Killing Britney by Sean Olin Page A

overtook the melody, as though the song was coming from a radio station that was on the verge of breaking up. The static grew louder and more disturbing as the CD played on—now it sounded like machine-gun fire, a rapid assault of feedback.
    Melissa gasped. “I think someone’s saying something. Is that a voice?”
    Listening closely, Britney could heard it. A murmuring, threatening gurgle of sound that when she concentrated, she could make out as words.
    “… deserved everything he got, and you know it. I only wish I could have stuck around to see him writhe in pain. … When I come for you, I promise, I’ll make sure I watch every minute of it….”
    Britney shrieked at the top of her lungs. It was like she was hyperventilating. She suddenly felt so hot, no, so cold, no, so hot. She tore at her letter jacket, but in her frenzy, she couldn’t get the thing off. Somewhere—it felt like very far away—she could hear Melissa screaming too. She could feel Melissa’s hand on her shoulder; it felt like a tentacle, a slimy, twisty thing reaching to throttle her. She screamed louder, harder. “Turn it off! Turn it off!” But the words weren’t coming out right, and the horrible white noise played on and on.
    Finally she couldn’t scream any longer and she collapsed onto the steering wheel, sobbing.
    Melissa stopped the CD.
    Neither of them spoke for a long, long time.
    When Melissa did finally speak, she did so in even, soft tones. “Are you okay?”
    “Do I look okay?” Britney shouted between sobs. She cried for she didn’t know how long. “How did they know about ‘Stairway to Heaven’? That was our song. Mine. And Ricky’s. I mean, nobody knew about it except me and Ricky. It … We … It … And the way the guy was talking …”
    “Someone’s been spying on you, obviously.” Melissa voice was soothing—in times of crisis, she was the best person to have around. She could be both firm and tender all at once. “We need to—”
    A snowball exploded on the windshield, and the girls both screamed again.
    Then, from nowhere, Adam was racing toward them, mounds of snow in both hands. He threw himself onto the hood of the car and rubbed the snow in like an overeager window washer. He grinned maniacally.
    It was all too overwhelming for Britney. Melissa leapt from the car to confront Adam and Britney leaned her head on the steering wheel and let the sobs wash through her.
    She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but when she finally felt calm enough to look up, Britney saw that they were both smiling. There was a sassiness to Melissa’s body language that Britney had never seen before. She dully registered that Adam must be Melissa’s secret crush. They kept glancing over at Britney in the car, and if she didn’t know Adam so well, she would have sworn that the expression on his face was one of concern.
    Jumping back into the car, Melissa spoke curtly. “We have to call that detective what’s-her-name immediately. We have to tell her about this. Here. Do you have that card she gave you? I’ll do it.”
    “No.” Britney struggled to hold herself together. “I don’t have it. I don’t want to talk to her. I want my dad. I want to talk to my dad.”
    Melissa thought about this for a moment. “Okay,” she said. “Come on, scoot over. I’ll drive.”
    Riding off toward her father’s office in the passenger seat of her own car, Britney felt like her insides had been scraped out. Even though nothing had been stolen, she felt like she’d lost something, like she wasn’t safe anywhere, not even in her own skin.

thirteen
    Mr. Johnson was in consultation with a client. Closed into his office, behind a thick oak door. Melissa tried to explain to his assistant, Tamara, that this was an emergency—as if it wasn’t already obvious from the rivulets of black tears running down Britney’s cheeks. She stood there, hunched over Tamara’s desk, which, for someone whose sole job was to keep the office