Fiona Frost: Order of the Black Moon (43 page)

“Well, Fiona.
I can see it.
You don’t think you’re doing anything
,
but the way you two look at each other and defend each other with your eyes is so obvious,”
she said.

I studied her face, not knowing if she was just saying that to be argumentative
,
or if she was serious.
I looked over at Wolfe
,
who
had moved next to D
etective Chase.
He turned around,
seemingly
sensing my eyes burning into him from behind, and smiled
.
I blushed
.
I agreed with Maddie
, we were
obvious.

My phone rang
, I answered.

“Hello?”

“Fiona, thank God I got you.
The man called again.
The agents are here taking it all down
,
but I wanted to tell you what he said,”
Janice frantically shouted into the phone.

“Go ahead
.
What did he say?”

Maddie perked, leaning
towards the
phone to hear what
she had to
say.
I put the phone on speaker.

“There is nothing sweeter than the taste, but it should be served cold
.
Ice cold
.
It is mine.”

The answer to the riddle popped in my head like a vibrant neon sign.

“Revenge.
The answer to that is
revenge
.”

I needed a mental break, so
I spent
time
with my parents playing card games
, topping
the
evening
with a discussion
about Gerald Smith
.
We came to the conclusion we
still
knew nothing
.
My mother broke the news Haley wo
uld be leaving for New Zealand the following
Wednesday, and I was more than elated.
I went to bed somewhat early, as happy as I could be.

A
fter snoozing my phone five times
,
I crawled out of bed the following morning.
In a
frenz
y
,
I
buttoned
my
lucky
flannel, fidgeting with my jacket until it
looked right
against the long sleeves of my shirt.
I gazed out my window to see
a thick, cottony layer of
deep gray
clouds mask
ing
the sky
,
hovering
above a light mist.

Via text,
Detective Chase
had scheduled a
meeting at the station
,
and
the team all responded they
would
attend
.
With an impromptu soccer practice she couldn’t miss because of the Friday night victory,
Maddie
said she’d drive to the station from the practice fields at our school—
I would ride with
Agent Bronson.

Rushing to his car thr
ough the cold mist
, I buckled
in;
the smooth melodies made the weather seem trivial.
As we took off for the
police station
, I soaked up the warmth from the car heater
, enjoying the ambiance as usual until we pulled up to the station. The mist had turned into a light rain. I had to brave it without an umbrella.

“Hello
,
Fiona!
”
Ms. Spinks said cheerfully, waving her thick acrylic nails at me.
“Everybody’s waiting in the conference room!”

“Good morning, Ms. Spinks!”
I said, shaking off the raindrops.

Ms. Spinks
clicked the green door open
,
and I scuttled to the conference room
.
The team was already there in their
usual seats around the conference table
. Juices were arranged
in the middle of the table,
and I
grabbed a
fruity
V8.
Within minutes, Detective Chase
strolled
into the room, files in hand, taking his seat at the head of the table.

“New news
—
Damien Lee’s story of the deer sacrifice checked out completely
.
The
animal carcass
we
exhumed
from the dirt grave was a deer
with w
ounds consistent with being hit by a car.
The stab wound in the heart was the cause of
death.
Hi
s claim of a mercy killing stand
s
.
Even though he did it
as
a ceremony for whatever, we are not going to charge him
with
animal cruelty at this time.”

“Oh yea
h
, the deer sacrifice story.
I remember that!
”
Maddie exclaimed, still wearing her soccer practice uniform.

“Detective, I
talked
to my parents, Janice
,
and the agents working the Gerald Smith case last night.
They
believe
he
might be the one calling my home phone
.
They did make a match to the person who called and hung up on my phone
a few times
with the phone number that is calling my house
now
.
It’s
a
pay as you go
phone
;
I think they called it a burner,
not a registered number.”

Detective Chase stared at me for a moment and nodded, his brows furrowed into an expression of concern.

“That
’s
not sketc
hy at all, huh
?
”
Willow smirked,
rolling her eyes
.

“Well, that’s what criminal’s do, Willow
.
They don’t want to leave a trace.
So we know it is an intentional caller
and
not a wrong
number as Janice
believed
,
”
I countered.

“What was the first
thing he said?
”
Wolfe inquired, gazing at me with intense eyes.

After a momentary stutter of concentration, I
remembered.

“94 puppies, take 25 away.
Are you left with
8
or 1 female?”

Lauren, the one in the club with the strength in figuring codes
and riddles
, pounded her fist on the conference table in frustration.

“Detective Chase, I have been working on the
riddle
ever since we heard about it
,
and it doesn’t make any numerical sense whatsoever.
I have tried absolutely everything with those numbers
including
logarithms
, everything
!
”
Lauren sulked
, taking a huge swig of orange juice.

“This is true, she’s driven me crazy,” Willow murmured, shaking her head.

Lauren shrugged her shoulders
in frustration and
sighed.

“
And I know the feds have it, but unless they’re convinced
the caller is Gerald Smith
and
not a wrong number, they won’t go full force on it.
I’m sure now
he’s called again
,
and they’ve linked the
number that was calling Fiona, they’ll get to work on it,” Detective Chase explained.

“What was the message the second time this guy called
?
”
Lauren said.

“
Two plus two, four
.
We figured since
equals
was missing, he wanted us to know the first code equaled someth
ing,
”
Maddie said.

“Revenge
.
It equaled revenge.
What equals revenge is now the question!
”
I said with angst.

Ms. Spinks
popped her
gray spiky-haired head
into the conference room
, addressing us
with a warm smile,
“
Detective Chase and friends, the first suspects are in the interrogation room #3.
Whenever you are ready.”

He
nodded to the group,
rose
from his ch
air, and moved
towards the
door.

“Thank you, Ms. Spinks,”
he
said, opening the conference room door.
“Let’s see what Damien and Victoria have to say, folks.
You will sit on the other side of the two-way mirror
,
and Fiona can come in and assist me.
I’ll make sure the microphones are on
,
so you can hear what is going on.”

With widened eyes, the group stared at Detective Chase. We didn’t realize we would be interrogating suspects.
We filed in
to
a straight line as we walked down the
sterile
hallway
towards the
interrogation rooms.
We
walked through
the third door on the left
,
and
he
pointed for the
rest of
the group to take their seats on the bench next to the two-way mirror.
Placing his index finger to his
mouth to signal
silence for the
remaining
club members watching from the hallway, he
opened the door to the room with Damien and Victoria
.
I followed quietly behind him and took a seat next to
the detective
.

“Good morning, and thank you for agreeing to come down and talk to us.
I understand you might have some updates
with
your involvement
in
the Jody James murder
.
A
m I correct in my assumption
?
”
he
said
as
he put his leather-bound notebook on the table
and
opened it to reveal a blank yellow pad of notebook paper.

Damien squinted his eyes as if sunrays had blown out of
the detective’s
mouth
.
Victoria
, dressed in a pitch
-
black
vintage
sundress,
suddenly drew paler
than I thought possible.
F
or the first time,
they
actua
lly appeared nervous as if their
hard outer shell had crumbled
away
, exposing
a
vulnerable core.

Victoria cleared her throat
.
T
ossing her hot pink hair onto her back,
she hissed
through her teeth with black lips, “We do have something
to say
—
Detective
, Fi
ona.”

I was shocked Victoria knew my
name
.
I figured she had done her homework on the investigators of the case
,
or maybe she
realized who I was from school.
For whatever reason, I was impressed
she
knew my name
and
was giving me respect as an investigator in the case.

“Let’s hear it, we’re all ears,” Detective Chase responded, tapping his pen on his notepad.

“We were there,”
Damien interjected
, his fists clenched at us,
knuckle tattoos
LIFE SUXX
in full view.
“We were early
for our
m
eeting, got there right after
two,
and found the body, already dead, on
our altar
.
We immediately left.”

Damien
dropped
his
partially shaved
head into his hands
, pausing, the
long side of
his dark locks cascaded onto the table in front of him.
Detective Chase pointed to Victoria
,
who tilted her head to the side as if to invite him to speak.

“We
have
heard you
possess
a
picture of Damien holding the sword over the victim
.
C
an we see your phone, Victoria
?
”
he
inquired
in haste.

Damien popped his head up, swishing his neck around to catch
her
reaction.

“I lost it,”
she said without thought
, her expression melting from remorse to disdain
.

He
rolled his eyes as he looked at me
and
then turned to write
o
n his notepad.

“
We saw that rat Sydney talking to you
.
Figured
she was telling on us
,
so
we decided to
admit being there
.
We don’t believe in the justice system
and
knew if you guys knew we were there, you’d
blame us for the murder because of how we look
,
and we’d fry in
the electric chair or whatever
it is
you do
to murder innocent
people nowadays,
”
she
scoffed.