“How’s Laney? She’s not getting sick, is she?” I asked.
“Your mom says she’s just fine. She and your dad want to take Laney overnight to give your antibiotics twenty-four hours. I told them you would let them know when you got home,” Thorn said.
“That’s how long I’ll be contagious?” I asked.
“It is,” Dorian said and patted my hand.
“You go,” I said to Thorn. “Dorian and I will work all of this out.”
“Take good care of her,” my husband said to Dorian.
He kissed me and then left.
“Okay, so this is the girlfriend, I think,” Dorian said and turned the laptop screen a little more toward me. “It looks like her, right?”
“Camilla Page,” I said. “Yeah, that’s her.”
“You just relax and let me go through her stuff. I scratched the surface already, but I wanted your confirmation it was her before I dove too deep,” Dorian said.
I plucked at the blanket over my legs and stared at the wall while I drank my Sprite. We’d already long since finished our popsicles, and I was starting to get hungry. I took that as a good sign. “You don’t get a meal in the ER, do you?” I asked Dorian.
“You want me to get you something to eat?” Dorian asked. “I can go down to the cafeteria.”
“Is that allowed?” I asked.
“As me if I care,” he returned.
“I should wait for the doctor to tell me it’s okay for me to eat,” I said.
“Have it your way,” Dorian said.
He went back to clicking away. I was about to pick up the television remote and start trying to work it again when Dorian turned and looked at me with wide eyes. “What? What is it?” I asked.
“There’s another girl,” Dorian said. “I mean, there was a new girl in the group.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“Around the time that Alicia ran away, a new girl starts appearing in all of the pictures with the others. I didn’t notice the shift until now, but looking at Camilla’s pictures after Alicia was gone, there are a lot of the new girl. More of just the two of them than of the entire group together. It would appear that after Alicia ran away, Camilla and this new girl started spending a lot of time together.”
“But if Alicia was gone and out of the picture, there wouldn’t have been any reason for either of them to hurt her,” I said. “What do you think it means? Because you’ve still got this look on your face.”
“I don’t know what it means,” Dorian said. “But I’m not convinced that it means nothing.”
Chapter Eight
Two boring hours later, I was released from the hospital. Thorn was still gone, so Dorian helped me out to his car.
“I want to stop for something to eat,” I said as Dorian helped me into his passenger seat. I felt like a little old lady with him fussing over me.
“Your husband said he’d arrest me if I took you anywhere but home,” Dorian countered. “And I believe him. We can order delivery when we get there.”
“Delivery will take like a half hour,” I complained.
“You have snacks at the house. Don’t try to play me, Kinsley. I know you keep lots of snacks,” Dorian chastised.
“Fine,” I relented. “Fine.”
Dorian laughed as he closed my door and rushed around to the driver’s side. I tried the entire way back to Hangman’s House to get him to stop at every restaurant we passed. There were only a few, but he seemed ready to strangle me as we drove past the last one.
“You suck and I hate you,” I declared.
“No, you don’t,” Dorian said as we turned onto my street.
“You’re right, but you’ve got to make it up to me. Can you order sausage pizza, breadsticks, toasted ravioli, those mozzarella cheese sticks, tiramisu, and the chocolate chip cannoli?”
“Do you want the cheese-toasted raviolis or the ones with meat?” Dorian asked.
“Get both,” I said as we pulled into the driveway.
“Anything else?” Dorian asked with a chuckle.
“If you want anything… I’m buying so get whatever you want,” I said.
“Wait, that’s all for you? You’re not going to share?”
“I mean, if you want the same things, just double the order. If we have extra, it’s all good reheated,” I said. “Plus, Thorn will be home at some point. He doesn’t eat as much as me, but who knows if he’s eaten today,” I said and pulled my debit card out of my purse. “Here, use this to pay for it all. Make sure you leave a good tip.”
“All right,” Dorian said as he took the card. Some people never got used to how much witches could eat.
We went inside the house, and Dorian went right to the dining room to set up his laptop. My mom was walking around rocking Laney and singing while Dad sat on the sofa petting Meri.
“How’s he doing?” I asked Dad. I probably should have asked about Laney first, but Thorn had already told me she was okay. Plus, the smile on my Mom’s face revealed that they were just fine.
“I’m feeling much better,” Meri answered. “And I’m also right here.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I thought you might be sleeping. Your eyes were closed, but you’re right… I won’t ever inquire as to your health again.”
“Whatever,” Meri said and jumped off the sofa. “Thanks for everything,” he said to my parents.
Dad got off the sofa as Meri ran upstairs. “I just fed him salmon and some bacon. Whatever was wrong with him must be tied to you somehow. He got pretty bad there for a while, but as soon as you were in the hospital, he started to get better.”
“I’m so sorry, you guys,” I said. “Thank you so much for watching Laney.”
“You don’t need to be sorry,” Dad said. “We will take Laney anytime you want. You don’t need a reason, and you don’t need to feel bad about needing to get out of the house and spend time with your friend.”
“I still think it’s a good idea for you to let us take her with us,” Mom said. “Just to keep her from getting sick. If you can’t handle her being away or she can’t, we can always bring her back. Any time of night, you know we’ll drive her right back over here.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” I admitted. I knew that a lot of the reason I’d gotten as sick as I had was my own doing, but I still didn’t want to risk Laney getting that sick. “I took my first dose of the antibiotics at the hospital. Fortunately, you can fill your prescriptions there. I’ll make sure I get three doses in twenty-four hours.”
“Your father and I will be back here and on your porch twenty-four hours from your first dose,” Mom said. “We promise.”
Laney was asleep in my Mom’s arms, and as much as I wanted to hold her and snuggle, I let them leave quietly. “Call me right away if she gets sick,” I said.
The said they would, and then were gone. Dorian emerged from the dining room.
“Pizza and all the other stuff will be here in twenty minutes,” Dorian said. “Don’t kill me when you see your bank statement.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “I’m the one who told you to order all that.”
“Are you okay?” Dorian asked. “Is this your first time with the baby away?”
“It is, but I’m okay. She loves my parents, and I doubt it will upset her,” I said. “Am I a bad mom for not falling apart?”
“Not at all. You’ve been doing nothing but Mom duty for five months. It’s okay to take some time and breathe,” he said.
“I’m sorry…” I started to say.
“Don’t you dare apologize for focusing on your baby,” Dorian cut me off. “Everyone understands. Everyone but you.”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m doing everything wrong,” I said.
“You’re not, but it’s absolutely normal to feel that way,” Dorian countered. “You want to sit in the dining room or in here? I can bring the laptop into the living room.”
“To eat?” I asked.
“No, to talk to Camilla. I
reached out to her on the site, and she’s going to chat with us. She’s waiting for her parents to leave for some church thing,” he said.
“Does she know why we want to talk to her?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And she’s still willing?”
“I think she wants to know more about what happened to Alicia,” Dorian said.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” I asked.
“No, but when has that ever stopped us? Camilla is eighteen. Her parents might not like it, but she’s free to talk to us if she wants,” Dorian countered.
“Okay,” I said. “But you’re taking the lead on this.”
“I planned on it,” Dorian said.
“Are you doing a type chat or video?” I asked.
“Video,” Dorian said. “And, I’m going to be recording it so we can go back later an analyze her responses if we want.”
“Let’s do it in here, then. That way I can sit next to you on the sofa, and she won’t know I’m here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I got Dorian and myself a Coke from the kitchen and then snuggled up under a blanket on the opposite end of the sofa from him. I was about to ask him what we were going to do if the pizza arrived while he was chatting with Camilla, but a young woman’s voice came through the computer.
“Hello? Are you there?” she asked.
“I am,” Dorian said and plopped down on the sofa in front of the laptop. “Sorry, I was grabbing a drink.”
“Okay. Hello,” Camilla said. “We’re going to have to make this quick. My brother is going to be home from practice soon, and he’ll be nosy if he hears me talking to someone.”
“Understood,” Dorian said.
“So, I heard on the news that they found Alicia’s body,” Camilla said softly. “Do you know how she died?”
“How did you hear that on the news?” Dorian asked her. “As far as I know, the whole thing has been pretty quiet. We haven’t had any major news outlets show up. Not that they ever do around here.”
“I follow some small, independent news sources,” Camilla said. “They write or vlog about cases that the national news doesn’t care about. But I think that might change.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“They might get interested. A gay teen runaway found buried in a new construction house? That’s got sensational written all over it. I’m actually kind of surprised they haven’t jumped on it yet, but no one in Alicia’s family is talking either.”
“Because of the church?” Dorian asked.
“If you want to call it that,” Camilla retorted.
“What would you call it?” he followed up.
“What everyone else does. It’s a cult. They’re a Christian sect, though, so folks aren’t so quick to make a huge deal out of it, but I’m getting out of here as soon as I can. I would’ve already left except… except for my brother. I’m staying until I can take him with me.”
I got the feeling she wasn’t talking about her brother. I poked Dorian in the leg and hoped he’d picked up on it too. He gave me an almost imperceptible nod.
“Does you brother want to leave?” Dorian asked. “How old is he?”
“He’s sixteen, and he’ll be graduating in a little over a year. Normally, we wouldn’t be allowed to go to secular school, but the small town we live in is almost all church members. All the kids in school are in the church too, and so are most of the teachers. The ones that aren’t respect it enough that it doesn’t bother the Elders. Anyway, the parents let the kids go to school so they can play sports on the state’s dime.”
“Your brother’s practice,” Dorian observed. “Were you in sports?”
“Alicia and I both played basketball,” Camilla said. “My new… I have friends that play volleyball.”
“Your new what?” Dorian asked as gently as he could. She’d dropped a nugget of the story just then, and he would latch onto it like a pit bull. I only hoped that he could be delicate enough to keep her on the chat. If he got too aggressive, she could just log off, but Dorian was a professional. So, I took a deep breath and listened.
“I… I shouldn’t talk about that,” Camilla said.
“Why not?” Dorian returned. He’d do that. He’d keep answering her with questions until she either came clean or let something else slip.
“It feels wrong after finding out about Alicia,” Camilla said. “I mean, I’ve felt guilty about it for so long. Mostly because I’ve always thought that Alicia was still alive. I thought she’d come back someday, and it would be a mess.”
“What would be a mess?” Dorian asked.
“Just before Alicia ran away, a new family moved to town. They joined the church, and they have a daughter. She’s a grade behind me, so I have to wait. Even if my brother won’t go, we’re leaving,” Camilla said almost breathlessly. “Even if Alicia had come back, I wouldn’t have gotten back together with her. Don’t get me wrong, I loved… love her. But it was as a friend.”
“Why’s that?” Dorian asked. “Did you guys have a falling out?”
“It wasn’t anything like that. Not for me anyway. We were only together because we were the only ones. The only gay girls here. She would have been my best friend for life, but I wasn’t in love with her,” Camilla said.
“Did Alicia know that?” Dorian’s voice was so soft when he asked. He sounded like he was trying to coax a frightened kitten out of danger.
“Are you trying to imply that I’m the reason why she ran away?” Camilla’s face turned bright red. “Well, I’m not. Her parents were going to send her to that awful place. Our breakup is the reason they found out. She was upset, and Alicia got sloppy. We’ve worked so hard to keep it all a secret, but we were outside fighting. Well, she was mad at me. We though we were far enough away from the house so her parents wouldn’t hear us talking, but Alicia kept raising her voice. They heard her, and they knew. They knew when they saw me. Saw that she was yelling the things she was yelling at a girl. My back was turned, so her father didn’t see my face. He came out expecting to find her arguing with a boy, but it was me. I heard him behind us, and I ran. I ran without looking back, so nobody knows it was me.”
“You took a big risk talking to me,” Dorian said.
“Like I said, Alicia was my best friend. She was my first love even if it didn’t work out to be forever. I was hoping you could tell me more about how she died. Whether she was in pain or not. Maybe you could tell me if I… If I caused her to do this to herself,” Camilla choked up at that.
Tears flowed down her face, and she tried to grind them away with the backs of her hands. I even heard Dorian sniffle for a second, but he composed himself in a flash.
“I don’t think I should tell you too much about the investigation because it might prevent her death from being solved,” Dorian said. “But I seriously doubt she killed herself.”
“She was found buried, right? And there was… there wasn’t much left?” Camilla swallowed hard.
Clearly someone had been talking, but who that could be was a mystery too big and not important enough to worry about. Focusing on small-town gossip about the murder would only distract us, and probably not lead us to the killer in any way.
“There isn’t any evidence that I know of that Alicia committed suicide,” Dorian said.
I watched as Camilla took a deep, shuddering breath. She seemed to relax, and when she wiped her tears away, no more fell.
“I should go soon,” Camilla said. “My brother is going to be home any minute, and I need to get his dinner ready. He’ll be starving.”
“One more question,” Dorian started. “Do you think it’s possible that either of Alicia’s parents could have had anything to do with her death?”
“I have to go, my brother just walked in,” Camilla said and disconnected the chat.
The thing was, I hadn’t heard anyone. If her brother had arrived loudly enough for her to hear, there was a good chance Dorian and I woul
d have heard it too. It was almost as if Camilla hadn’t wanted to answer the question about Alicia’s parents. She had wanted to avoid it so much that she cut the chat and never gave Dorian a chance to answer her questions. Because other than stating he didn’t believe it was suicide, he’d skirted the rest of her questions.
“That was weird,” I said as Dorian closed the laptop.
“You don’t think her brother really got home?” Dorian asked.
Black Arts & Bones (Familiar Kitten Mysteries Book 11) Page 9
