Voodoo

Chapter 2

The killer wasn't found overnight. So Miles found herself walking with Sydney to the high school and hating every minute of his fidgeting and paranoia. She glared at him from the corner of her eye as he walked next to her with his overbearing height looking down on her nearly six foot frame. She'd always relished the fact that she was tall until the rare occasion that she stood next to someone taller than her like Sydney or her father. She rolled her eyes and tried to focus on putting each step in front of the other until she could ditch Sydney at the parking lot to the school.

"You do realize that anything can happen to you even walking down the street with me?" Sydney tugged at the strap to his book bag three times then flashed a wide grin of perfect teeth at Miles.

"Aren't you supposed to be reassuring my safety?" Miles grumbled under her breath.

"Well, my presence is pretty much all the safety you need. Very rarely do killers strike a pair or a group. Not to mention, I'm not exactly scrawny, you know?" Sydney said triumphantly.

Miles glanced at him quickly and took in the ripped jeans, and skull t-shirt covering his lean physique. He was attractive with dark curly hair that led to a generous forehead and large brown eyes. His smile was his most memorable feature, Miles affirmed as she continued walking beside him. She also recalled that his annoying obsessive personality usually left him without dates or girlfriends throughout high school. How could you date someone you couldn't even touch? She shrugged with the thought and watched Sydney tug the strap again in rapid succession.

"I'm surprised you haven't pulled that strap off by now. We're almost through the whole school year." Miles said, looking at his strap fraying where it met the bag.

"Don't worry. This is my fourth bag." Sydney said and smiled again, "That was a joke. Geez, it's okay to smile every once in a while."

Miles smirked at the gesture but still kept her distance. 

"It'd be funny if I didn't believe it was true."

"Touche." Sydney said with a chuckle.

When they crossed North Rampert Street, the yellow house with green pillars had a throng of reporters set up outside with video cameras nestled atop tripods. White vans that heralded their news station logos littered the street. Yellow tape surrounded the home, twisting in the soft breeze. Miles stopped walking when she saw two detectives talking on the porch with the white haired man she'd seen before. The same man that almost caught her inspecting the dead girl in the bushes yesterday.

"Oh, so this is where it happened?" Sydney said under his breath. "So sad."

Miles remembered the girl. Saw her face again. Her body twisted up haphazardly. Her skin like nothing she'd seen before.

"What do you think happened?" Miles asked without tearing her eyes away from the scene. 

She wrestled with the image of the girl. The long, curly ponytail. The sunken quality of her cheeks even though she hadn't seemed dead for long enough to deteriorate so badly. Had the heat done that? Miles felt like the girl hadn't died there behind the bushes. It all looked so clean. No blood. Fully clothed. Like someone had sucked the very life from her and hid her somewhere she'd surely be found. And why that home? Was it random?

She startled when Sydney spoke, "I think she ran into the wrong people at the wrong time. Maybe she was into some bad stuff."

Miles couldn't equate the innocence of the girl with drugs or gangs which she knew plagued the area. She seemed cared for and loved by the sight of her. Not like she came from a poor family or had a hard life. But why was she dead in the bushes in Miles' neighborhood? Miles couldn't ever remember seeing her at their school. Surely someone would recognize her.