“What?”
“Never mind. Get your butt in that café; we’re going to have to hustle to catch up to our schedule.”
“We have a schedule?”
Instead of answering, Zoe planted her hands on Keira’s back and shoved her inside the shop. “Grab the corner table before any of the plebeians steal it. Whatcha want? Another hot chocolate? Too bad if not, because I already ordered it.”
Keira gave up on trying to follow the flow of words and allowed Zoe to push her toward the same corner they’d shared the day before. As she sank into the plush armchair, she scanned the café. It was busy. An older couple laughed together at the next table over. Five gray-haired women had co-opted the largest table and were happily talking over each other. A queue was forming at the counter as Zoe got into an argument with the sallow barista. Unlike the day before, Keira no longer felt anxious.
I’m starting to put down roots, she realized with a jolt. I’m creating friendships, thinking of certain café seats as “mine,” feeling responsibility over the fate of a restless spirit… This isn’t good. Chances are I’ll need to leave soon, and it will be heartbreaking to say goodbye.
“Okay.” Zoe collapsed into the seat opposite. “Firstly, Marlene is an awful person for not letting me order a mug of pure caramel syrup.” She raised her voice to holler across the crowded café. “It’s a free country, Marlene!”
Marlene, the barista, yelled back, “I refuse to let my tax dollars pay for the heart transplant you’ll eventually need!”
“Whatever,” Zoe grumbled. She leaned over and opened her bag. “Secondly, if we’re going to work on this mystery together—”
“We are?”
“Shush. No objections. If we’re going to work together, you’ll need this.”
Zoe slid a small mobile phone across the table. The sight reminded Keira of the bags of groceries sitting in the cottage’s kitchen. She’d intended to return them to Zoe, but the shock of the graveside encounter had chased it out of her mind. She held up both hands, refusing to touch the phone. “Thanks, but I don’t need charity.”
“It’s not charity, moron.” Zoe rolled her eyes. “It’s for strategic planning and coordinating. Pretend you’re James Bond and I’m what’s his face who gives Bond his awesome gadgets.”
Keira raised a skeptical eyebrow at the phone. It was a flip model that looked at least a decade old. “MI6 had some budget cuts.”
“Shush, you.”
Marlene, balancing an armful of plates, arrived at the table. She gave Zoe one very long, very sour glare, then placed three dishes and two cups in front of them. “One hot chocolate for the polite lady who deserves better company. And enough calories to kill a hippo for the problematic one.”
“Love you too, Marlene,” Zoe retorted, waving her off.
“I forgot this was your lunch break. You must be hungry,” Keira said, eyeing the pancakes and bowl of nachos.
Zoe nudged a fork toward her. “Yeah, I kinda got carried away. Help me finish some of this, will ya?”
Ah. Keira leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. I should’ve guessed. “Thanks, but like I said, I don’t need charity.”
Zoe’s owl eyes widened into the perfect image of innocence. “It’s not. You’d be doing me a favor. I’d feel horribly wasteful if I didn’t finish this food. Think of the hungry kids in other countries or whatever.”
“I’m not just talking about this. I found the canned foods hidden in the cat supplies.”
“What, really? Wow, they must have accidentally fallen in by accident or something. Whoops. No returns.”
Keira wanted to frown, but Zoe was too ridiculous to let her create the right facial shape. Instead, she made sure her voice was firm. “I appreciate that you’re trying to do a good deed or whatever, but I’ll buy my own food.”
“Well, I was trying to be discreet about it.” Zoe sighed and let her head loll back in exaggerated frustration. “But c’mon. I gave you the benefit of the doubt yesterday, thinking maybe you just really, really liked rice, but then you had to admit this morning that you couldn’t afford a can of cat food. I don’t let my friends starve.”
Keira tried to come up with a retort, but the best she could manage was “Who said we’re friends?”
“I did, idiot. Eat the damn food.”
Pride tried to argue. The food was charity, and that made her an inconvenient liability. The tally of people Keira intended to one day pay back was growing rapidly, but she knew Zoe was right. The day you can’t buy cat food is the day to get over your ego and accept some help. She picked up the fork and cut a corner off the pancake. “So the mobile phone’s for coordinating secret meetings and getaway cars, right?”
Animation flooded back into Zoe’s face. “Oh, yeah! And the best thing—the government doesn’t know about it. It’s prepaid. I bought it in the city while wearing a fake mustache, then removed any parts that could be used for tracking. There’s absolutely no way to trace it back to us.”
“That’s a joke, right?”
Zoe snorted. “Please. It’s important to ensure all aspects of your life are as anonymous as possible. Anyone who’s still on the grid when the machines reach sentience is going to have a really, really bad day.”
“Of course.” Keira had a lot she wanted say to that but swallowed it. “Thanks.”
Zoe looked genuinely pleased. “Anytime. Ready to go through some of my theories?”
“Absolutely.”
A folder came out of the bag. Zoe managed to squeeze it between the plates and began leafing through. Keira peeked at the turning pages and saw a bizarre mix of arcane symbols, Illuminati eyes, a language that looked suspiciously like Elvish, a map of Madagascar, and blurry photos of what were presumably flying saucers.
“I was up researching most of the night,” Zoe said, pausing to linger over a lovingly rendered depiction of a Lovecraftian monstrosity. “To be fair, though, that describes most of my nights. But I researched extra hard last night and have some pretty compelling theories. How much do you know about the freemasons?”
“Oh, it’s Mason.”
Zoe frowned. “No. Freemasons. The organization that may or may not be responsible for the chemtrails over Portugal last year.”
“No, I mean Mason—he’s here.” Keira craned to see through the crowd. Mason had come through the café’s door and was placing his order with Marlene.
“Aw crap!” Zoe shot a glance toward the counter, then grabbed the top of Keira’s head and tried to force her down. “Okay, he’s definitely stalking you. Hide under the table. I’ll distract him while you make your escape.”
“Ow, please, cut that out. He’s obviously here to have lunch.” Keira had underestimated Zoe’s strength and had to fight to stay above the table.
The commotion caught Mason’s attention, and a smile brightened his face as he saw them. He passed several notes to Marlene, motioning for her to keep the change, and began to make his way toward their table.
“Damn it!” Zoe snapped forward again, her eyes as round as saucers. “Okay. This is okay. Play it cool, Keira. Don’t let him know we suspect him.”
“Keira! It’s good to see you in town. You’ve met Zoe, I see.”
Zoe shot him a glare that would have melted steel beams. “Keep your grubby hands off my friend, murderer.”
So much for playing it cool. Keira wished she’d sunk under the table after all. She opened her mouth to apologize to Mason, but the English language didn’t even contain half the words she needed to express what she felt.
To her surprise, Mason appeared unfazed. He beamed at Zoe. “Murderer? Please, I’m not a fool. No one in town can string together evidence like you. If I were in the habit of killing people, there’s no way I would have let you live long enough to incriminate me.”
Zoe was silent for a moment as she chewed on the inside of her cheek. Then she nodded as though the situation had been resolved and patted Keira’s arm. “He makes a good point. It’s probably safe
to trust him again.”
Mason bent closer to Keira, his expression perfectly serious. “Or is it?” He winked. “Would the pair of you like any company for lunch?”
Zoe shrugged. “We’re going through theories for how Keira ended up here. Find yourself a seat and try not to sound as ignorant as you are, ignoramus.”
Again heat rose across Keira’s face. She considered kicking Zoe under the table, but then a warm hand landed on her shoulder.
Keira met Mason’s sparkling green eyes, and he gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry. Zoe and I went to school together. I’m used to her.” He slid a spare seat up to Keira’s side of the table. It wasn’t a spacious area, and Keira tried not to feel too conscious of how their elbows brushed when he sat down.
“And I’m used to you in the same way that a person gets used to an ax in their head,” Zoe retorted. “Bloody traitorous capitalistic sellout.”
“She doesn’t like that I chose to study medicine,” Mason explained. “It’s too mainstream for her taste.”
“You may as well have signed up for a class on brainwashing. All they do is spoon-feed you institutionalized lies and teach you how to perpetuate Big Pharma’s monopoly on human suffering.”
He nodded gravely. “The whole business of saving lives is exceptionally corrupt. The world would have been a better place if I’d studied UFO phenomena instead.”
Zoe snatched the folder off the table and hefted it, as though threatening to beat him with it. “Behave, plague monger, or I’ll evict you from the meeting.”
“All right, understood! I’ll be good.” He folded his arms on the table and leaned forward, but Keira noticed his shoulders were twitching from repressed laughter. “What have you come up with?”
Zoe slammed the folder back onto the table and took a deep breath. “Well, the best lead we’ve got right now is the men who were following her. They didn’t match the descriptions or modus operandi of any of the better-known secret organizations, but they could be a local group. Or a group that’s so secret, we don’t even know they exist. Isn’t that an awful idea? The world could be full of societies so covert that we never hear of them.” Zoe made a face. “Ghastly.”
Keira shrugged. “Adage spoke to one of them. He might be able to describe him, but that won’t help much unless they return.”
“Wait.” Mason’s smile disappeared as he turned to Keira. “I thought she was joking. Was someone following you?”
Ah, that’s right—I didn’t tell him what happened, and it looks like Adage hasn’t either. “Sorry. I thought you knew—”
“Adage only told me you’d arrived in town without any memories. What happened, Keira?”
All joviality had dropped from his expression. His intense green eyes flicked to the hidden cut on her shoulder before locking back on to her face. She knew he must be building up a plethora of possible scenarios, just as she had.
Keira recounted her first night in Blighty as coherently as she could. Zoe, who had already heard the story, returned to leafing through her folder, but Mason’s attention didn’t waver.
When she’d finished, he frowned at the table as he ran his hand over his mouth. “That’s serious. Have you been to the police about it?”
“No, and I don’t intend to.” Keira threaded her hands together, the knuckles white. “There’s the possibility that I could have done something illegal before I lost my memories. And…and I don’t want to go to prison for it.”
He nodded slowly.
“Besides.” Zoe tore off a strip of pancake and stuffed it into her mouth. “Blighty’s police are equal amounts incompetent and corrupt. She’s better off not drawing attention to herself.”
“I don’t know about corrupt, but it’s true it’s been a few years since Constable Sanderson cared about his job.” Mason lapsed into thought again and only broke out of it when Marlene arrived at the table with his food. “Thanks, Marl. You haven’t heard news of any new blood coming through town, have you?”
She dipped her head toward Keira. “Other than this one? Nah.”
Mason nodded as the woman returned to her counter. “News travels fast in this town, and Has Beans is the most popular watering hole for sharing it. If Marlene hasn’t heard of strangers staying in or visiting Blighty, they’re either gone or being extremely stealthy.”
“If they only come out at night, it would support my leading theory.” Zoe held up the binder. “Vampires.”
Mason turned back to Keira. “I’m not sure the cemetery’s cottage is the best place to stay. It’s too far from town and backs right onto the forest.”
She shrugged. “That makes it a pretty good hiding place in my book. Anyone who’s new to Blighty probably won’t know it’s there.”
“True. But I’d still feel more comfortable if you were closer to the town’s center.” He hesitated. “Or in another town altogether.”
Zoe flicked a blueberry in Mason’s direction. “Good thing your comfort isn’t her priority, huh?”
Keira, sensing an argument brewing, leaned in. “I actually like the isolation. If anyone’s still looking for me, they’re likely to focus their efforts where the most people are—in Blighty’s center. Adage offered to help me relocate to another area, but…” I’m putting down roots. I have friends here. I like this town. “The plan right now is to stay in Blighty. For the short term, at least.”
He smiled. “I can see you’ve thought this through.”
Is it my imagination, or does he look relieved? She picked up her fork and focused on demolishing her half of the pancakes. “It’s a risk to stay here, but there’ll be risks no matter where I go.”
“You can reduce that by having some means of contacting help. The cottage doesn’t have a phone, does it?”
“Already sorted.” Zoe nudged the flip phone on the table.
Mason nodded. “Good. May I?” He opened the mobile, spent a moment pressing buttons, then passed it back to Keira. “I put my number in there. Call me if there’s any trouble. I don’t get out of Blighty much, so I’ll never be more than five minutes away. I also added Constable Sanderson’s personal cell phone. He doesn’t answer the station’s phone after five, but he’ll pick up that number even if it’s the middle of the night. Okay?”
“Great, thank you.” She tucked it into her pocket. “And if all else fails, I have a ferocious guard cat.”
“Mm.” Zoe waved her fork while she struggled to swallow a mouthful of food. “The vet nurse came through my checkout this morning. She knows, like, every single animal in this town, so I asked her, but she says the only black cats around here have white markings or are fat. Yours must’ve come from another town.”
“It would be a long way to travel,” Mason said. “What do you think you’ll do with her?”
“Uh…” That was hard to answer. Keira very dearly wanted to keep the black creature, but the situation was a minefield of question marks. If she couldn’t get a job, she wouldn’t be able to feed it. And most landlords prohibited pets. “Good question.”
Zoe flapped her folder at them. “Are we ready to get back to the serious stuff or what? My lunch break ends soon.”
“Right, the serious stuff, of course.” The flicker of humor had returned to Mason’s eyes, though he did a good job of maintaining a solemn face as he folded his hands on the table. “Vampires, was it?”
“Oh, ye of little faith.” Zoe opened her folder to a page filled with illustrations, including a medley of traditional Dracula-inspired horrors alongside naked, animalistic creatures. “Popular media has turned vampires into a joke, but there’s still plenty of evidence for their existence. A whole bunch of different cultures have folklore about bloodsucking monsters. And the descriptions—pallid faces, only seen at night, inaudible movement—line up nicely with the figure I saw outside my window.”
Keira rubbed at the back of her neck. “Look, it’s not that I’m not grateful for this, but…vampires? Really?”
“They
’d need somewhere to hide during daylight hours.” Mason seemed to be having far too much fun. “So that they don’t burn to dust, y’know.”
Zoe seemed to take his comment seriously as she nodded. “Course. And where better than the home of our resident vampire: Ol’ Crispy?”
Mason inclined his head toward Keira. “She means Dane Crispin. His house is…ah…old-fashioned, and it invites a lot of rumors.”
“Calling it old-fashioned is like saying the queen is a little bit fancy. The thing’s basically a gothic mansion.”
Keira glanced between the two of them. It seemed incredible that the subject of her most pressing concern—Emma’s death—would crop up by chance. She tried to keep her voice casual. “I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert on this town or anything…but I’ve been here three days without seeing any kind of mansion.”
“It’s mostly hidden by the forest,” Mason said, “but it’s only a few minutes from here. It’s a stunning building—I could take you there one day, if you’re interested.”
“Yes!” Keira knew she probably sounded too eager, but she didn’t care. “How about now?”
Mason laughed. “Now? All right, I’m game. Let’s go.”
“But—but—” Zoe huffed a sigh. “Jeez. I was meant to be back at work five minutes ago, and we didn’t even touch on my secondary theory involving the Zodiac Killer. Hang on a minute.”
She pulled out her phone, dialed a number, and waited for it to ring. “Hey, Lucas, it’s Zoe. Cover my shift at the grocery store, okay? Yes, I know. If you had a job I wouldn’t do this to you. Stop complaining. You got plenty of practice yesterday.” She hung up the phone, slipped it into her pocket, and returned the folder to her bag. The manic light brightened her owl-like eyes. “All right, time to go hunt a vampire.”
Chapter Fifteen
Keira followed Mason and Zoe back onto the main street. They led her toward the half of the town she hadn’t yet seen. Mason matched her pace and shared some of what he knew while Zoe loped ahead.
“Dane was born a few years after Emma’s murder and George’s incarceration, but he’s unfortunately been tainted by the association. As far as I know, the only person he’s on close terms with is Dr. Kelsey. Apparently, the families were friendly, and George paid for the doctor’s studies, so Kelsey continues to stay in touch with the grandson. Dane doesn’t leave Crispin House often, though I’ve heard some people have seen him wandering the streets at night, which is the basis for Zoe’s delightful vampire theory.”
The Whispering Dead: Gravekeeper Book 1 Page 10