Fiona Frost: Order of the Black Moon (18 page)

Detective Chase was a
tremendously
effective leader.
I hoped that one
day;
I would be able to handle running a forensic lab as efficiently as he did.

“
Back to Dimitri LeMorte.
His story is that he was running late for the
mid
dle of the W
itching
H
our
meeting with the cult.
He normally preferred to arrive twenty minutes early to start the candles and such.
Dimitri
stated he
entered
an empty cave, saw the body
,
and left immediately
.
Emily Vance
said
she saw the teens leave,
discovered
the body,
and ran
to the pay phone at the marina to call the police
.
As she was returning
to the cave
, she spotted
Dimitri
exiting
—
seconds before the police arrived.
However,
he
could have been hiding out in the cave as nobody
witnessed
him arrive.
We can only place the time he left the cave.”

A succession of obnoxious thunder rolls created a mandatory pause in our conversation.
The rain kicked back up with a passion.

“Good point.
Wow.
Well, this case is getting more interesting by the minute, huh?”

“It gets better.
Well, worse, Fiona.
We ran a criminal history check on Dimitri LeMorte.”

“And was it a million pages long?”

“No, it was clean other than the traffic tickets.”

“Hmm,” I said
air
ily, staring out his window at sheets of rain
.
I
slumped in my chair.

“
There’s
something even more peculiar
,” he said with a sly smile
.

“Let’s hear it,
”
I said, snapping out of my
rain-watching
trance.

“Well, it seems he
only recently changed his name to Dimitri LeMorte.
His real name is Charlie Bing.”

I stifled a laugh at the name of a
threatening-looking
horned man named Mr. Bing.

“Well, Charlie Bing doesn’t sound very
scary or
vampire
-
like, so I can see why he’d
want to go by
Dimitri LeMorte
,” I smirked.

“
Fiona,
Dimitri LeMorte
is related to Gerald Smith
—
the
fugitive
who
is after your father.”

I woke up the next morning with a
monster
headache and an aching sensation in the back of my throat.
I
figured it was because I had cried myself to sleep
.
I had an empty fe
eling
as if
I had lost
a family member, a best friend.
Luminal
wasn’t
there
,
but the mold of his body was still imprinted
on his dog bed in the corner of my room
.
I had never experienced sadness like this
.
It was
sorrow
I needed
J
anice to
help me
deal with
—
yet
she was in the hospital battling a
deadly infection
.
My door creaked open.

“Fiona, I have some good news for once,” my mother said as she popped her head in my bedroom.

I threw my legs on the side of my be
d and spun around to face her.
N
ewspaper in hand,
she
was undeniably cute wearing her red-rimmed reading glasses.

“Please, let’s hear it.
They caught Gerald Smith?
Janice is coming home
?
Haley’s in New Zealand?”

She
shook her head playfully.

“Fiona, be nice.
Janice is out of ICU and is doing much better today.
The doctor said
it’s
a miraculous recovery
,
but she’ll be there under close observation for at least five more days,”
she
reported.

I jumped off the side of my bed and rushed over to give her a quick hug.
I let out a sigh of relief
—
this day was going to be a better
one
.
My head was hot, maybe a fever,
I
shortened the hug
for fear of
her
noticing
—it didn’t take much to set off
her worrywart
trigger.

“Thanks for letting me know,
M
om
.
That’s wonderful news.
What about Haley?
She’s just here, stuck in the house?
How long is she suspended from school
—
or is she expelled?
When
is she going to New Zealand?”

T
he questions flooded in
to
my mind faster than I could
process. She
scowled at me, the lines of her forehead deepening with her displeasure.

“
D
on’t be tacky.
She
’s
your cousin so be nice and try to be supportive.
S
he’s not allowed to go back to
the high school
this year.
She’ll
have to enroll in an alternative program
on
Monday.
She
made
a new friend, a very pretty girl
,
gorgeous
—I hear
she comes from a good family.
In fact,
she’s
going on a doub
le date with her and some boys on Friday night
.”

My legs weakened
and instantly, my body forced a violent shudder.
Thinking
they’d
give out, I backed into my foam chair.
The thought of the
friend
my mother spoke of
being Camber Johnson
—
and the double date including
Wolfe nearly made me vomit all over my wood
en
floor.

“What about our house ban? Thought we weren’t allowed to go anywhere because of Gerald Smith?”

“Oh, Fiona. You know it’s impossible to prevent Haley from doing what she puts her mind to. Plus, I don’t think she’s in quite the danger that you are, sweetie, and this could be good for her.”

“
Not fair!
What is the friend’s name,
M
om
?
Do you know?”

I didn’t want to ask, but if I didn’t, I would be consumed with
curiosity
until I found out.

“I think it’s Amber or Camber
,
something like that.”

Feigning happiness for Haley, I took in slow, deep breaths to calm the chaos going on inside of me. I couldn’t lose my cool in front of my mother. My instinct compelled me to march
into Haley’s room to strangle her for being part of this new
-
found happy quartet.
After a strong exhale, I pretended something was caught in my throat,
and forced out my next words.

“And who is the boy
that Haley is going out with?”

“Carden Doyle.
I think he’s been over here for you before, huh?
Isn’t he in your forensic club?”

B
link
ing
my eyes
, I made
sure
I
was in reality and
not a
dream
.
Stunned.
M
y fever spiked a few degrees
and also became a reality
.
Carden Doyle was in
my
circle of friends.
He had even asked Maddie to the prom
,
and now he was
switching over to the dark side with my
trouble
-
making
cousin?
Could
Maddie
have
know
n
about this
?
I realized tha
t Maddie and Carden weren’t in an official
relationship, but she was happy that he asked her
to the prom
, nonetheless.
I would have to break the news to
her
—
she was my best friend
.
I could only guess
the fourth person was
Wolfe
.
A
ngry at the world with
a
n unjustified
rage
,
I
scolded myself for not doing anything to stop
th
e budding
relationship between Wolfe and Camber.

With a gaping hole in my heart, I
checked my emails on my home computer
.
I
found the daily report from Detective Chase
and scanned it as quickly as I could.
He
would pick me up after school
,
and I
was to
ride
with
him to some locations
to investigate
the case.
A much
-
needed distraction.

Still no bacon sizzling on the stove, I grabbed
a
strawberry Pop-tart from the kitchen pantry
and headed out to the
car
with
Agent Bronson
.
I wasn’t the kind that had to heat them in the toaster.
I was surprised he
dressed in a navy suit
. In an exceptional mood, he
chatted about baseball on the way
to school
; I don’t care for baseball, but he made it interesting, nevertheless
.

“Fiona, are you
alright
?
You
don’t look wel
l,”
he
inquired
.

“I’m fine
.
I might have a touch of something, but I’ll get over it by lunch, always do.
Have a great day!
”
I lied.

As
the day progressed,
a
sickness ravag
ed
my body.
It took all of the courage I could muster to
enter Mrs. Garcia’s class knowing I would see Wolfe
.
I’d need to suppress a brewing
tirade about him going out with Camber
on a double date with my horrid cousin
.

I didn’t like what I had become
on the
inside.
Looking at it from the outside perspective, I
behaved irrational,
like a crazy person.
Wolfe had given me chances to tell him how I felt
,
and I didn’t take advantage of any of them.
Granted, I was going through some difficult times, but I realized
I
never even told him what was going on with me.
He must have thought
I was
cultivat
ing
a professional working relationship with him
—as he requested
.
Maybe he thought I rejected him,
after all
, and he was throwing himself at Camber for a diversion
?
Maybe he was the one who was upset?
My reasoning made me feel worse
as I rounded the cor
ner and entered the classroom.

The bell
rang;
Wolfe’s chair at the front remained empty.
I scooted quickly to my seat
,
confused;
I
pulled out my spiral notebook.
He
hadn’t missed
one
day
of school
since
I could remember
.
I couldn’t imagine where he was
,
and then
,
the thought of him getting a schedule change raced in my mind
.
Was he that desperate to avoid me?
I couldn’t help it
,
so I sent him a text message
.

Wolfe, why are you not in class
?
I am going to have a club meeting at seven tonight.

I had a
motive for
the
meeting
, but
it was
, in the end,
necessary
—the
lab was still shut down at the school
.
To cover my tracks,
I also
shot
a text to the rest of the club
about the
meeting, hoping that nobody had a conflict.

As soon as the bell rang for lunch, I rushed to the nurse’s office and lied
about having a headache so I could get
Tylenol.
My mom kept a bottle in the nurse’s office for me in case I ever needed it.
I
needed
to reduce my
fever
;
I
was
getting
sicker
by the minute.

My appetite was nonexistent, so once I arrived
at
the cafeteria, I
grabbed a soda and bag of chips.
I caught Maddie up to speed on the meeting between Detective Chase and myself.
We
set the agenda for the
evening
club
meeting.
I also told her about Wolfe’s disappearance and the fact that he hadn’t answered my text message.
She
had not seen him, but she had seen Camber Johnson in the halls.
This gave me some relief
—at
least they we
re not skipping school together like my vivid imagination had already shown me. I asked her to go with the detective and
me
on the ride along. He had said I could bring one other club member; she was the obvious choice.

When the final bell rang, I rushed out
to
the parking lot and
he was waiting
.
Maddie was already in the backseat.
Haley was also waiting in the parking lot
and as a red Mercedes convertible drove up, she hopped in the passenger’s seat. The driver was Camber Johnson. I rolled my eyes as they sped away.

Agent Bronson, still assigned to watch over me, climbed into his
car
and followed as
the detective pulled the Impala ou
t of the parking lot.
My throat
burned, on
fire
,
and my fever
crept back, no longer warded off by Tylenol. I asked the detective nonchalantly to
stop at a convenience store so I could pick up my own bottle
.
He obliged
and after I
had
rushed in to make my purchase, I
sprinted back
to the car
.