Fiona Frost: Order of the Black Moon (41 page)

“I know, Detective.
I figured I had observed Alex Drumley long enough to know
h
e
’s
harmless
, he’s not the one
.
Unless he is a total psychopath and knows how to maintain a façade for multiple hours, he
’s
not a murderer by
my
intuition
.”

“Good you say that, Fiona.
Alex Drumley isn’t a suspect anymore.
He works part time at the
Godley Grove C
emetery
.
He clocked in at his job at
1:25 AM
the night of the murder
.
He must have got his paranormal readings in the cave and high
-
tailed it to make it to work on time.
The
murder was at 2
AM
by the autopsy and
witness accounts.
He’s not the one,”
the de
tective recounted.

“Good news
.
Glad to know I wasn’t in the cave with a murderer last night
.
Well, the vampire group showed up.
Freaked
everybody out
,
but I left right after they showed up
.
The
cult
went downstairs to
Dracul’s Den
.
Sydney
Sergeant
was with them
,
and she looked rather nervous.
I t
hought she wanted to disassociate with that group
?
You should check on her today, by the way.

“Will do, but the
Hartford
folks didn’t report any issues
from last night in the cave
, so I’m assuming everybody made it out
alright
.
One more thing.
The blood from the second murder in the cave came back as a match to a frequent blood donor
that works at Huntville Prison.
This person is not dead, in fact, made it to work last night.
”

“Well, then it was a staged crime scene.
Nobody died, right?”

“
Doesn’t look that way.”

“
Parker Thomas
’s
wife works at the prison.
Gerald Smith, who is the only suspect in the
staged
murder due to his bloody fingerprint on
the altar
, escaped from prison on an inside job.
Don’t know what to make of that, but I’ll add it to my evidence board to see if it fits,” I said before
ending the call.

After I
had
finished de
vouring
my breakfast,
the
doorbell r
a
ng.
Janice
hummed as she strolled to the front door to answer it.
I
heard her
voice grow in
excitement as
she promised somebody a batch of cookies.
Heavy footsteps marched down the hallway, passing Haley’s room.
I knew whoever it
was;
they were there for me and would be in my room in seconds.
I figured it was Maddie, coming to catch up on what happened the night before.

My door creaked
;
and I gasped upon seeing
Wolfe
barg
e
into my room.
I shrunk to two-
inches tall
, searched my room for a
hole
to crawl into
and hide.
H
umiliated
.
How could he see me like this?
T
o make it
worse;
I had a wiped
-
free
breakfast
plate
on my tray
like a
gluttonous
pig.

“Fiona, you
’re
going to list
en to what I have to say,” he s
aid sternly
as
he shut my door and locked it
, his eyes penetrated my core
.

He
marched
towards
me
, moved my t
ray out of the way
, grabbed my hands
,
and pulled me
gently
to my feet.
I stood directly before him in the center of my room
,
wearing a pajama duo that said
light’s out
across the cami in bold, pink lettering and
good night
across the back of the boxer shorts.
I bent m
y head downward,
tracing the wooden grooves of the floor with my eyes
, realizing my hair
resembled
Medusa’s snakes
.

H
is
warm
breath
misted
the top of my head.
Nudging my chin
upward with the side of his hand
, I
locked
eyes with him
.
I turned
my head
to the side
,
wish
ing
I could will
my hairbrush
into my hand and stop time
.
U
neasy
, I despised him seeing me
so
disheveled.

“Fiona,
you have to
hear me out
.
Will you agree to do that?
It will be more difficult for you to ignore me, walk away, or leave me s
ince I’m locked in your bedroom,
”
his voice was serious
as
he cracked a
guarded
smile.

Melting
inside as he stood before me,
I fought
to remain a steel façade
.
I glowered in irritation.

“Yes, I
’ll
listen to what you have to say, but I can’t
guarantee
it will change anything that happened in the past," I warned,
breaking free from his hold,
taking a step backward
and folding my arms across my chest.

I nonchalantly finger brush
ed
my long, straight hair.

“Fiona, you look beautiful.
In fact, more beautiful than ever,” he said softly
, pushing my hand away from my hair
.

“This won’t work, Wolfe.
You can’t buy
my trust back with compliments,” I protested,
my voice wasn’t as steady as desired.

“Listen to me, Fiona.
Camber asked me a couple of days ago if she could confide in me
,
and I said yes.
She made me swear on my relationship with you I wouldn’t say anything to anybody no matte
r how I felt about it afterward,
”
his velvet voice turned brittle.

When he said the words
relationship with you
, my heart
raced
with
the speed of a thousand horses
, sparking flutters in my stomach
.
We stared into each other’s eyes for a prolonged moment, his brows furrowed in frustration.

“What do you mean,
relationship
with
me?
Why was I brought into it?”

Wolfe
searched the
ground
with his eyes
for a long moment before
gazing
at me with an intensity of a speeding train
, “Fiona,
”
he mumbled with a chafed undertone.

My face was frozen, blushing.
I
had
no idea what he was
about
to say.
My breathing
became shallow
as he squared his shoulders to me, brushing the back of his fingers across my cheek.

“And then what did she tell you, Wolfe
?
”
I
blurted,
combating
the awkwardness that had risen in the room.

He pressed his full lips together, staring at me through narrowed eyes, deciding how he would respond
, eyes flashing to the floor and then back at me.

“She
admitted
the cult was there.
They
went for a m
eeting and
discovered
the victim.
Damien thought it was cool, picked up the sword and pretended to stab the victim again.
Victoria
thought it was
hysterical
,
laughed
and encourag
ed
him
to continue.
Camber said
she was scared and made
the
decision to
leave
the group.
Damien asked Victoria to take a picture of him holding the sword over the victim
.
That is
when Sydney arrived, took one look at
the scene, and ran out of there,
”
he said coldly, his flawless face hard and bitter
as
it inclined
towards me
.

Feeling a chill tingle along my spine,
I was so
appalled, unable to speak.
I couldn’t imagine being so callous to find a dead body and mock being the murderer
—
it was beyond my comprehension.
I could see why Wolfe,
promising in advance he would say nothing, was
caught
in a conundrum.
I
shrank back, settling
onto the covers of my
bed
, jaws tensed as I gazed at
him
.
Janice lightly tried the door handle bef
ore gently knocking on my door.

“Cookies
, Wolfie
!” she sang playfully.

His
eyes widened as he
sprinted over to my bedroom door, unlocked it and swung
the door
open.

“Sorry, M
iss
Parker.
I was trying to make sure Fiona couldn’t
escape until she heard me out
.”

“Well, Wolfie, that is an excellent strategy,”
she
chuckled,
setting down the cookie plate and picking up my
breakfast tray.
“Can I get you youngsters anything else?”

“No ma’am, these cookies look awesome
.
Thanks!
”
he
said enthusiastically, picking up a cookie with a
wolf
face drawn on top in frosting.

Detective Chase’s picture flashed on my phone
as it rang,
and I
answered on speaker.

“Hello
,
Detective Chase, what’s up?
”
I said, putting an index finger to my lips
for
Wolfe to remain quiet.

He nodded accordingly and grabbed a couple of cookies, lunging to sit next to me on my bed.

“Fiona,
as discussed,
the blood from the
staged
murder was a living blood donor from the prison, but we might have found a body
, nonetheless
.
Maybe a separate murder altogether or maybe the living blood donor’s blood was a cover for it, who knows?
The investigators uncovered a fresh grave not too far from Damien Lee’s trailer at the Lakeside Trailer Park.”

Deciding to put our differences aside,
I asked Wolfe to wait in the living room
as
I
threw myself
together.
I
sent a
text message to
the
team to meet us there
.
After a rapid shower, blo
w
dry and
tooth brushin
g, I
threw my hair into a
ponytail
and got dressed.
Skipping the contacts, I
grabbed my
black-rimmed glasses.
Pausing at the mirror, I threw a
touch of color to my
cheeks
and a thin sheen of glittered
lip-gloss
, spraying a mist of
perfume
my aunt had bought me for Christmas
.
Why not?

Wolfe and Janice were in a deep conversation about p
uppy rearing and how much effort needs to be put into training a new dog
.
An unexpected wave of tears was
at the ready the moment I thought of Luminal and how terribly I missed him. I fought the tears back into their wells, pushing the case to the forefront of my mind.

“Ready?” I
inquired.

“I’m always ready.
We riding with B-
F
ed
?
”
Wolfe said in a soft tone, followed by an enchanting laugh.

“Yes, he’s in the front driveway,” I
said with a
laugh
, “I suppose you are referring to Agent B as B-Fed, right?”

“Figured he needed a nickname,” he
shrugged;
his
dazzling
eyes me
eting
mine
as
he held the door open.

The sun
sh
ined
brightly from a cloudless sky, the birds chirp
ed
from nests in the trees overhanging my driveway.
Spring was around the corner,
and
this was the first sunny day since wi
nter
that broke
the
sixty-degree threshold.
We
headed out to the
fresh
grave
,
Agent Bronson
nattering
about
racecars
along the way
.
I imagined he was running out of topics to talk to teenagers about, and I hoped, for his sake, they would find Gerald Smith soon.
As we pulled
behind a string of police cars next to
a
curb,
Wolfe
spotted
Detective Chase
sprint
ing
towards the
car
.

“I’ll be right here waiting for you guys,” Agent Bronson said, killing the motor and cracking his driver’s side window.

As I climbed out of the
passenger
side door,
the detective
approached, gasping for breath
, “Fion
a, Wolfe.
Glad to see you
,” he
said, hesitating
while gasping a few times, “and over there, behind those trees, there is a freshly dug grave.
There was a large amount of extraneous vegetation covering the dirt, but
during the search
for the body in the second
, potentially staged
murder
, the investigators found this,”
he
said, his face serene.

“How can you tell it’s fresh?
”
Wolfe stared in
blank astonishment as we walked over to the scene.

“
T
he tracking dogs found it first
.
They are specially trained cadaver dogs that look for the scent of
fresh
decayed flesh.”

I
had
winced for a half second before I realized how
refreshing
it
was the dogs could be trained to find such a thing.
However,
I was sad
for the dogs having to seek
such an
odor
.

“There’s such a thing
as
fresh
decayed flesh
?
”
Wolfe
mused, laughing in a soft,
charming
manner
.

I smacked him on the arm and smirked.
His
eyes widened, laughing at my reaction.

“Yes, there is,”
he
chuckled.
"The dirt was sunk in a bit as it settled and left a depression in the vegetation pile.
Obviously, whoever dug the grave didn’t pack the dirt well and it settled down.
We
used
ground
penetrating radar
to detect heat and nitrogen
which are
both
byproducts of decay.
We passed a metal detector, used to detect jewelry, belt buckle
s
, but nothing was
there
.
Not
surprising
, not all victims are clothed,
and most of the time, their jewelry has been removed by the perpetrator
.”

“So, we know that somebody is buried there for sure, huh?
”
I asked hastily
.

“
L
ooks that way.
”

We stood in the background of the investigators,
watch
ing them
carefully dig
the dirt from the
fresh grave
. We
took
a seat on the curb by the road
, settling in to wait
—
the detective informed us there wouldn’t be much to look at until they
got to the body
.
Within minutes, a news van
pulled onto the scene
and the reporter and camera crew jumped out, getting ready for their news report.

The detective
gave me a long stare to
observe how
Wolfe and I were interacting
as we sat on the curb
.
I was growing tired of his crusade to keep an eye on us.
I didn’t
have time to process the fact Wolfe had made a deal
to keep quiet
on our relationship
.
That meant a lot to me.
That also told me as much as Camber talked to him about Ralph Booner, he must have talked
to her
about me.
I could see his side of things now, even though I had
previously
convinced myself
the night before
there was no way for him to talk his way out of it
.
There I
was again, being the irrational
person
I despised
.

After a few minutes of silence,
Detective Chase sauntered over
towards
us
.

“
As I explained earlier, t
he lab contacted the blood bank
and made a match to the donor,
”

“
T
o a prison worker, a frequent
blood
donor?
”

“Correct.
Well, to make it more interesting, the blood used in the
staged
murder is a match to the blood stolen from the blood bank prior to the murder.”

“No way!
Victoria!
”
I exclaimed, shaking my head in wonder.

“Our guys on the case can’t link it to her in any way, it’s ju
st hearsay from Dimitri LeMorte,
and who knows what his motive
was
for telling
on her.
But we do know it has
something
to do with him or Victoria
.
Or who knows, now I think about it.”

“He could h
ave heard about the blood bank burglary
on the news and
blame
d
it on Victoria for some
weird
reason,” Wolfe pondered.

“True.
But evidence is evidence,” Detective Chase said, straining to
keep
a watchful
eye on
the grave investigation.

“
By the way, Detective, h
ow
’s
your
rash from the curse
?
”
Wolfe
asked
candidly
.

“It’s the craziest thing ever.
I have these complete circle looking things all over my body now
,
they
don’t bother me
physically,
but they
are
odd
.
I’ve been to the
dermatologist
twice now
,
and they say
they won’t treat it if they’re
not bothering me.
They said
to watch it, and
it will probably go away
. They blame it on
stress.”

“
Weird,” I said
as
footsteps rush
ed
up behind me.

“Fiona!” a feminine voice shrieked.

I spun around and
observed
a frantic Sydney
Sergeant
, tears rushing down her face
as she raced towards me.

“Fiona!
Fiona Frost!
”
s
he shout
ed
.

I looked at Detective Chase, and W
olfe
,
before turning
back to
Sydney
, her expression peppered with untainted fear.

“Fiona, you don’t know me—
”

“I know who you are, Sydney,” I said bluntly, surveying her innocent features, her hair in perfect spiral curls that transformed from brown, to blonde to blue
tips.

“I-I imagine you do
.
I just
saw a live news report on television
,
and you were on it
,
so I knew where you were and rushed right over here.
Can you talk to me
?
In private.
For
just a moment
?
”
Sydney asked quietly, darting her eyes
between
the detective
, Wolfe, and myself
.

I looked at
the detective
for approval before nodding and gesturing to move down the road a bit for privacy.
We marched out of earshot,
and
she stared at my face intently.

“Fiona,” she panted before inhaling deeply
.
“I don’t want to be in that crazy cult
anymore
.
I know
you saw me with them in that cave
on Friday night
,
but Dimitri won’t let me quit.
He said once you commit, you cannot quit
,
or they will remove your tongue while you sleep.
He said there will be no trace of them coming into my house
,
and I will wake up unable
e
ver
to
speak of the O
rder again,
”
she
spluttered, bursting into a fit of tears.

“Calm down, Sydney,” I sighed, rubbing
her scrawny shoulder.

“
But I know Damien did it.
I saw him!
He was holding the knife, laughing, and there’s a picture of it all on Victoria’s phone.
I
saw them all with the victim!”

“Before or after her death, Sydney
.
That is what is key here.”

Sydney
wiped her tears from her cheeks, staring attentively
at the ground for a
long moment.

“Well, she was already dead by the time I got to the cave
and down into Dracul’s Den
.
There was blood everywhere.
I came down the steps
,
and
Damien grabbed me by the arm and made me look at
that lady
.
There was so much blood
,” Sydney said, widened eyes welling up
again
with tears.