Fiona Frost: Order of the Black Moon (52 page)

The bell rang for lunch
,
and I rushed into the cafeteria
to discuss my conundrum with Maddie and make a final decision about Wolfe. She wasn’t there.
She wasn’t waiting for me in
our
spot
,
so I checked the line.
Grabbing my phone, I checked for missed texts, voicemails. Nothing. Not even a response from when I texted her about riding along with the detective. Something was wrong.
Maybe she came down with strep? Maybe she caught bacterial meningitis from Janice and was in the hospital?
I sent her another text, telling her how worried I was about her and stepped in line.

Within a minute,
Mr. Dinges, our big-nosed principal
, entered the cafeteria, scanned the room, and marched straight for me.

“Fiona, please come with me immediately.
I’ll have an office aide get
you some
lunch,”
he
snapped,
gesturing for me to follow him, bullhorn in one hand,
and
W
alkie
-
T
alkie in the other.

“Mr. Dinges, what is the matter?
Is something wrong
?
”
I panicked, following his lead.

“It’s about Maddie.
Her parents are here in the office, along with some
officers
.
S
ince you’re her best friend, they need to get some information from you,” he informed, stopping
for a quick moment
to shout on his handheld megaphone
at
a rowdy table of boys
who were
throwing food.

We rushed to his office
where
Maddie’s parents
were waiting. Her
white-haired
father, a retired Air Force Colonel,
was pacing the room.  Her
mother
, a beautiful Japanese woman, was in a chair holding a tissue,
tears streaming down her face.
M
y stomach twist
ed into a knot. Something bad
had happened to Maddie.

When I stepped into the room
,
her
mother rushed
towards me
, grabbing me
, pulling me in for a
frantic hug.
Her copper fac
e was puffy, eyes reddened and
hair
disheveled
.

“Oh, Fiona.
Oh, Fiona.
My Maddie is missin
g.
Please help us!” she cried uncontroll
ably, hugging me tightly.

Mr. Dinges gently pulled
her
away from me
, asking
her to sit
back
down in his gue
st chair in front of his desk.
He handed her a fresh tissue.

“Mrs. Christie, we need to get as much information from Fiona as possible
—
as quickly as possible
.
Let’s focus on the facts and not emotions,” he said
bluntly,
as
he gestured for the officer to speak.

Mr. Christie marched towards the desk, standing next to the officer and staring directly into his face.

“Fiona, my name is Officer King.
I need to know everything that Maddie said yesterday about where she was going, what she was doing and
whom
she was going to see.
Don’t leave out any detail
s,
and be completely ho
nest, please.
No matter what,” the officer barked, pen poised on his notepad.

I nodded, thinking for a moment about the chronology of what
had
transpired the day before.

“Maddie was excited about going on a date.
He planned the date, and they were going to go to a French place, a restaurant, in
Silver Springs—
”

“Silver Springs!
We no allow her to do that!
”

She
balled up her fist, pounding them onto her lap as tears flooded the rims of her eyes.

“Mrs. Christie, please.
This is not a time for discipline.
We need for Fiona to be honest
,
and if you
’re
going to be angry at what she says, she might be reluctant to tell us what we need to k
now,” Officer King said calmly.

Mr. Christie
moved over
towards his wife, wrapping his arm around her for comfort.
He nodded at me to continue.

“Carden
Doyle
was going to take her on a date to Silver Springs
—
to a French restaurant and then to
a
comedy club magic show.
Have you spoken to
him
?”

“Yes, we have.
He just left, actually
.
He never
saw
Maddie last night.
He claims she was supposed to meet him at his house and
she
never showed up.”

Surveying the eyes in the room, my body shuddered.
At this moment, I realized something was drastically wrong.

“Why was
she
meeting
him
at his house
?
Why wouldn’t he pick her
up
?
”
Mr. Dinges asked.

“
Sh
e
told her parents
she was spending the night with you
, Fiona
.
The story doesn’t make sense because you
’re
next door
,
and her car would be missing for the nigh
t, but maybe she hoped her parents wouldn’t realize, who knows?
As you can tell by Mrs. Christie’s reaction, she would not have allowed
her
to go on a date to Silver Springs,” Officer King said softly.

“
Yeah,
it
never crossed my mind
, but to think of it—I could have guessed that
.
So, is Maddie’s car at Carden’s house?”

“No, w
e found it at the Godley
Grove Galleria.”

I shook my head in frustration.

“That’s right!
She wanted me to go shopping with her to find an outfit for her date!
”
I lamented, regretting
not going to the mall with her.

Officer King
had
jotted notes down before
he responded
, “
A
nything else to add?”

I r
emembered the call from the night before.

“Carden called me last night.
It was around 9:45
PM
.
He wanted to talk to me about Maddie
,
and I assumed they had an argument
or something
, being the first date and all.
I didn’t want to get in between them
,
but now I’m
so sorry I didn’t
answer
the phone.
We would
’ve
known sooner that something was wrong!
”
I said,
fighting
impending
tears.

Two knocks and
the door swung open.
It was Detective Chase.

“
Sorry, folks, busy in the lab.
We found some interesting evidence, Fiona
.
I’ll catch you up to speed in a
minute,”
h
e stated sternly.

Upon hearing of Maddie’s disappearance and being called to the Galleria to search her car for evidence,
the detective
showed up
to offer his assistance
as
he knew the Christie family
quite well
. We outlined the chronology of events the best we could and
he
promised
Mr. and Mrs. Christie
that he would do
everything in his power to
assist the
officers
assigned t
o her case.

“
Principal
Dinges, would you consider excusing Fiona from her next couple of classes
,
so she can ride with me to interview a suspect
in
a case we are working on
?
Some
new evidence has
come up,
and we have to act quickly
,
Fiona will be a great help.
”

“Certainly
,
Detective.
The
school will
always
be supportive of the
training
program’s efforts.
God speed, you two.
My prayers will
hold
for Maddie’s safe return as well,”
he
said, removing hi
s glasses from his stately nose
and
shaking
the detective’s
hand.

“Bye, Fiona.
Please bring my Maddie home,” Mrs. Christie said with a heavy accent.

I blew
her
a kiss
, nodding
,
promising to get my best friend back as quickly as possible.
Mr. Christie expressed his appreciation for me
, stating
how
proud
he was that
I had come so far to be involved so heavily
in
police investigations.
I responded that Maddie was equally involved
in the program
,
and
he
cracked a
restrained
smile,
tear
s
wel
ling up on the rim
s
of his eyes.

Detective Chase and I
scurried out of the school, sprinting
to his Impala parked in the front circle drive
.
We
headed to
Dimitri
’s
house by the marina.

“Well, what is the new evidence?”

“The Silver Springs document analyst finally submitted her report to us.
The handwriting sample on the pink envelopes was
analyzed
;
a match was made.”

“To whom
?
Victoria?”

“No, Melanie Newsted.
She
was
the one
in a relationship with Gerald Smith.
Dimitri
’s
his cousin
,
and
it’s
obvious
now
how she got to know him.”

“So, she was borrowing Victoria’s envelopes,” I said, thinking a deep thought for a moment.
“What does this mean for the Jody James case?”

“That’s what we are going to find out
.
Something tells me that if pressed, Dimitri will sing like a bird if anything is fishy with Melanie or Victoria.
He doesn’t seem like
the altruistic type,” he said
bluntly.

“
I
sn’t he facing charges for the blood bank break
-
in?
Can’t we make a deal if he knows anything?”

“Absolutely
,
and
I know your
father would trade a blood bank
burglary
based on nothing but
hearsay
evidence for a murder case to be solved.”

I nodded affirmatively.

“Yes, my father would undoubtedly go for that deal.”

We rounded the
corner, park
ing
on the street in front of Dimitri’s house
.
We
climbed out of the car,
jogged
to
wards
the front door
and knocked
gently.

“I hope Dimitri isn’t still sick, I just got over strep
;
I don’t want to get sick again!
”
I shrieked
, stepping back from the door as if it would prevent me from breathing in germs
.