Lurker

1

No one at Lake Crest High was surprised when Nicolette Bennington didn’t show up for classes that Wednesday morning. Nicki, or Naughty Nic as she was called in whispers behind her back, skipped classes all the time. If she wasn’t in trouble at school, then she found trouble at home or in the world at large. It was all very fascinating and/or amusing to her peers because Naughty Nic was fun. She didn’t pull lame pranks that hurt people’s feelings, but she had a knack for shaking things up. Once, she pretended to be blind and walked her dad’s Great Dane, Hamlet, through the mall and into the food court, where he promptly peed on the condiment stand. At Lady Foot Locker, Hamlet found himself with a taste for a Reebok running shoe, which he grabbed off a plastic stand and proceeded to gnaw with much glee. When a salesclerk ran up and snatched the wet leather wad from Hamlet’s lips, Naughty Nic handed him a credit card and said, “I’m sorry, but he’s kind of doing you a favor. Nobody’s wearing those anymore.”

Cathy Lynn Baker was there, trying on a pair of sneakers she needed for tennis. She swore that’s exactly what happened. Mandy was there, too. She was in the mall outside the shop with her friends, struck motionless by the sight of Naughty Nic in sunglasses acting like Ray Charles while Hamlet licked his lips and chomped his jaws, spraying spit all over the fat salesman in the referee shirt. Mandy did not, however, hear Nicki’s clever response to the angry ref, though she told everyone at school she had. It just made a better story that way.

Sometimes, Naughty Nic showed up in the middle of a class, telling some wicked stupid story about why she was late, and other times she raised her hand to interrupt a teacher, announced “gyno appointment,” and excused herself for the afternoon. She dismissed most boys as puppies: cute and amusing but messy and untrained. Word around Lake Crest was that she dated only college boys.

Mandy had three classes with Nicki, and one of them was first period gym on Wednesdays. That morning, Mandy showed up bleary eyed. She hadn’t gotten much sleep and was without caffeine. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays she sacrificed her morning latte because, earlier that semester, she almost blew one all over the gymnasium floor while doing laps. So with no critical bean in her veins, Mandy trudged, shoe soles squeaking, across the shiny, waxed floor and took her place beside Laurel Wheeler, where she sighed and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Someone’s looking tragic,” Laurel whispered.

“Bite my soft parts, L.”

“Ooo, and in such a good mood,” her friend said with a laugh. “Did Dale keep you up late?”

“Incorrect, but thank you for playing.”

Dale wasn’t likely to be keeping her up late at all. Not anymore. Not after last night.

She was just being romantic. Impulsive. Mandy stopped by his house to surprise Dale, and while waiting in his room, found an open instant message window on his monitor, in which Dale—King Looz of Low Life—was asking some girl to come over and “watch movies.” He had acted like it was no big thing, infuriating Mandy, who proceeded to dump his ass. She’d spent most of the night running angry conversations through her head and devising creative tortures. So, in a way, he had kept her up late. Something else he was not to be forgiven for.

Then, that morning, while Mandy was crossing the school parking lot, he had the nerve to just walk up and start talking to her like nothing happened. What an ass.

“I’ve deleted him from my buddy list.”

Laurel’s eyes lit up, and she bent close. “You’re breaking up? No way! Why didn’t you call me?”

Because she’d been IMing with their other friend, Drew, for three hours chatting about what a jerk Dale was, and by the time she’d signed off her mom was standing in the doorway obnoxiously tapping her watch. Besides, she had wanted to be sure she was deleting Dale totally before telling Laurel anything. Laurel was the goddess of text messaging, and pretty soon every cell phone at Lake Crest would be buzzing. In fact, Mandy could already see Laurel fidgeting, wanting to get to her locker, her purse, her Nokia.

Just to make things more interesting, Mandy said, “Please don’t tell anyone.”

Laurel twitched like she had something in her eye; then her face grew serious and concerned. She wrapped a skinny arm over Mandy’s shoulder and pulled her into a hug. “This is just between us, girl.”

Yeah, right.

“So what happened?” Laurel asked.

The door of the boys’ locker room creaked open, and Mr. Lombard waddled in, wearing a white polo shirt and baggy blue sweatpants. Their gym teacher was a pudgy little man who looked like Santa Claus without a beard. His shiny bald head had a fringe of white hair that hung too long in the back, and his cheeks always had a red tinge, which Laurel assured Mandy was from chugging too much gin and juice. Despite his alleged alcoholism, Lombard wasn’t bad. He didn’t bark at them like Crawford had during sophomore year and he kept up with fitness trends, so classes were sometimes interesting. Before Christmas break, they’d actually done yoga. More often than not, he smiled a lot and coached the girls, urging them on rather than making them feel crappy for not being able to climb a rope or throw a ball.

Today, though, Mandy thought Lombard looked pissed off as he stomped across the floor. She knew the feeling well enough. Dale had seen to that.

Lombard stopped ten feet from the outer edge of the two dozen kids gathered on the far end of the gym and put his hands on his hips. He kept his eyes on the floor as if disgusted with the bunch of them.

But when the P. E. teacher looked up, his eyes were wet and his cheeks were redder than Mandy had ever seen them. A cold stone dropped in Mandy’s stomach, and she felt a stream of ice run down her back. Whatever Lombard was about to say was bad. Very bad.

Laurel nudged her, and Mandy made a small shrug.

Lombard sniffed. He looked back at the floor. “No class today,” he said, his voice cracking on the last word, making it sound like to-ay. “Please get dressed and meet back here in twenty minutes. Mr. Thompkins has called a student assembly.” Again his voice cracked.

“Oh, now, this cannot be good,” Laurel said.

Mandy nodded and looked around at the other kids. They’d been dismissed, but no one moved. They stood just where they were standing when Lombard appeared, only now they looked confused, anxious, and disturbed. The P. E. teacher’s distress had seeped into them, and her classmates did nothing to hide the fact. She continued searching each and every face.

It never occurred to her that one of them was missing.

Lake Crest was a small school, with fewer than three hundred students total. This year’s graduating class would be just shy of one hundred. As a result, there were few strangers. Mandy had led or followed kids from Hoskins Elementary and Tyler Middle. She’d grown up in Elmwood, and whether she considered a kid her friend or not, they were all kind of close.

So when Mr. Thompkins cleared his throat and said, “I’m very sorry to have to announce the death of our friend Nicolette Marie Bennington,” Mandy felt a deep sickness harden in her stomach. The nausea had been with her since Mr. Lombard had excused them. It had grown when she’d emerged from the girls’ locker room to find the bleachers extended and her classmates gathering on the benches. The queasiness had been soft then, unformed and roiling like something she was trying to digest. But when their principal leaned forward at the podium, his voice oozing those words through the microphone, that soft undistinguished misery grew solid and sharp edged.

Beside her, both Laurel and Drew threw their hands over their faces. Sobbing. But Mandy couldn’t do that. It was a joke. She didn’t believe it. Just another one of Naughty Nic’s silly jokes. Any minute, Nicki’d come dancing into the gym with a big smile. She’d say something like, “Who died?” and everyone would laugh, and her friends would stop crying. Everyone would stop crying.

“We will certainly miss Nicolette,” continued Mr. Thompkins, wiping a handkerchief across his forehead. “For now, I would like you all to report to your homerooms. You will be excused from there. No one is to leave the school grounds alone. Those of you who need to arrange a ride with a family member may use the phone in the administration office. When you are excused, you are expected to return directly to your homes.”

An arm snaked around her neck, startling Mandy. It was just Laurel, pulling her in to join her friends in an embrace. The three of them huddled together on the bench, hunched with heads touching. Entwined with Drew and Laurel, Mandy felt the sickness in her belly turn to an ache.

“This can’t be true,” she whispered.

She remembered things about Nicki, tiny things that she had no business remembering. Earlier that year, Nicki had worn a T-shirt to school that said Good Eats, and was sent home by Mrs. Fletcher, the biology teacher. The summer before, Mandy had seen Nicki in the park, lying in the shade of an oak reading an old book called The Bell Jar. Once she’d announced to the lunch line that the meat-loaf was excellent because “They ground the cats coarse, so it’s reeeeeal savory.” Last Friday, she had worn a black sweater over a white blouse and earrings that looked like tiny thumbnail moons.

Then Mandy realized she would never see Nicki again, never laugh at one of her quick remarks. The sickness that had become an ache exploded and sent shattered bits of pain to every nerve in her body. She sobbed because her denial was gone. It was true. Naughty Nic was dead.

“How?” Mandy asked between sobs, pushing closer to Laurel, tightening her grasp on Drew.

How?

Speculation ran rampant in the homerooms of Lake Crest. It was Mr. Thompkins’s fault, because he’d simply announced the death but given no indication of its cause. As a result, fertile minds blossomed with possibilities.

I’ll bet she OD’d on crystal meth.

It wasn’t an accident. No way. She killed herself. She was always talking about it.

She probably got hit by a car or something.

Maybe she slipped in the tub. That kills a lot of people.

Shut up, Brian. She didn’t slip in the tub.

I think one of her boyfriends killed her. She hung out with a lot of Hannibals.

In Mrs. Fletcher’s homeroom, Mandy, Laurel, and Drew also speculated. But they thought it less likely that Nic’s death had been accidental. Through the window that looked out on Lake Crest Drive, they saw two police cars parked in the front lot. That told them Nicolette had not slipped in the tub or choked on a bit of chicken; she had not stepped in front of a racing car. Every few minutes, Mr. Price, the assistant principal, would stick his head in the room and give a list of names to Mrs. Fletcher, who would then clear her throat and excuse another four students to follow Mr. Price to a different part of the building. The students must have gone home from there, because they didn’t come back.

At the front of the room, Mrs. Fletcher, a woman with short gray hair jutting away from her face in ragged chunks, cleared her throat for the tenth time. She adjusted the collar on her blue blouse, scratched the back of her neck, and then returned to staring out the window, allowing the students to chat quietly.

“She could have killed herself,” Drew said, her voice a high squeak. “The police would want to know if anything was bothering her. They’d ask us.”

“No way,” Laurel said, eyes shimmering with the remnants of tears. “They wouldn’t come rolling in here like SWAT. They’d send a counselor or something. This is something else. Something bad.”

“You don’t know that,” Mandy said, though she’d been thinking the same thing herself. “Let’s just see what they tell us. It’s probably…”

“Oh, this is some Megan’s Law shit,” Laurel piped in. “Nicki got herself snatched and buried. The freak probably licked her all over and chopped her into little bits and there’s no way…”

“Stop it,” Mandy said through a clenched jaw. “Just stop it. You don’t know any more than we do.”

Laurel’s normally pretty face scrunched into an ugly mask, and she leaned back in her chair. “Whatever.”

Mandy suddenly wished Dale was with her. Maybe she shouldn’t have dissed him in the school parking lot. It wasn’t an issue of forgiveness, just one of security. Usually, Dale drove her home from school. He played on the first-string football team. He was fast and strong, and though she didn’t know if he would be a match for some psycho-perv, she suspected that a psycho-perv wasn’t likely to reach into Dale’s car and grab her. But no, the jerk had to cruise chat rooms, had to be a big shot for other girls. Girls from our school! God, how humiliating. She was angry at herself for thinking about him, especially now, but the idea that someone might be out there, just waiting for her to take a wrong step, chilled her.

“If they call you guys first, wait for me,” Drew said, her voice trembling. “Okay?”

“My dad’s already on his way,” Laurel said. “He’ll probably lock me in the house until I graduate or something.”

Mandy looked out the window and saw two boys she recognized as sophomores walking past the police cars in the lot. One of the boys punched his friend’s arm, and they both started laughing.

“Maybe it’s not so bad,” Mandy said, nodding toward the window.

Laurel and Drew turned their heads to see just as the classroom door opened. Mr. Price poked his head in, looked around as if to see if the coast was clear, and walked to Mrs. Fletcher’s desk. He handed her a note, which she promptly unfolded. He turned to the class, tried to smile, but it was one of those phony smiles that looked like he had just stubbed his toe.

Mrs. Fletcher cleared her throat. The first name she read was Mandy’s. That sick feeling returned to her stomach.

Laurel and Drew both stood up and hugged her tight.

“Wait for me?” Drew whispered anxiously.

“I’ll wait,” Mandy said, then gathered her books and joined Mr. Price. She waited until the other three students were called and came to the front of the room. Then Mr. Price opened the door and led them into the hall.

She was led down the hall toward the administration office. Ahead, Mr. Price marched authoritatively, though his head was down. Farther down the hall, another group of kids followed Mr. Thompkins. This group turned right at the school’s lobby and disappeared, though when Mr. Price reached the lobby, he guided them across the shiny linoleum. When her foot came down on the face of Wally, the school mascot painted on the floor, another chill ran down Mandy’s back. Wally was a shark with big eyes and a single row of pointed teeth. One of his fins was raised in a fist and the other tipped the sailor cap on his head. Mandy’s foot came right down on his mouth, and the sight of her shoe floating between those sharp teeth unnerved her.

Mr. Price turned right at the end of the lobby and led the small group of kids toward the math classes. Outside the first door, a row of desks had been pushed against the wall.

“Mandy, come with me,” Mr. Price said. “The rest of you have a seat. This won’t take long.”

She watched her classmates sit in the chairs, a knot of anxiety pulling tight in her stomach. Next to her, Mr. Price opened the door and swept his hand to usher Mandy over the threshold. The classroom was empty except for a plump woman in a blue uniform sitting behind the teacher’s desk. A plastic chair faced the desk, and the woman extended her arm toward it, indicating that Mandy should take a seat.

“This is Mandy Collins,” Mr. Price said. Then he turned to her. “Mandy, this is Officer Romero. She’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Okay.”

Mr. Price left them alone, and Mandy looked at the woman, whose blocky body pushed against the too-tight fabric of her uniform. She had a pretty, darkly tanned face with large green eyes.

“There’s no need to be nervous,” Officer Romero said.

“I’m not,” Mandy lied, feeling the jitters run through her like little electric currents. She sat down.

“This is very informal. If you’re uncomfortable answering questions now, you can come down to the station with your parents later. We don’t want to make this tragedy any harder on you than we have to.”

“Okay.”

“Now then, did you know Nicolette Bennington?”

“Yes. I mean, we weren’t best friends or anything.”

“But you knew her?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever see her outside of school?”

She thought about Nicolette in dark glasses holding Hamlet’s leash standing in a Lady Foot Locker, thought about the girl lying under an oak tree fascinated by the book in her hands. But she said, “No, not really. We didn’t hang out.”

“Do you know who she did hang out with?”

“She kind of kept to herself. I mean, she was nice. Everybody liked her, but she just kind of kept to…I already said that. No.”

“Did she ever mention a boyfriend?”

Mandy shook her head. The only time Nicki ever mentioned boys was in a joking way, like they were funny to her. Mandy couldn’t remember if she’d ever dated any of the boys at Lake Crest.

“Okay,” said Officer Romero. “This question is a little tougher, and I want you to really think about it. Have you noticed any strange men hanging around your school, maybe parked in a car or standing across the road?”

A nervous joke occurred to Mandy: Aren’t all men strange? She mentally scolded herself for such an inappropriate thought. This was serious, and she had to treat it that way. So she put her mind to work, imagined all of the times she’d left the grounds after school. But Dale was in those thoughts, his arm looped around her neck as he walked Mandy to his car. She certainly didn’t want to be thinking about Dale, but it was impossible not to. They always used to leave together. Not anymore, she thought.

She edited Dale out of her thoughts, concentrating on memories of the streets and yards and trees surrounding the campus. Nothing came to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I haven’t.”

“That’s okay.” The woman lifted a small business card from the desk and handed it to Mandy. “This is the number of the police station. You can call us anytime.”

“Thank you,” Mandy said, sliding the business card into the pocket of her blouse. She stood and then blurted out the question that had been nagging her since the assembly. “What happened to Nicki, Officer Romero?”

The police officer’s pretty face scrunched as if in pain. “It’ll be on the news tonight,” she said. “What I can tell you is that she was abducted from her home last night. The body was found a few hours later.”

The body? Mandy thought in disbelief. How could she say that? It wasn’t a body. It was a girl. A girl named Nicki. A girl she knew!

“Thanks,” she whispered, and walked out of the room.