Fiona Frost: Order of the Black Moon (40 page)

Camber Johnson jumped up
, hiding
behind Ralph Booner.
Wolfe pushed me up
right, rushing over
to take a stance beside Ralph.
I was slightly irritated at his choice of a position, but stumbled to my feet and
took
a spot at the back of the group.

The lights of the monitors shone bright enough where I eventually could make out who
was standing before us.
It was Dimitri LeMorte, Damien Lee, and Victoria Newsted.
Sydney
Sergeant
trailed in behind them, posing in an awkward stance,
sheen
of sweat on her forehead glowing from the luminosity bouncing off the monitors scattered about the room.

“Camber!
Let’s go!
Time for our meeting, dear,” Dimitri
spoke
in a nearly comical false foreign accent.

A few police officers who
had been
standing guard of the cave
entrance
sauntered in behind Dimitri’s group
, squaring their shoulders as they halted a few feet in front of him.

“Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to leave,” the officer said sternly.

Agent Bronson joined the officers,
hand on his weapon in the holster,
searching
the cave for my location
. He nodded
upon seeing me, unruffled.

“Excuse me
, I’ve done
nothing wrong.
We are simply having a group meeting downstairs
.
If these nice young people can have a meeting, we should be able to have a meeting,” Dimitri argued
, his accent changing drastically as he spoke.

“Mr. LeMorte, given what has gone on in the cave—
”

“You’ve seen me here
;
there are witnesses.
What exactly do you think I’m going to do?
Are you saying, Officer, that you are allowing this group of individuals to meet in the cave
,
but not
my
group of individuals?
All you need to do is say
it
and we can deal with this tomorrow.
With all of my
people
, a
t your station
…and news cameras
,
” Dimitri
said in a threatening Russian accent.

The officer surveyed the
room
and then shook his head in disgust.

“We will be right outside if you need us
,”
he
scoffed, staring at our group, “and a
ll you need to do…all any of you need to do is scream,” the officer said sarcastically
, spinning around to march
down the corridor.

Camber broke down in tears as Ralph and Wolfe tried to console her.
The
cult
members laughed maniacally
, crawling into
the tunnel
towards
Dracul’s Den
.
Sydney
Sergeant
turned for a second
,
gazing
at me with an apologetic
expression
before following the others into the
tunnel
.

“I-I-I told you that they w-w-would try to make me stay in the cult.
Dimitri said if I quit, he would cut out my tongue,” Camber whimpered.
“I told you, Wolfe.
We were
here;
our group was always here during the
Witching Hour
and tonight is no different.
But that lady was already dead!”

Wolfe looked at her in dismay and then turned to me.
My blood boiled with a fury he hadn’t mentioned to me
she
had confessed to being in the cave the night of the murder
.
We all knew they were there, but they
held strong
as a unit, trying to maintain their alibis
of not being
there
the night of the murder
—
even when the evidence placed them there.
Wolfe had crossed the threshold into
the biggest betrayal of a crime lab.
Withholding evidence.

“I’ve got to go
.
I’ll have Agent Bronson drive me home.
Lauren, can you give Wolfe a ride to his house?”

“Uh, sure, Fiona.
No problem
.
What’s wrong?”

“Did you hear what Camber just said?”

“No?”

“Ask Wolfe.
He knows,” I said
, storming
out of the cave.

My mind spun around in circles, trying to find a way out
—t
oo
difficult to sleep with
fury
coursing
through my veins.
I silenced my phone
, ignoring
Wolfe
’s repeated calls
.
B
etrayal
. Lies. There
was no way
he
could talk his way out
of it
.
Camber had
confessed
a valuable piece of evidence
for the case
,
and he
didn’t bother
to report it to the group
—even appeared as if he had e
ncourage
d
her to
keep quiet.

Questions without answers, riddled with grim sarcasm, floated through my conscious.
How long was
he
going to let it go without telling me
about Camber’s admission
?
How could I ever trust him again?
And for her?
Was she wort
h ruining our friendship
?
I finally drifted off to sleep.
The next thing I
remember was
Janice’s voice.

“Fiona!
Fiona!
”
Janice
sang as she pulled open my drapes and fastened them with the rope ties on the wa
ll.
“Honey, it’s nearly noon!”

I peeked at
her
with narrow slits
as
my retina
s soaked in the sunrays
.
I stretched
my limbs
inside of my new
satin sheets, feeling
along
the soft faux fur of my new bedding.
I wasn’t ready to get up, but I appeased
her
,
gazing at
m
y tray of breakfast with a smile.
She turned on
the
television and asked me if there wa
s anything else I needed.

“No, I
’m
fine, Janice.
You
’re
too good to me!
”
I said groggily.

“Well, don’t say that yet.
I have a
little
favor to ask of you
, if you will,” she said demurely
from around the corner
, pulling
a
second tray of breakfast and placing
it in front of my bed
.
She wouldn’t look at me as she straighte
ne
d my bedding
.
I assumed
she was doing this
for
someone
else
to
join me
.

“Are you joining me for breakfast, Janice?”

“Oh, heaven’s no, dear.
You’ve got company.”

“Oh my.
Who?”

Wolfe
’s face flashed in my mind
,
and
a sense of critical apprehension rushed over me.
He couldn’t see me
with a puffy face and crazy hair.

“Just be calm, Fiona and hear this person out,
alright
?”

“Janice, if it is Wolfe, I’ll die
.
Please don’t let him in here!”

“It is not Wolfe, dear.
It’s somebody else who would like to offer their deepest apology to you
.
Stay
calm;
do I have your word?”

P
latinum curls
bounced from
around the
threshold
.
Haley
eased into the room donning
a tiny grin.
She
strolled
over, taking a seat
next to my feet on my bed.

“I will leave you two alone.
Please hear
her out, Fiona,”
she said, hesitating for a moment before exiting.

Every muscle tensed as I
glar
ed
at
her
, waiting for her to make
another move to destroy my room
.
In
stinctively I clenched my jaws
with the intensity of my focus.

“Fiona, I
’m sorry
.
I was wrong to bust in
your lab
without tellin
’ ya.
But I really didn’t break
in
!
I borrowed your key and only
jacked
a few
things
I
didn’t think you’d
miss.
It was
the
janitor
dude
who
ratted me out
and made it a
big deal
,”
she
defended, grabbing a piece of toast.

I cogitated her words for a moment before responding
, silencing her with an icy
stare
.
The tone of her voice
surprised me.
She sounded rehearsed, but there was something sincere about her delivery.
I broke the silence.

“Haley, you broke in and stole my things.
Not only that, since it is a federally funded lab, you nearly cost me the entire program and everything I have worked for in the last
couple of
years.
You also could have put a huge dent in my future if I would have had a lab closed down for security reasons.
What the hell were you doing it for
?
My
dad said you wanted to collect micro
be
samples?
That doesn’t sound like you,
to be honest
.”

Her
eyes dropped to the ground
.
Letting go of her
toast
, it fell back
onto her plate
on top of her scrambled eggs
.

“Fiona, I know
.
I didn’t know it was
all
that serious
,
and I
’m
sorry.
I’m havin
’
t
’
do community service
,
and they
put
me in
a
stupid alternative school where it’s
do it at your own pace
work.
I
can’t stand it, but yea
h
, I guess I
deserve
d
it
.
M
e and my friends learned in
science class ‘
bout
how to test for germs on stuff.
The teacher
said at
school
the most germs
were
in the girl’s bathroom
,
so we wanted to test
around the city t
’
see if we could find the
nastiest
place.
Then, we were gonna tell the news
peeps
and get famous for discoverin
’
it.
”

She
hesitated
, waiting for my reaction.
Lifting
h
er glass of orange juice
, she gulped half of it down.

“I appreciate your new-found
interest in science, but next time, please ask
me for help
and
save us all the drama
.
You would have needed an incubator for that, you know
,” I
said, stifling a giggle
after remembering she had
just
trashed my room.

“We know, we did the experiments in class
.
We were just gonna use the oven on warm,” Haley said softly, a glint of friendliness flashed in her eyes.

I mentally
responded with a
plethora
of
sarcastic
comebacks
about how dumb of an idea that would have been on many levels.
Thinking better of bringing any of the remarks to fruition
, I
smile
d
. She
surveyed
my
room
and
the
new things Janice had purchased to replace what she had destroyed
, and sh
e looked mildly remorseful.

“
S
orry
‘
bout your ro
o
m.
I felt like you
m
essed it up
for me with Duncan
on purpose
.
Found out later h
e thought I was older
than
fifteen
,
and when Carden told him I
was
a ninth grader,
that’s why he broke it off.
He thou
ght I was a freshman at the college
.
I s’pose
it wasn’t your fault
,
”
she
lamented, twirling
a
platinum lock
with
her finger.

“I don’t know why you make the
poor
decisions you do
.
You always choose to do the wrong thing, hang with the wrong people
,
and say the wrong things
.
You
’re
one of the most ungrateful
people I have ever known,” my voice was paper thin.

I had wanted
her
to realize this ever since she moved into my house the previous summer.
Her
eyes welled up with tears as she stood up from the bed
, pausing to see if I would stop her
.
I didn’t.
She grabbed her tray and
ambled
towards the
door, her head held down.
I
pondered whether or not if I wanted to stop her. I said nothing, turned my head towards my television.

“I
’
m sorry you feel that way, Fiona
.
I
know
I’ve done this to myself.”

Listening to her footsteps down the hallway to her room,
I stared at my breakfast for a long moment before grabbing my remote and turning the channel to something positive.
Stopping on a Discovery Channel program
about marmosets
, I
demolished
my scrambled eggs
and toast
.
I didn’t feel
ashamed
for what I
had
said to
her
.
I figured she got off easy for everything she had done.
The apology was a step, but
I still longed for her to go to New Zealand and get out of my life.

I grabbed my phone
.
I had over
twenty
missed calls and text messages from Wolfe.
Scrolling
down the list
, I read a text
from Detective Chase
request
ing
a call
the moment I woke up
.
I
called him, muting the volume on my television.

“Hello
,
Fiona!
I received word you left the cave early last night,”
h
e said
.

“
Yeah,
I did.
I was a little angry a
bout
something
,
but it’s no big deal.
Being worked out,” I
lied
.

“Well, I hope it didn’t have anything to do with the Wolfe
—
Fiona relationship, did it?
You know I warned you that would lead to drama.
You’re his boss for all accounts and purposes,”
he
lectured sternly.

If
it were the real world, I would
have
fire
d
Wolfe last night.