Under the Lights

by Shannon Stacey

  Jen’s eyes closed for a moment in sympathy. “That poor girl. It’s too bad it didn’t happen during the school year.”

  The community was good about buying doubles of some things when they could and donating the extra to the school nurse. Everything from deodorant to toothpaste to pads could be found in her office, free of charge and with utmost discretion. The kids knew that, and it made a difference for a lot of them.

  Kelly and Jen’s omelets didn’t take long since the restaurant wasn’t busy, and they talked while they ate. One by one they went through the list of names they’d been keeping tabs on over the summer. Some of them reached out to Jen for advice, and some ended up having to deal with Kelly when they got in trouble, but the two women worked closely on every incident to make sure it was handled as well as they could manage. This meeting didn’t seem to offer up any crises, which was a wonderful thing.

  “I just don’t think there’s a lot going on right now,” Kelly said. “Since we really started gearing up toward Eagles Fest, the football players have settled down. The domestic calls are on a slight decline, too. I think things are settling a bit, albeit at a shitty level, and the initial panic stress is petering out. Now it’s a long grind.”

  “I agree. There are still a few families I’m in contact with, but everybody’s doing okay.”

  Kelly sighed. “It’s harder during the summer. When we don’t see them every day and need a reason to have contact, it’s hard to keep up with what’s going on in their heads. So, that’s it?”

  Jen made a face and looked around before leaning forward to whisper. “Keep an eye on Spruce Street.”

  “That’s all you can give me?”

  “I wasn’t given information about anything specific or criminal, but concern was expressed to me about a young person on the street and whether or not the police monitored that neighborhood.”

  Kelly sighed. “Hypothetically, if this were a TV show, would it star vice or the special victims unit?

  “Vice.”

  So drugs, not sexual abuse. Stewart Mills had managed to avoid a big drug problem, thanks to the overall lack of money and easy availability. But there were still individuals who knew where to get stuff and would make the trip to bring some back. Because it was small amounts and very few people, it was actually hard to pinpoint problems.

  “I’ll make sure we’re patrolling that neighborhood,” Kelly assured Jen.

  “Thanks. I guess that’s all I’ve got. And just in time, too. I’m off to see Chase.”

  Lucky lady. “I’ll get the tab. I’m going to order another coffee and scroll through the news on my phone, I think. I’ve been so wrapped up in Eagles Fest, I’m losing touch.”

  But once Jen was gone, it wasn’t news headlines she pulled up on her phone. She’d taken a picture of Alex’s photo of Chase, which had been in the paper, and she looked at it until she saw the waitress heading toward her.

  Then she flipped to the news and, after fixing her coffee, settled in to scan the headlines. She’d see Chase at the spaghetti dinner, if she got a moment to herself. In the meantime, she needed to drink her coffee and then get to work.

  —

  Chase looked at the papers Jen had spread out on her desk, and nodded. “I think we can handle this.”

  “Are you sure it’s not too much? Because you guys are the honored guests, so we really shouldn’t be putting you to work.”

  “If you don’t put us to work, we don’t have a good excuse not to practice.”

  She laughed and sorted the papers into three stacks, neatly clipping each one. “If only Coach could hear you now. Are you sure none of you will get lost? I know you’re all from here, but it’s been a long time.”

  “We’re each taking a kid,” he said, and she looked surprised. “Deck has to work and Briscoe has to do a thing with his parents, so I’m taking a kid in my truck. Alex is taking one in his rental, and Philly has to work, but he’s lending Sam his car.”

  “It’s really great that you guys are spending time with the boys. They really need it more than you can imagine, even if they don’t show it.”

  He smiled at her. “We know more about that than you might think. And making them help is better than letting them watch others bust their asses to save their team. Keeps them out of trouble and us out of trouble, and hopefully nobody gets lost.”

  “Before you go,” she said, clasping her hands together on her desk. “If any of you should want access to the school—to take a tour or see the trophy case, for example—just let me know and I can arrange access for you. We have keys.”

  He would have thought she was simply being polite, except for the way the corners of her mouth twitched upward. She knew they’d broken into the high school, which made sense. She was one of Kelly’s best friends. But it made him wonder what else Kelly had told her.

  “Thanks,” was all he said. “We’ll let you know.”

  He walked back out to where the other guys were just pulling in to the lot and handed the sheets around. “Top one is the address of somebody who filled out the card, emailed or called to say they had a decoration up. We have to confirm we have a photo and take one if we don’t. There’s also several photos whose addresses got lost and addresses with no photos, and we need to match them up. If we see a decoration while driving around, check the address list and make sure it has a photograph number listed for it.”

  Alex snorted. “This sounds like work. And somebody needs a new camera. Some of these aren’t focused clearly.”

  “I’ll note your objection on the file,” Chase said, making Sam laugh. “Let’s go meet the kids at the bridge and get this over with.”

  They were mixing it up a bit, since Hunter and a few of the other boys were picking up some work hours for a landscaper nearby. Chase would be hanging out with a kid named PJ, who jumped into the shotgun seat the second the truck came to a complete stop.

  “Hey, Mr. Sanders, I’m PJ.”

  “Call me Chase. Good to meet you.”

  “You, too. Jeez, your truck’s a mess. My parents moved here after you left, so you didn’t go to school with my dad or date my mom or anything.”

  Chase’s head whirled. “Good to know.”

  “Wouldn’t it be funny if you’d dated my mom, though? I could have been your kid. That would be a funny story, if you came back after all this time and found out I was your kid, wouldn’t it?”

  “Jesus, kid. You can’t be saying stuff like that in a town like this.” He wondered if this was some kind of prank. “What position do you play, PJ?”

  “Cornerback, though I’m not super good at it. But, really, I’m Coach’s secret weapon.”

  It was probably his job to talk so damn much that the other team couldn’t hear their own play calls. Chase pulled away from the curb, wondering how they were supposed to concentrate on addresses and decorations, but PJ took the list and scanned it quickly.

  “Take a right up there. Have you guys done a lot of practicing since you got back?”

  “Not really. We haven’t had a lot of time.” Chase made the right turn.

  “Bummer. So are you using your old playbook from high school? It would make sense, since it won you the championship.”

  “We’re using some old plays, but we have a few new tricks up our sleeves, too.” That was a lie, but he had a feeling this kid had more tricks up his sleeve than they did.

  “When we were young, like in middle school, we used to pretend we were you guys. It was pretty awesome but we could never remember all the calls, and the actual binder Coach used is locked in the trophy room. What were some of them?”

  “I’m onto you, kid.” He glanced over at PJ, who just grinned.

  “I told you, I’m Coach’s secret weapon. I’ll never be an all-star cornerback, but I’m good enough for the position. I only play football so I can go into coaching
. Defensive coordinator’s what I’m going to be. I can read people and plays like nobody’s business.”

  “I think ours will give you a little trouble,” Chase said. If they actually had any. Pretty hard to read plays that didn’t exist. He suspected there would be a lot of scrambling on Sam’s part due to trying to find a receiver who’d run in the right direction.

  “Take a left and then slow down,” PJ instructed after glancing down at the list. “Does your friend Alex have a GPS with him?”

  “No. Why?” That didn’t sound promising.

  “He’s got Ronnie with him, and he doesn’t know where anything is. I think he got lost going from his math class to the cafeteria last year.”

  “It’s an old school, with a lot of hallways. It always takes a month or so to learn your way around.”

  “He was a junior.”

  Damn. “If Alex doesn’t show up for the spaghetti dinner, I’ll see if the rental agency can track the car.”

  “Good idea.”

  They cruised the roads of Stewart Mills, covering their assigned area and ensuring everybody who’d entered the decoration contest had an entry and that every entry had a photo. PJ talked the entire time, about everything from algebra to zephyrs, which Chase had never even heard of.

  “Hey, cop ahead,” PJ announced suddenly. “It looks like Officer McDonnell. She’s really nice. You must know her since she’s the coach’s daughter, right?”

  Chase beeped the horn and waved as he rolled past her. It looked like she was taking pictures of a dented mailbox. A few seconds later, his cell phone rang and he pulled it out to see her number. Even as hit the button to answer it, PJ pulled an iPod from his pocket and a second later was bobbing his head to music Chase couldn’t hear.

  “Officer McDonnell, what a surprise.”

  “Was that PJ in the passenger seat?”

  “Yeah. PJ and I have been driving around town for two hours on behalf of the Eagles decoration contest.”

  She laughed for so long, he debated hanging up on her. “Did you draw the short straw?”

  Chase wasn’t having any part of the conversation. There was a good chance PJ was pretending to listen to music while really using some state-of-the-art eavesdropping device. “I’m learning a lot.”

  “Ask him about the history of the mills.”

  “No.”

  She laughed some more, and then finally quieted. “Here comes the homeowner. I need to take his complaint.”

  “I’m going to see you at the spaghetti dinner, right?”

  “Yeah, but I’ll be busy, so I’ll be lucky if I get to wave.”

  That was disappointing. “Oh, before you go. PJ asked me if Alex has a GPS, because his navigator is a kid named Ronnie?”

  “Shit. How did Jen let that happen?” He heard her sigh through the phone. “Alex travels a lot, so hopefully he’s got a good sense of direction. And I’ll keep an eye out for the rental.”

  “I’ll see you tonight. Hopefully we’ll see Alex, too.”

  Once he was off the phone, PJ took out the earbuds and told him he’d be taking a right in about half a mile. Then he started talking about meat processing, and after five minutes of way too much detail, Chase’s stomach did a long, slow roll.

  “Hey, kid. Do you know anything about the history of the mills?”

  —

  Kelly felt as if every single citizen of Stewart Mills was staring at her as she used tongs to plop spaghetti on plate after plate before handing them to Cheryl to add her red sauce and meatballs.

  It was her imagination, of course. Not every citizen was even there. And the ones who were seemed too busy talking to each other and eating to stare at her. But she’d seen more than a few speculative glances sent her way. And conversations cutting off in midsentence to be replaced by an overly bright oh hey, Kelly meant people were talking about her.

  Because she was Coach’s daughter and everybody in town knew her, she’d been very careful since being hired by the Stewart Mills police department not to give them anything to talk about. Now she’d gone and had sex with arguably one of the most talked-about people in the town for the time being.

  The line finally trickled out and, after nabbing some spaghetti for herself, she made her way outside to the picnic table where Jen was saving her a seat. Don and Cassandra Jones had offered up O’Rourke’s for the benefit, since it wasn’t easy to cook massive amounts of spaghetti and meatballs on a grill in the town square, but they couldn’t seat everybody. Borrowing the same tables and folding chairs the Eagles Fest committee had used for the yard sale, along with a few picnic tables, they’d spread the seating out onto the sidewalk and down into the elementary school playground.

  And then they’d have to return them all, she thought with a weary sigh as she sat down. Picking up her fork, she twirled it in the pasta.

  She had no regrets when it came to the Eagles Fest, because her parents and her community were everything to her, but she was exhausted. The physical labor was the easy part, too. The constantly scrolling to-do list in her head and putting on an air of unwavering optimism had wiped her out. When it was over, she might take a couple of vacation days and do nothing but sleep, get up and eat, and then sleep some more.

  Thinking she heard her name, she glanced up and caught two members of the board of selectmen watching her from a table diagonally across the way. Dan Jarvis turned his face abruptly, but Judy Faring gave her a very prim, pursed-lipped look of disapproval before slightly turning her body away.

  Great. It wasn’t bad enough the chief was in her business. She needed the town government judging her, too.

  “How are you not stuffing your face with this spaghetti?” Jen wiped a smear of red sauce off her lip with her napkin, seemingly oblivious to what was happening around her. “It’s like a free pass for all the carbs you can eat, and nobody makes meatballs like Cheryl Decker.”

  “I feel like everybody’s talking about me.”

  “They’re probably wondering why you’ve been twirling your fork in your pasta for ten minutes without taking a bite. I hope you realize that can’t possibly fit in your mouth now.”

  “I meant talking about me and Chase, smart-ass.”

  “Which reminds me, tell me about you and Chase.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Interesting.” Jen pointed her fork at Kelly. “If there’s nothing to tell, what do you think people are saying about you?”

  “I meant, you already know everything there is to tell.”

  “Seriously? He’s not sneaking out of your parents’ house every night and waiting for you to pick him up at the end of the block?”

  “Nope. Between Eagles Fest and work, I have erratic hours, and he’s been with the guys. And I live right in town, which isn’t exactly private, and he’s staying in my old room. It’s not an easy thing to manage.”

  “You could meet in Gretchen’s barn. Wouldn’t that be romantic?”

  “You’ve clearly never had straw poking your naked ass. And the barn cat hates me. She starts hissing the second I walk through the door.”

  “There has to be a way.” Jen shoved another forkful of pasta in her mouth and looked thoughtful while she chewed. “You could always . . . wait. When did you have straw poking your naked ass?”

  “You’re not really paying attention.”

  “Oh, you have all my attention now.”

  Kelly laughed and used her knife to shove the wad of spaghetti off of her fork so she could start over. “Think about it. I’m the coach’s daughter and, just like now, finding privacy was a bitch. Remember Kirby? He only lived here a couple of years before his family moved again.”

  “Oh, that’s right. He was your first.”

  Kelly nodded. “In Gretchen’s barn.”

  “I guess associating sex with straw poking you in the
ass would explain the standing-up-against-the-wall fantasy,” Jen said, and Kelly almost choked on her first bite of spaghetti.

  “Very funny,” she muttered when she’d managed to chew and swallow. “So what’s going on with you?”

  Jen froze with her fork halfway to her mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Yesterday, Gretchen asked me if you were okay. She said you weren’t being like you.”

  Something flashed across her friend’s face but was gone before Kelly could identify it. “I had a headache yesterday. One of those that’s not horrible, but won’t totally go away.”

  “Those suck.” She didn’t think that was the entire truth, but Jen was the talkative one of the group, and big on expressing herself. If she didn’t want to talk about something, there was a good reason, and she would when she was ready.

  They ate their spaghetti, though neither of them cleaned their plates. That was the nice thing about spaghetti dinner fund-raisers. Everybody was willing to cough up the all-you-can-eat price, but very few people actually went back for seconds.

  Once everybody had wandered off, the women and the high school team got to work cleaning up. Despite the expense, Kelly was glad they’d gone with disposable plates and utensils. Cassandra had volunteered her staff on her dime to wash the pots and serving spoons, but she couldn’t do a town’s worth of plates and silverware. Gretchen, who was a lot more used to physical labor than the rest of them, had suggested the three of them could wash by hand in O’Rourke’s sinks, but Jen and Kelly had quickly vetoed that.

  While going around with a garbage bag, picking up the napkins and occasional fork people had dropped, Kelly spotted Chase and was surprised to see him. She thought he’d left already, but apparently not. He was still there, directing the boys as they returned the picnic tables and various borrowed seating to where it belonged.

  Because of the look he gave her, she wasn’t surprised when he managed to corner her later in a small back room of O’Rourke’s, where she was looking for a broom. There was no door, but somebody would actually have to step into the room and look to the right to see them.