“Be careful,” Theo said, then dodged off down the hall.
Cranking open the window a few inches, I tossed my backpack out onto the ground. I shimmied through the window and tumbled out, falling hard on my hands and knees, just as the teacher was coming in. I felt a moment of tension. Had he seen me? He might come to the window to investigate. I pressed my back up against the brick and held my breath.
I heard his chair squeak inside. Slowly, I lifted my head and peeked over the ledge. He had taken back up with his solitaire game, facing away from me.
I let out my breath, my chest aching, and threw my backpack over my shoulders. I didn’t stop running until I reached the entrance and was safely back inside.
####
Later, back at Hugh’s apartment, Hugh, Golem, Callie and I were reading through the notebooks. The Taylors and Jenna’s father, Joe, were also there. I’d explained to Hugh where I’d gotten them. Honesty was the best policy.
“I don’t know if that’s what we should tell everyone else,” Hugh said, taking them from me. Theo and I had already had a look through them. Some were much more sane than the one that Henry and I had found, some were even worse, just scribbles and doodles and what looked like scratchy crossword puzzles.
“I can’t believe that I had this man over to my house, that I talked with him on countless occasions, and I didn’t realize how unbalanced he was,” Hugh said, flipping through one of the notebooks with his face twisted in disgust.
“Don’t beat yourself up. I had coffee and joked with the man everyday,” Golem said. “Apart from a few times he went drifting away from shore on his stories, I had no idea he had a screw loose.”
“Pretty big screw,” Callie muttered, shaking her head.
There were anagrams down the side of one page, complemented by little scribblings of people in hoods. His tiny, square handwriting filled every page. Food and drink stains marked various pages. I wondered and realized he must have written during school when people were watching, and no one realized it. I’d never seen him writing in it myself…at least, I didn’t think I had.
“So, is it enough to go to Stauner with?” I asked. “I mean, Warwick mentions individual people and their roles in the cult. He expressly says that they were involved in killing Alyssa Chapman.”
“It’s a start,” Hugh said, handing the notebook in his hands off to Callie. “We’d have to be careful explaining how we got a hold of them. But like you said, he clearly names names and their implicit involvement in the rituals and the killings. This is great, Ariel. This just might stop him in his tracks.”
“But what if the cops are in Thornhill’s back pocket?” Madison’s father asked.
“There is no doubt that some of them are,” Hugh said. “But Stauner explained to me that he’s been having serious issues with them for a while, and he was just waiting for a way to go against them.”
I read the notebook closest to me. It’s time now, Warwick had written in his eye strainingly small print. And I’m a part of it. The moment we’ve all been waiting for. It’s taken so long, and I’ve watched our youth slip away, heading swiftly towards being old men. Phillip is gathering everyone back together again. It’s presenting under the smart guise of being a community help committee, of all things, but it carries the same name as Dexter―the Thornhill Society.
When the symbols are fed the blood, in the right pattern and with the right amount of blood of course, it will activate the channel deep below the hallowed spot. Rhodes tells us that the Master will come into him, and he shall become him. Then Dark shall spill out of its confines and reign on Earth. Limbo will be shattered and everything will be death.
I’d heard it all before, but seeing it written out so casually made me uneasy.
“Something about this seal really makes people go crazy, doesn’t it?” Jenna’s father pointed out.
“Yes, looks that way,” Hugh agreed. As he, Callie, and Golem went into the kitchen, I was left with Joe. He was pulling his phone out of his pocket to check it.
He also pulled out a faded brass medal on a purple ribbon.
“That’s one of Jenna’s, isn’t it?” I said, recognizing it from her wall display.
He looked down at it and nodded with a faint, melancholy smile. He stroked the ribbon lovingly. “Yeah. I keep it with me all the time. I don’t need a reminder of her―I think about her every day. But I feel like she’s still around if I have it. It’s something that I can actually touch, not just a thought or a memory.”
“I get that. I’ve kept every small thing that I had from her.”
He folded the medal back up carefully and put it back in his pocket. “You were a good friend to her, Ariel. Despite what my wife―” his face went from solemn to angry for a moment, then smoothed out “―may have thought, you were always there for her.”
I felt myself getting uncomfortably emotional and cleared my throat. I didn’t have the right to cry when I’d seen Jenna so much since her death and he hadn’t.
“What happened to the rest of the medals? She had so many.”
His face twisted again, and this time the scowl stayed in place, making me regret asking the question. “Rachel put them all in a box, and I never saw them again.”
Rachel was Jenna’s mother, who had been accepted into Thornhill when my mother wasn’t. Those were the terms of the coin toss. She’d always seemed like a pretty cold person to me, but her apparent disregard of her daughter still caught me off guard.
“How are you handling her being a part of Thornhill?” I asked as delicately as I knew how.
“One way or another, I’m going to bring them down,” Joe said, a far-off look capturing his eyes. “For my daughter.”
###
After school the next day, I ran up to the grocery store to get things to make spaghetti for dinner. I was mindful of not staying out too late, heeding Hugh’s words about the curfew.
My stomach rumbled. “You would think an angel wouldn’t have such a hankering for pasta and tomato sauce,” I muttered to myself as I browsed the aisles. An old woman beside me noticed my self-talk and stared at me like I might have lost it. I tried to smile, but she clutched her plastic raincoat and hurried off.
On the way home, I looked in the rear view mirror and with a start noticed the black Cadillac driving behind me. My heart instantly accelerated. My phone was in its usual place on the seat beside me, and I contemplated using it. I drove the car straight home, and as I turned into the apartment complex, it veered off. I immediately stopped the car and got out, looking down the road, hoping to catch the license plate. No luck.
I got back in the car and pulled into my usual parking space. As I was getting the groceries out of the trunk, I noticed a faint, flashing green light beneath the car.
“What the…” I crouched on my hands and knees on the gravel, leaning low enough to look below. A small black box was attached just past my bumper on the bottom of the car. The tiny green light flashed on and off. I reached up and ripped the box off with some difficulty.
It didn’t take much for me to realize it was some kind of GPS tracker. So they were keeping tabs on me.
Wanting to smash the tracker beneath my shoe, instead I found the battery and took it out, stowing it in my purse. It could be evidence later―the more the better.
I called Henry when I got inside. “You need to look on the bottom of your car.”
“For what, a guy with a hook?” he asked.
“No. I just found a tracker on my car, and that Cadillac followed me all the way home.”
While I was still on the phone with him, he went out. I heard a moment of scraping and then he breathed back into the phone.
“Is there one on your car?” I asked.
“Not anymore.”
###
Hugh and I went to the police station the next day. He’d gone over what to say with the others several times. I expected Stauner to take us to the same interrogation room where he’d questioned me, but h
e brought us back to his office instead.
“Spread the word that I want to be left alone for the next half hour,” Stauner said to an assistant out in the hall. She nodded seriously and he shut the door.
The small room was warm and smelled of wood polish. The walls of the room were lemon yellow, not the gray I always associated with police stations. Homey touches like framed photographs on the desk and a surreal poster of a chess board on the wall made it comfortable.
He poured a cup of coffee for himself and my father. “Do you want one, too, Ariel? Or do you not drink it? My daughter hates the stuff.”
I held my hand up to pass and he sat down with us.
“What’s this evidence you have for me?” he asked us casually.
I had brought the notebooks in my backpack. Pulling them out, I stacked them before him.
“A bunch of dirty notebooks?” he asked, raising one eyebrow. He looked like he didn’t even want to touch them. “This is what you’ve got?”
“Just have a look through them,” Hugh said eagerly. “They belonged to Robert Warwick. We recently came into possession of them.”
“‘Came into possession?’” Stauner repeated with an amused smirk. He cracked the lid on the top notebook.
“They were sent to me,” Hugh lied swiftly. Stauner seemed to accept this and flipped through the books while we sat there in loaded silence. Nobody had a poker face like Detective Stauner. I guessed he must have built it up during years of police work.
“What do you want me to do with these?” Stauner said finally.
Hugh’s face fell. “Use them to take down Thornhill?”
He laughed his dry, condescending laugh again. “How? Warwick was going off the deep end when he was writing them. Even the parts of it that are cohesive are crazy enough to discredit him.”
“You told me if we had evidence―” I began, but Stauner cut me off.
“Evidence that wasn’t the diary entries of an insane person.”
“How can you just disregard these?” Hugh said, his frustration evident. Hugh and Stauner seemed to be carrying on silent communication with their eyes.
Stauner softened, stacking the notebooks together again. “I can take them into evidence. We can try to use them if we find other evidence to back them up.” He set them on the back corner in a banker’s box.
“Did you ever find the necklace? The one McPherson stole from me?” I asked as he returned.
“It wasn’t in his house,” Stauner said shortly, running his hand along his tie and flipping it. “If others have it, they aren’t admitting it or surrendering it. McPherson was working alone at the time.”
“Warwick was working with him, in some capacity,” Hugh interjected crossly.
Stauner sighed, folding his hands again. “He’s dead. I can’t question him. No one can cross examine him. You really want to attempt to take down the most well-respected people in town, a sizable fraction of which are very big name attorneys, with the ramblings of a nut?”
“I thought you were on our side,” Hugh whispered.
“I am very sorry for the tragedy and loss you’ve both experienced,” Stauner said, sounding sincere. “But your side is painfully small in comparison to theirs. This just isn’t enough to take them down. They’ll just argue that you are setting them up. I know that Phillip forced you out of your business. Even the town mayor and the PD are influenced by Thornhill. Rhodes is talking about running in the next election.”
Hugh stared down at the floor.
I took the small, deactivated tracker box out of my purse. “They put this on my car. A black Cadillac has been following me wherever I go.”
“Now that’s something we can work with,” Stauner said. “I can file a report…”
“That will get shoved in a drawer and forgotten about,” Hugh muttered.
I was feeling as dejected as he looked.
“Is there anything we can do?” I pleaded.
“Keep looking? Or find a way to move out of town.”
“You’re telling us to give up?” I asked.
“We’re not going to do that,” Hugh shot angrily, already on his feet. “I’ve already been forced out of so much. My home, my business, my marriage. I’m not leaving.”
“I know it’s unfair,” Stauner said, following us. “But you provoked the lion.”
We didn’t need him to show us back out. As we reached the front of the station, Cliff Ford was shaking hands with the police chief. He didn’t even look at us on the way out.
“That settles it. The police are as corrupted as we suspected,” Hugh said as we buckled into his car. He leaned his head against his seat, looking too tired to be awake.
###
The members of the opposition gathered together the next night. There was just enough room in our apartment for everyone to stand. Henry stood beside me, and it seemed like the adults were having trouble not staring at him.
“I don’t think they want me here,” he whispered to me.
“Too bad some people don’t know that staring is rude,” I said loudly. The eyes darted away.
“What brings together this meeting of the midnight society?” Alex asked, making Madison snicker. Theo held a finger to her lips.
“This is really going to happen?” Lucy asked Hugh from her spot on the edge of the couch. “Thornhill is actually going to try to bring some kind of Hell on earth?”
“Yes. We need to do everything we can do to stop the ritual from happening,” Hugh said. “These spirits, these realms, are real. We’ve all sensed this town had something wrong with it. The suicides, the accidents, the reports of ghost sightings. Well, this is the final showdown. And I would encourage anyone who doesn’t believe me to leave now, because I don’t have the time or the energy left to convince you.”
No one so much as stirred.
Henry spoke up. “I know you don’t like the idea, Hugh, but I think we need to spy on one of their meetings.” Everyone quieted and listened to him. “There is an important one coming up next week. All of the kids are invited. I think it means that the ritual is going to be soon. I mean, all of the seals are activated, right? Except the last one?”
“We believe so. Ariel, you said you saw the green light when Charlotte Gary died, correct?”
“Yeah,” I spoke up. “Phillip told me the copper coil inside was busted.”
“If you saw the light, then the seal is active,” Callie said. “At least, everything in our research indicates it.”
I thought back quickly to Charlotte Gary’s death. When her blood touched the seal, the symbol on it had glowed green. It didn’t last for very long, but it had definitely happened.
“It’s active,” I agreed.
“Henry, I think you’re right about the meeting,” Hugh said. Madison’s parents and Mr. Golem looked at him in surprise. “There really are no other options that I can see. We need to know what they are planning so we can stop it. We’ll infiltrate the meeting next week.”
“And if they catch you?” Joe asked. “What then? Obviously they don’t mind killing their problems off.”
“What other choice do we have?” Hugh asked, still looking so tired and worn down. “We’ll take as many precautions as we can. However, I think we should seriously consider sending all of the kids out of town. I don’t think it’s safe for them.”
Henry, Theo, Alex, and I let off shouts of protest.
“No way I’m leaving. They’d have to take me out,” Alex muttered.
“I know you don’t like the idea. I know that I said you were the one to finish this, Ariel, but―” Hugh began, but I didn’t let him finish.
“No, dad. I want to be there,” I said firmly, crossing my arms. “Serafina told us that I was the only one who could finish this.”
“Ariel, we will figure out another way—”
“I have been part of this since the beginning,” I argued. “We are more involved and have more at stake than any of you. I am not going to run away. I’
ve spent years running away. We’re going to face them head on, and we are going to defeat them. Thornhill will be nothing but a bad idea.”
“Dang! That was eloquent,” Alex marveled.
Theo laughed and rolled her eyes. Alex smirked, causing Madison to glare reproachfully at Theo. I felt another wave of irritability at their ongoing fight. I wanted Madison on our side, but I also wanted to deck her half the time.
Hugh looked at me with pride in his eyes. A small smile fought to settle on his lips. He turned his attention back to Henry. “When is this meeting?”
“Next Saturday.”
After the meeting was over, Henry pulled me aside.
“I think I should do a little investigation of my own,” he said quietly.
“Of what?” I asked, curiosity piqued.
“My father’s been spending a lot of time in his study. More time than usual. I found out where he keeps his spare key, and I think I’m going to go in and see what he’s hiding in there.”
“I want to check it out, too,” I said immediately.
He frowned at me. “Ariel, I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to be in my house. If he caught you there, it could be really bad. I don’t want…”
“We can be cautious. In and out. I’ve been dying to snoop through Phillip’s stuff. Please?” I held my hands together in a prayer position.
He sighed, pursing his lips. “If you’re up for it, dear, I suppose we can try. But we have to be very careful.”
CHAPTER 19
I’D NEVER BEEN to Henry’s house before. In all the time we’d been together, the idea had come up, but we’d never actually done it. He drove me there after school in the middle of the week. It had warmed up quite a bit, and thunderstorms were on the wind. His parents were both still at work. They were doing an awful lot of work for people planning on performing a demonic ritual.
The house was just as impressive as I’d imagined―all red brick, four stories high from the street with lots of big windows. The sight of it took my breath away. Inside, it was all dark wood floors and extravagant, antique furnishings in perfect condition. We didn’t even need to turn on lights because she much sunshine came through the windows. But as we walked through, it struck me as emotionally cold. There were no day-to-day, human touches, no signs that anyone actually lived there.
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