“Well, I’m driving that,” I said, pointing to my car, “and I’m going to the high school—only a few blocks from here.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to ride with me?” he implored with a mellifluous voice as he smiled, exposing brilliantly white teeth. “If we’re going to the same place, it’s silly to take two cars, and you know I’m assigned to protect you.”
“I’m fine. I have all of my stuff in my car; I’d be naked without it,” I said playfully, skipping towards my car. “What could happen within a couple of blocks? I won’t lose ya!”
“Not a chance,” he brightened as he swiftly climbed into the driver’s seat, his engine already running.
In a matter of minutes, we were at the high school, and he pulled his car perpendicular to mine, stepping out of the drivers’ side.
“Fiona, I’ll be right here. Here’s my card. If you need anything, call me.”
My early morning classes had breezed by, and I found myself strolling into Mrs. Garcia’s classroom. Anticipating my morning dose of Wolfe, I picked up the pace to my seat, scurrying down the aisle. He wore a colorful beanie looking like it was inspired by Fruit Stripe gum, the edge of the hat landing right above his eyes, his hair flipping up over the rim.
He slipped me a folded note after saying an unusually formal hello. He seemed somber; I was reluctant to read the contents. If something terrible had happened, my frail emotions would shatter, given what I was dealing with in my life. Odd for him to write me a note, as most people our age sent text messages. Fearing the humiliation I’d endure if Mrs. Garcia confiscated the letter, I slipped it into my backpack to read later.
Wolfe never looked in my direction during class, which I found to be bizarre. He usually waited in the hall for me after class, but after the bell rang, he rushed out of the classroom and sprinted down the hallway. Was he angry with me? What had I done? No way, this had to be something else.
Maddie was anxiously waiting for me at our usual table in the cafeteria. She was the only club member with the same lunch period, but since she was my best friend, I loved it. She already had my tray of pizza and French fries waiting for me—the only entrée we found edible.
“Haley off to New Zealand?” she inquired with resignation as she gathered her long black hair into a messy bun on top of her head.
“Thank gosh, Maddie. A weight has been lifted. I mean, with all this crap going on, things have got to start going my way, you know,” I said curtly, throwing my backpack on the floor and sitting down on a green metal stool.
“What’s with the braids in your hair? Seems random. And the contacts? No glasses? And I see you’re wearing your picnic shirt,” she interrogated.
She read me like a book.
“Oh, just reacting to the stress of it all, I suppose. This is my way of aesthetically rebelling against stress,” I giggled softly, grabbing a French fry from my tray.
“Tell me, Fiona! Tell me what Detective Chase has updated you with—I cannot stand to wait until after school at the lab meeting. I thought about the cave and all the samples we collected all night. I even dreamed that Damien Lee was chasing me with that sword. It was so crazy.”
Her eyes widened with excitement like a toddler about to be read a fairytale.
“Alright, hold on, Maddie. I do have an email from him on my phone, but let me see what this is about first,” I said, pulling Wolfe’s note out of my backpack.
I unfolded it, and after scanning it quickly, I read it again to focus on every word:
Fiona, I formally apologize for everything I have done regarding my inappropriate behavior towards you. I should not have tricked you into saying yes to go with me to the prom or tried to take advantage of you in the cave when you were in a time of need. Then last night, I bothered you on the phone like a crazy stalker. You’re my ‘boss’ in your training program, and I know I am not allowed to act this way towards you. I respect you more than anybody I have ever met and would go crazy if I ruined our friendship. I understand your position 100%. Please accept my apology. Friends? Wolfe
My heart drained of its blood; I secretly gasped for air. Emptiness filled my chest cavity as the back of my tongue swelled, constricting my throat. With a great force, I swallowed to prevent choking, but soon realized it was just mental. I had lost something so significant. Yet, how could I lose something that was never mine? I gasped for air as my pores opened, the sweat gathering on the back of my neck. Maddie’s eyes investigated me. She asked if I was alright.
“I-I’m great. This is…nothing,” I lied, crumbling the note.
I ran over to one of the main trash bins, tossed it in, and came back to my stool, staring at my pizza, trying not to launch into a fit of tears.
She knew I was lying, but what was I going to say—I was sad because Wolfe was only friends with me? That was to be expected.
“What did the note say? Who wrote it?” she said, slapping her hand on the lunch table.
“It’s nothing. No worries. I just don’t feel good,” I said, diverting her attention away from the note; “I think I might be coming down with what Janice has. Let’s see what Detective Chase has to say.”
Her brows contorted into an uneasy angle as her expression turned sullen.
“How is Mrs. Santa Claus feeling?” she asked, chewing on the end of her last French fry.
We often referred to my nanny as Mother Christmas because she had a striking resemblance— white hair in a perfect bun, thin-framed glasses, and rosy cheeks with a pale complexion. Ironically, she often wore red velvet dresses.
“My mom said she was doing worse this morning, so she’s going to the doctor today. She’s never been sick like this; I don’t know what to do! I’ve never seen her with more than a minor head cold.”
Wolfe’s note flooded to the forefront of my mind as I pulled out my phone. The room moved in slow motion around me. A full panic launched inside of my head. My mind was in a conundrum, thoughts scattered, bouncing around in my skull. I didn’t know if I should scream, cry, or rush out of the cafeteria to find him in class. Every cell in my body ached to admit how I felt. I calmed myself and forced my fingers to pull up the report from the detective.
“Okay, here it is,” I whispered loudly as I pulled up the email. I scanned the text of the report. “Here’s the victim’s description—Jody James, 45, short brown hair, brown eyes. She was only 105 pounds and 4’10” tall. Oh my gosh, she was tiny like my mom!”
Maddie propped up on her elbows, attempting to read his email upside down from across the table.
“She was so small. How could such a small person do anything worth murdering her over?”
“Let’s see. It says she was wearing a gray plaid hoodie, had thin, tattooed and shaved eyebrows, a crooked nose—which he says here it might have been broken before,” I said, skimming the email, “Here’s a possible reason for murder—she was a major criminal.”
“Really? For what?”
Maddie leaned forward to get a smidge closer.
“Miss Christie, please get off the table and sit down in your seat,” an infamous voice resonated from a bullhorn across the cafeteria. It belonged to our big-nosed principal, Mr. Dinges.
“Yes, sir,” Maddie whispered as she settled back down onto her stool.
I smiled for the first time since seeing Wolfe’s note.
“Burglary, a few assaults, forgery, identity theft, impersonating a medical professional. Wow, she wasn’t a nice person.”
“Are you not hungry?” she inquired softly, pointing to my tray of food.
“Nah, you can have it if you want. I ate breakfast this morning,” I lamented. “With Janice sick, I ate a bag of chips. Chips keep me full all day.”
She grabbed my tray and slid it in front of her, picking up my pizza.
“There’s an argument—the murderer cleaned up society,” she chuckled.
“Not right to say that,” I countered bluntly, my foul mood was surfacing.
“I know, I’m o
nly joking,” she said, taking a giant bite of the pizza.
“So here’s the scoop on our main suspect. It seems as though Sydney Sergeant told the police last night after her arrest she was the last of the members to arrive at the cave for the meeting. She wasn't an official member of the vampire club, by the way. He says here you are not an official member until you are burned with the letters NA on your arm.”
“For not applicable?”
“I’m thinking it must have a deeper meaning. Sydney said when she arrived, Damien was holding the bloody sword, and the victim was already dead on the table. She claims she feared for her life and ran out of the cave, and the other three teens followed her. She believes they were going to kill her.”
Maddie shook her head slowly, staring at me for a prolonged moment.
“Oh my gosh, Fiona. Well, case solved, right?”
I shrugged.
“Due diligence. Everybody is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. We still have to process evidence, analyze the data, and discuss the case. Plus, Damien is adamant he was at home that night, and Victoria is claiming she was home. They deny being in the cave, so that’s where our cave samples might come into play. We have got to place them in the cave that night.”
Maddie’s expression was thought-ridden yet morose.
“Is there anything else?”
I examined the report for a few moments.
“Damien Lee. Leader of the House of the Nightmare Army,” I flinched as I spoke the words. “It seems the House is a section of the larger group, Order of the Black Moon. He says the House of the Nightmare Army recently downsized when three brothers, who were all members, were sent away to a military boot camp by their parents. This group must be trouble.”
She shrunk into her seat, cocking her head to the side in repulsion.
“Is the House of the Nightmare Army the name of the cult or something?”
“I guess, I don’t really understand it, but it might explain where the NA comes from. We spoke about him before—Damien’s a senior, large guy, over six feet tall, bulky, and very pale. His head’s shaved on one side.”
“Yep, the natural blonde— he dyes it jet black,” she added.
“He has tattoos across his knuckles that read LIFE SUXX. He lives with his grandmother in a trailer by Silver Springs Marina, and she has an advanced case of Alzheimer’s disease.”
“You know what, Fiona. That guy always has an Addams Family lunch box with him. I wonder what’s in there.”
“Funny you mention that. It says here he had it with him when he was picked up, as well as a backpack. The backpack had school folders, pens, pencils. The lunch box contained a small black book containing guidelines for vampires, a black candle and some unmarked vials of oil. No prior arrest record and never been in trouble at school.”
A minute of silence passed while I glanced over the rest of the email.
“His GPA is 1.9. He’s either rebellious or not very smart. He stated he joined the vampire cult at the age of thirteen. He is dating another cult member, Victoria Newsted.”
Maddie nodded her head in sarcasm.
“Figures. Who else is he going to date? He’s not exactly somebody to bring home to meet the parents.”
I shrugged a shoulder; I suppose I agreed.
“And they’ve already made a match with the latent and patent fingerprints on the sword. There were multiple prints belonging to each cult member including Victoria, Camber, Damien and even Sydney. Also, there are prints belonging to Emily Vance and an unknown individual. There was one patent print belonging to Damien Lee.”
“A bloody print?” Maddie inquired.
“Yes, and the rest of the prints were latent.”
“How is there a bloody print of Damien Lee’s if he claims he wasn’t at the cave?”
“Good question.”
Students exited in increasing numbers, I checked the cafeteria’s clock—almost time for the bell. I scanned the email at a faster pace.
“Oh, wait; it seems Camber Johnson didn’t have a long stay in jail. Her parents posted bond within thirty minutes of her arrival. She claims to have been at home and not in the cave that night. Her house is huge; her parents claim she was home and in her bedroom, although they admit to never seeing her.”
“Figures. She’s the only one with money in the group. Of course, her parents popped her out of jail immediately. Probably had their butler go to the station and escort her to a limousine,” Maddie whined cynically.
I heard a particularly distinctive voice from behind me.
“Oh crap,” I mumbled dismally, dropping my shoulders, twisting around to see if my ears had played tricks on me.
“What is it, Fiona?”
Scanning the cafeteria, I stopped on a familiar lanky blonde and locked into an antagonistic gaze with her. My cousin Haley had taken her place in line and was smiling at me like the Cheshire cat.
4 COSMAR ARMATA
“No freaking way! She didn’t get on the plane and crept back into school!” I shrieked, spinning my head back around to face Maddie—her face a mask of fury.
“Text your parents right now, tell them,” she demanded, glaring over my shoulder at Haley.
Cursing under my breath, I frantically shot off a text to my mom and another to my dad. I figured that she faked them out at the airport and probably hitched a ride back to school. This was just the kind of thing she would pull, especially with Janice ill. I wasn’t surprised after my initial shock wore off.
“Great, like we don’t have enough on our plates right now with everything that’s going on with my father!”
I sulked as I leaned down to grab my backpack.
The rest of the day was a mental nightmare. Panicked and saddened from Wolfe’s note, I couldn’t come up with a viable solution—it was a solid out for me in one instance, but my heart screamed it was a mistake to let go of him that way. My parents had warned me at an early age that a boy could derail my ambitions, so I had always remained cautious, never seeking relationships, keeping my nose in books. I had the rest of my life to worry with boys.
As soon as the end-of-the-day bell rang, I rushed into my lab for the scheduled lab meeting. Lauren and Willow filed in, followed by Maddie and Carden, who scrambled to his seat at the back of the lab, as usual. I waited for Wolfe for a few minutes before checking my text messages. Nothing.
“Oh, Fiona, I forgot to tell you. I saw Wolfe in the hallway, and he told me to let everybody know he had to jet after school and would miss the meeting,” Lauren reported in a raspy voice.
“Yeah, I saw him talking to that vampire chick, Camber, after fifth period, by the way,” Willow added sarcastically, laughing under her breath.
Irritation surged from my core at her words. I couldn’t believe that he wouldn’t tell me directly he was missing a lab meeting, as he’d never missed a lab meeting before. This was entirely strange.
“He was talking to one of the suspects, Willow? Are you sure?” I asked cautiously.
“Uh, yeah. She’s my next-door neighbor; I know her. They looked a little flirty if you ask me, but I could be reading into things.”
After swallowing the news of Wolfe’s hallway encounter, I rushed through the lab meeting and got everybody up to speed on the details from Detective Chase. I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. We processed the evidence and organized who would be in charge of each type of data before engaging in experiments on the samples we had collected.
The lab was dead silent, and I had forgotten about Gerald Smith until I noticed Agent Bronson pop his head into the lab—he had moved positions from the parking lot because the school had let out. He had taken a position outside of the laboratory door. After giving me a quick smile, he retreated to his spot in the hallway.
My phone vibrated, and I rushed to pull off my gloves to see who the text message was from, hoping it was from Wolfe. It was my father. He said Haley would stay with us until further notice. There was a last minu
te issue with the boarding school, and he promised to give me the details later. This was not good news. A text message came through a second later from my mother that essentially said the same.
After working in the lab for most of the evening, my assigned black suit followed me home, and I entered an eerily quiet foyer, exhausted.
I wandered around the house, looking for signs of life as I received a message from Detective Chase with an offer to buy us lunch at Chuck’s Diner the following day to discuss the case. I replied with a yes and forwarded the message to everybody on the team. Within a minute, Willow responded she had a potential conflict, Lauren and Maddie responded yes, and to my sadness, there was no response from Wolfe.
After checking on the status of Janice, Luminal, and Gerald Smith with my parents, and finding out there had been no progress on any of them, I jumped into bed with my clothes on from the day, quickly drifting off to sleep.
Saturday came in a flash. I had set my alarm to allow extra time to take a hot, soothing bath, which usually made the world right, but this time, the steamy soak didn’t work.
Agent Bronson followed Maddie and me to Chuck’s Diner. We climbed out of the car, walking by the sculptures of pink and turquoise fifties-style cars in front of the glass façade of the restaurant. We entered the main dining room; the scent of warm cheeseburgers invading my nostrils. The black-and-white checkered floor was disorienting as I gazed downward. Rounding the corner, I caught Lauren’s raspy voice.
Wearing camouflage overalls and a matching cap, she sat solo at a glittery table, rimmed with a replica car bumper at the front. Agent Bronson grabbed a table next to us, ordered coffee, and started reading the paper. Willow, in a navy blue pantsuit, showed up a few minutes later, explaining she had to attend her father’s medical lecture at Hartford, but she explained she snuck out to come to the meeting.
Fiona Frost: Order of the Black Moon Page 4
