Fiona Frost: Order of the Black Moon (7 page)

With a frozen face, the
veins in my forehead puls
ed
.
I
searched
his
expression for a clue
about
why
I had to leave
without delay
.

“What’s wrong
?
”
I asked with resignation.

“Gerald Smith
broke
out of Huntville Prison.
He left a riddle in his
cell;
it was decoded by the feds.
It said he was
headed for
your house.”

After we had driven
Wolfe home,
the detective continued to follow
Maddie and me
to my house on Nikale Street.
I wasn’t surprised to see a
black
Lincoln Town Car with government issued plates in my driveway.
My
forensic kit in hand, w
e rushed
through
the front door and located
my parents in the living room
—
engaged in
an
animated conversation with
a
gray-haired
man in a black suit.

Feds—I preferred to call them black suits.

“Fiona, thank God you are safe!
”
m
y mother
shouted
, scuttling
across the room
.

She
grab
bed
me
, cradling me
before pulling back to see if I was alright.

“Mom, I’m
fine,” I
said, smiling as I stepped away.
“So, what is going on
?
That Smith guy broke out of prison?
The one who wants to get even with
D
ad
?
”
I turned to
wards
Detective Chase, “Is
he
the
guy
that we just interviewed at the prison for the Foster murder
?”

“Yes,
Gerald Smith
,
the
man
who
didn’t make parole because he told a guard he still want
s
revenge on
your father
.
He still blames
him
for putting him away.”

My
tiny
mom
, a chemist at Hartford,
dipped her head
towards the
ground, her caramel
bob
swayed
like doll
’s hair
, swinging back and forth until stopping to frame her adorable face.
We were
remarkably
close
,
but she was an unremitting worrywart
.

My f
ather’s booming voice
rang out
, “Fiona, we are going to have to assign an agent to follow you around for a while
,
we can’t allow you to leave the house unless you
’re
at school.
His name is Agent Bronson, he’s a nice fellow.
It’s only temporary until
Mr. Smith
is caught
,
I’m sure it will be soon,
right
Agent
Lawson?
”
he
said candidly
to the gray-haired
man.

Lewis Frost
,
an
intimidating man
,
was p
erfect in every way that you’d expect a father to be
.
However, h
e was always
busily
working on cases
.
Lately, I was seeing more of him on the professional side of things
,
which was brilliant.

“Yes, Mr. Frost.
I’m sure we’ll catch Mr. Smith
.
He’s not too intelligent
,
should be easy to track.
I’ll be in touch as soon as I get any updates.
In the meantime, the boys
just arrived and
will be
right outside if you need them,”
the agent
instructed
, advancing
toward
s
the front door.

“Dad, we have some evidence we really need to process in the lab at school.
I have to at least go there and preserve
the samples
so we can process
them
later
.
Please! W
e just
spent hours investigating
the crime scene
in
Arles Cave
—
we
found
some good stuff!
”
I pleaded, my hands cupped in prayer with a full pout on my
lips.

“Please, Mr. Frost!
”
Maddie
asked feebly, copying my prayer hands.

“Fiona, listen to your father
.
I
will be
happy
to
take your evidence to
your
lab and put
everything
where it needs to go
.
It will be ready for you tomorrow at school,” Detective Chase offered, reaching for my forensic kit.

“Okay,” I whined
.
“I suppose that is a fair deal
, and I appreciate it
.”

“And Mr. Lawson, here’s my card if you need anything from the city crime lab,”
he
offered his
business
card to the grayed black suit
who
placed it in his pocket
, turning
the knob of the front door
with his other hand
.

“Thank you, Detective.
We hope to have
the prisoner in
custody within
the next
twenty-four
hours,”
he
c
ountered with a confident smile and crossed the threshold of my front door.

As my father escorted
him
to his Town Car in the driveway
, stomping
echoed
fro
m the hallway.
Maddie shot an inflamed
eye roll
in my direction
, sliding a
hand on her hip in anticipation of seeing the
stomp owner.

“Did I hear
right that we can’t
leave the house t
’
night
?
”
Haley Frost, my obnoxious cousin from New Jersey
, shrieked
as she burst
into the room.

“I thought you were headed to New Zealand to some girl’s home
?
”
Maddie smirked
, her eyebrows lodged into a
sarcastic
line over her brown eyes
.
“Fiona, you didn’t give me the bad news she’s still here?”

I smirked, trying not to laugh.

“
She missed her flight.
Now
she
doesn’t leave until tomorrow
morning
.
It can’t co
me soon enough,” I
replied bitingly.

My mother
fired
a
glance of disapproval
at
us
as she popped out of her chair to confront Haley.

My cousin
had been a
n unrelenting
t
roublemaker back in New Jersey and
my
aunt and uncle
had
shipped
her to my house
as a last resort
.
After making
a homemade explosive device with her boyfriend
who placed it inside of my locker
at school
—
and detonated it
—
she was headed for a
b
oarding school in New Zealand.

As my mother attempted to
reason with the platinum-
haired
brat
, I
addressed my father about
the whereabouts of my nanny
,
Janice Parker
,
who normally would have
been
busy
serving the
crowd in the room
sugar
cookies with guns and badges
decorated
on them with frosting.

“Dad, where
’s
Janice?
Is she
alright
?
I don’t smell cookies
,
”
I blurted, my mind was spinning in confusion.

My father surveyed my face for a moment.

“She is feeling under the weather
and has
turned in for the night
.
We’re
doin
g
Chinese
takeout
,
and
it will arrive
any minute now,”
he
said before turning toward
s
th
e hallway to go to his office.

He
seemed strained to get away every time
he talked
to
anybody
unless he was discussing
a
n open
case.
Being the district attorney must
have been
stressful
, but
he
handle
d
it beautifully.

“Where is Luminal
?
”
I asked
, my
eyes dar
ting
around the room in a panic.

He
stopped in his tracks and
spun
around slowly.
A slow frown spread across
his
face
, his brows furrowing into apprehensive
arc’s
above his tawny eyes.

“Well, that’s another thing, Fiona
.
He
’s
at
the vet.
Please realize he
’s
an old dog
,
we spoke about this
day
when
h
e
came home with us
ten years ago.
I told you one day, you would have to say
goodbye
,
and
it is
alright
to grieve and mourn the loss
.
He’s
a pet
,
and
we
are
not going to go crazy about it,
”
he
said bluntly in a calm voice.

My Scottish terrier
had spent every day with me since
I was seven
-
years
-
old
;
I expected to have him for longer than ten years.
Back then,
I was
already
interested in forensic science and
had
named him Luminal after the chemical Luminol used to detect bodily fluids at crime scenes. My mother
said it was tacky to name him after a
commercial product, so I changed the
o
to an
a
and pronounced it slightly different.
She
was slightly
pacified
even though the spelling changed it
to mean a
body cavity. I suppose
,
in her eyes, anatomy was better than a
bottle of chemicals
.

“He
.
I
s
.
D
ead
?
”
I muttered
, swallowing
a
rock-hard
lump
in my throat
.

The
teardrops
gathered in number, ready to
cascade
down my face if
my father said the word
yes
.

“No, he is not dead.
However, he is
extremely
ill.
The vet wanted to keep him for observation overnight
.
We’ll
see how it goes.”

He
whisked down the hallway and I fought
a quivering lip
as
I said
goodbye
to Maddie
, asking her to notify
the club members
of a change in the lab meeting to tomorrow
after school
.
I
sulked
to my
bed
room
which I referred to as
the pink palace.
It was still early in the evening
,
but I had entered such a
miserable
place
in my head
, I wanted the day to reset
—
tomorrow would be better
.
I wanted
to get there as quickly as possible
.