forehead, and he drove his hand
through to get it out of his eyes. I suppressed a sigh, this one just as much
envy as infatuation. Rufus has the most gorgeous head of hair in the world,
thick and shiny and that fabulous color...
“...going on, Jo?”
“What...? Oh.” I tore my eyes away.
There’s really no other word for it. “Would you like something to drink?
Lemonade? Milk? Juice?”
If I kept my back to him, maybe I’d
be able to tell him what was going on without losing my train of thought
constantly.
“Lemonade, please.” I heard a chair
leg scrape as he sat down at the table. I pulled two glasses from the cabinet
above the microwave, took the lemonade from the refrigerator, and poured. While
I did it, making sure not to look at him, I answered his question.
“If Kelli contacted you, you know
as much as I do. Apparently Chelsea
was killed last night, over at the trailhead on Pecan Street. Or maybe she was killed
somewhere else and dumped there; I’m not really sure. Sheriff Thayer showed up
here this morning to talk to Jared. They had an argument last night—Chelsea and
Jared—and she scratched his face. There was tissue under her fingernails...”
I shuddered involuntarily at the
thought. The steady stream of lemonade jittered, and a few drops splashed on
the counter. “The sheriff wanted Jared’s DNA for comparison.”
I snagged a paper towel from the
roll and wiped the counter.
“Kelli said Jared’s been arrested?”
Rufus glanced up at me from under
his lashes as I placed the lemonade on the table in front of him. My heart
skipped a beat, but it got lost in a wave of anger.
“She said what? No, he’s not been arrested! And Kelli promised me she wasn’t
going to say that!”
“I don’t think she’s saying it to
everyone,” Rufus said as I took a seat across from him. “She was probably just
trying to give me more reason to go over here. So if he’s not been arrested,
what’s going on?”
I sighed, sipping my own lemonade,
watching his hands instead of his face. “The sheriff is talking to him, I
guess. About last night. And whatever it was he and Chelsea argued about. What
he said to make her try to scratch his eyes out. He must have said something.”
“Don’t you know?”
I could feel his eyes on me, but I
didn’t look up to meet them. I shook my head. “We didn’t have much time to
talk. Jared wasn’t home when I went to bed last night, and he didn’t wake up
until the sheriff got here this morning. Or if he did, he didn’t come
downstairs.”
The realization that my brother
might have been awake but avoiding me, shocked me a little. Why would he have
done that, unless he had something to hide? Unless he’d known, beforehand, what
had happened to Chelsea?
But no, I told myself, he was
probably just trying to put off the moment when I’d cause a fuss about the
scratches on his face.
“Oh,” Rufus said. There was something
a little odd about his voice, but when I glanced up, the sight of his face blew
anything coherent right out of my head. He was looking down, making circles
with the bottom of his glass on the tabletop, and his eyelashes were doing that
thing they do, when they make shadows across his cheeks in the light.
“Kelli said you were driving around
last night,” I said. “She said she’d seen you a couple of times on our way home
from the ballgame. Coming and going.”
“I had to go back for something,”
Rufus said, and I couldn’t help but notice the flush that stained his
cheekbones. Was he embarrassed? Could he... had he gone back because of a girl?
The thought of Rufus with a
girl—another girl; I was perfectly OK with the idea of Rufus with me—took an uncomfortable grip on my
stomach and twisted.
“Well,” I said, eyes on my hands,
“I just wondered if you’d noticed anything while you were driving around. Did
you see Jared and Chelsea fighting? Or go close to the trailhead at all?”
“Why would I go close to the
trailhead?” Rufus answered. “There’s nothing there in the middle of the night.
No, I didn’t see Chelsea and Jared fighting. Or anything else.”
“Do you have any idea what they were fighting about?”
I looked up, got caught in the
depths of his eyes, fluttered ineffectually for a moment, and tore myself away.
“How would I know anything about
it? I wasn’t there.”
He stood, and turned to the sink to
place his empty glass in it. I followed him down the hallway toward the front
door again.
Just before getting there, Rufus
slowed down. “What’s this?”
He grabbed Jared’s uniform shirt
from the bench in the foyer. I didn’t say anything, since it seemed obvious. It
was a white baseball shirt, with Abingdon
in blue script across the chest and Brennan
in block letters across the back. I could see the moment Rufus’s eyes caught
the finger marks on the sleeves, and a second later his mind caught the
implication, too. His back stiffened.
“I was picking up the laundry when
you came,” I said, my voice amazingly normal. “I was planning to wash it.”
I reached out. Rufus’s eyes scanned
my face for a second before he gave me the shirt. “Yeah,” he said, turning
toward the door. “Good idea. I’ll see you tomorrow, Jo.”
“Right,” I said, and locked the
door behind him.
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