Songs for Cricket by Laine, E. (best books to read in your 20s TXT) 📗

breast pocket of the shirt. I had just started buttoning when Lacey and her crew walked by.

I spun around so Lacey could spot me.

She made a grand show of laughing in a dismissive way. “Hey girls, look who’s now using our dressing room.” She aimed the rhetorical question at me. “What, acting and dressing like a boy doesn’t make you one?”

Her hand waved over me like I was a dud prize on a game show.

“I wouldn’t expect you to know anything about boys since you hate them,” I said.

She snickered. “I don’t hate all of them. Only the ones that hurt me.”

“Like Lonnie?” I asked.

Her eyes flashed before she turned to her friends. “I’ll meet up with you guys later.”

She waved a dismissive hand at her posse who wanted to stay. She watched and didn’t say anything until their chatter disappeared outside.

She folded her arms across her chest, and I just hoped my phone was still recording.

“If you know about Lonnie, you know that I’m capable of destroying those that harm me.”

Nothing I’d learned matched up with the confident, conniving girl that stood before me.

“How exactly did he harm you?”

Her lip curled in a snarl. “What is your problem? You should be happy I got another predator off the streets.”

Her choice of words was noteworthy.

“Really. That would be good if it were true. But the truth is, Lonnie didn’t touch you any more than Shepard did.”

“You don’t know a thing,” she spun and marched toward the door.

“The truth is a guy named Ross is the one that hurt you.”

Her steps immediately halted. I could imagine the look on her face, but it was fury that met my own when she turned around.

“Who told you about Ross?”

I ignored her question. “Ross is the one that hurt you. No one believed you when you told them what he was doing to you.” I didn’t hate her after the story was pieced together for me by the private investigator Lonnie’s parents had hired.

“Stop it,” she yelled. “You don’t know anything.”

“I know that Lonnie and Shepard look like him a little––around the same height, color of hair and eyes. And wasn’t it around this time when you killed him?”

The killing part was a guess. The story in the paper said suicide, but as I had learned, her family had enough money to cover things up. I hoped she didn’t dispute the fact that they were similar in appearance. I had screenshots on my phone, but I didn’t want to take it out.

“Kill him? I wish. He took the coward’s way out before he paid for what he did to me.”

Her shrill bounced off the walls of the locker room. If anyone was still in here, they wouldn’t have missed it.

“So you’re taking it out on Lonnie and Shepard, instead?”

I hated baiting her because after all, she’d been a victim. Though that didn’t mean she should get a pass on hurting innocent people to ease her own pain.

“My parents let Lonnie off, but Shepard will pay.”

“But Shepard didn’t touch you. What did you use on yourself to make them believe you’d been raped?”

Her snarl was reminiscent of a rabid dog.

“He would have hurt me. I got him before he could and made sure he’d get what was coming to him.”

I wanted to smack her, but I needed her to admit how she’d faked the rape.

“Did you use that bottle you threw in our trash?”

A gleam sparkled in her eye. She tapped her lips a moment before she spoke.

“See, you’re smart. Boys are dumb. If the police had found it, I would have just said he used it on me. I took it from the party. His fingerprints were all over it.”

I shook my head because she was truly crazy.

“Ross really messed you up, but that doesn’t give you a license to destroy other people’s lives.”

She cocked out a hip and glared at me. “What are you going to do about it? My parents believe everything I say now.”

I could imagine the guilt they felt.

“Hurting Shepard isn’t going to make you feel better.”

She needed to go back to the pricey mental hospital where she’d spent most of her high school senior year. That’s how the private investigator started picking up threads that led to helping Lonnie get off. He didn’t have a good enough lawyer. Otherwise, he would have gotten completely off. Hopefully, this recording would finally clear both him and Shepard.

“You don’t know anything. Haven’t you seen the news? Men are predators, and it’s time for us to take a stand.”

“No. It’s time we aren’t silent, but accusing the innocent will only hurt any victim’s cause. People shouldn’t feel ashamed to voice any type of abuse, but we also need to be believed. And when someone like you goes around and points a finger, crying wolf, you hurt every victim out there that wants to be heard.”

She huffed out a breath. “You know nothing.”

That time when she stormed off, I let her go. I should have had enough. I took my phone out and stopped the video. I then started playing the recording to ensure I had her on screen through the pocket. I did. I sent it to the cloud just as she leaped at me.

“You taped me, you bitch,” she screeched, releasing fury with her fists.

“It’s too late,” I said, trying to roll away while she scrambled to get my phone. “I already sent the video to the cloud. You can destroy my phone if you want.”

She came at me again, and it was on.

36

shepard

This time I sat in the conference room and not an interrogation room. My hands weren’t bound at my back. Hastings walked in with Miller right behind him.

My lawyer stood and buttoned his suit jacket before introducing himself.

“Am I correct in hearing that you have more evidence to support your client’s innocence?” Hastings asked.

I listened as my lawyer explained about Lonnie and the private detective who linked Lacey to claims she’d made about her brother before his