Lauren leaned up towards Detective Chase, putting her hand on the back of my seat.
“No, it is for the Hartford University Paranormal Science Department. Professor Black set it up. They’re up there, about ten students, all taking readings.”
“Oh, alright. I suppose that will be fine, then. I’ll notify the police department it’s taking place, and they’ll be sure and do extra surveillance to keep you guys safe. Will Alex Drumley be there, Lauren?”
“Yes, he’s going,” Willow brightened.
“How do you know?” he inquired, looking at her through the rearview mirror as he pulled into the parking area next to the cave.
“I am acquainted with people at Hartford who were kind enough to provide me with a list of attendees. I was disappointed to discover a boy I was interested in couldn’t make it,” she lamented.
“So, that’s why you were trying to back out, huh?” Lauren scoffed, smacking her on the knee.
“No! That is not why. I have had a difficult day already. Not sure if my psyche can handle orbs,” her voice squeaked.
“Fiona, it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you tagged along to get a feel for Mr. Drumley. It will be safe with that many people there, and I’ll have some uniforms keep an eye on the place. Plus, Agent Bronson is still on duty.”
“Oh gosh, another paranormal night?” I exclaimed.
“I’ll go too, Fiona,” Wolfe added. “I’ll text my parents right now.”
Suddenly, I felt like going.
“Alright, I’ll go. I’ll give Maddie a heads up I won’t be home after her game,” I added warily.
We climbed out of the car; the sunset was beautiful, framed by a rainbow of colors. There were four cars parked in the parking area, one with a Hartford faculty sticker like my mother. Professor Black. Agent Bronson took his position at the mouth of the cave, waving goodbye.
Using the flashlights on our phones, we entered the cave and marched down the musky, stale corridor towards the main area with the waterfall, Willow already whining about being scared. Lauren held her tiny frame close with her right arm wrapped around her shoulder as they walked together as a unit.
The Hartford team had placed light sources throughout the corridor, and in the main area, but nothing seemed as if it could light it enough to feel safe.
We met up with the team, who had filled the main area next to the waterfall with folding tables holding up many monitors and meters, powered by a noisy generator with the exhaust piped into the hole in the ceiling. They had situated somewhat of a tent over their equipment to prevent the cave water droplets from the ceiling from shorting out and ruining their electronics. I figured they knew what they were doing and had all of their bases covered. Seemed like they had taken a lot of time in the set-up of the room and were in for a long night.
I saw a few familiar faces such as Duncan Doyle and Ralph Booner, who I recognized from my interactions with the previous murder case our group had worked on at the Foster Manor. They had both supported the notion that a ghost had murdered Gilroy Foster so I couldn’t have taken either of them seriously from that point on.
On a folding chair behind the chaos, I caught sight of the voluptuous Camber Johnson. She looked intently at her phone, obviously having an issue with a signal. I immediately gauged Wolfe’s expression as he noticed her, a smile spreading across his chiseled face. He waved hello, and she pointed to Ralph and fanned her face as if she had suddenly gotten hot. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes, but it supported Wolfe’s story she was interested in Ralph and not him.
Professor Black was in his usual black suit, arms folded, watching over his group from the shadows. There couldn’t have been a better-suited leader of the ghost hunters with pale skin, dark eyes, and black-as-night shoulder-length hair. His voice was ominous and deep, sounding pitch-altered.
As the night progressed, I grew tired, and Wolfe ran his fingers through my hair, rubbing my scalp methodically, pulling me backward to lean on his legs. Maddie and the detective weren’t there, so I didn’t see the harm in the interaction since the inseparable duo believed we were only friends. And, for the most part, we were only friends as nothing was official besides a secret, mutual attraction.
Paying attention to my mission, I observed Alex Drumley carefully; he seemed to be a normal guy. He didn’t curse, didn’t talk about negative things and seemed intent on his research. I would have nothing to report to the detective in the morning, and I nearly felt dreadful about it. I figured a few questions couldn’t hurt.
“Alex, I’m sure you know that your fingerprints were found on the murder weapon of the Jody James murder case, right?”
He cocked his head to the side, studying me as he placed his meter on the table.
“Yes, I am aware. I’ve already told the cops I was collecting data down in the Dracul’s Den about a week before the murder, and I had to move the sword out of the way. It was on the slab, and I needed that area to set up my equipment because I couldn’t get one of these folding tables through the tunnel.”
I nodded, feeling invasive for bringing up the subject.
“Makes perfect sense. Thanks, Alex. Sorry, I’m working the case and must have missed that in the report.”
Lauren remained vigilant, assisting the Hartford investigators. She asked a rainbow of questions and took notes in her five subject spiral she named on the front with a permanent marker—Paranormal Data.
Willow had relaxed and became engrossed in monitor watching. As things go, I believe she found a new crush that night, as she certainly spent a lot of time with a freshman boy from Hartford named Markey. However, Willow was the last one who needed a new relationship, as she had an acceptance letter in hand for an Ivy League program in medicine for the fall. With a full family line of doctors, it was expected.
I checked the time, the Witching Hour was fast approaching, but I could barely keep my eyes open until brazen footsteps echoed from down the corridor.
Camber Johnson jumped up, hiding behind Ralph Booner. Wolfe pushed me upright, rushing over to take a stance beside Ralph. I was slightly irritated at his choice of a position, but stumbled to my feet and took a spot at the back of the group.
The lights of the monitors shone bright enough where I eventually could make out who was standing before us. It was Dimitri LeMorte, Damien Lee, and Victoria Newsted. Sydney Sergeant trailed in behind them, posing in an awkward stance, sheen of sweat on her forehead glowing from the luminosity bouncing off the monitors scattered about the room.
“Camber! Let’s go! Time for our meeting, dear,” Dimitri spoke in a nearly comical false foreign accent.
A few police officers who had been standing guard of the cave entrance sauntered in behind Dimitri’s group, squaring their shoulders as they halted a few feet in front of him.
“Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to leave,” the officer said sternly.
Agent Bronson joined the officers, hand on his weapon in the holster, searching the cave for my location. He nodded upon seeing me, unruffled.
“Excuse me, I’ve done nothing wrong. We are simply having a group meeting downstairs. If these nice young people can have a meeting, we should be able to have a meeting,” Dimitri argued, his accent changing drastically as he spoke.
“Mr. LeMorte, given what has gone on in the cave—”
“You’ve seen me here; there are witnesses. What exactly do you think I’m going to do? Are you saying, Officer, that you are allowing this group of individuals to meet in the cave, but not my group of individuals? All you need to do is say it and we can deal with this tomorrow. With all of my people, at your station…and news cameras,” Dimitri said in a threatening Russian accent.
The officer surveyed the room and then shook his head in disgust.
“We will be right outside if you need us,” he scoffed, staring at our group, “and all you need to do…all any of you need to do is scream,” the officer said sarcastically, spinning around to march down the corridor.
&nb
sp; Camber broke down in tears as Ralph and Wolfe tried to console her. The cult members laughed maniacally, crawling into the tunnel towards Dracul’s Den. Sydney Sergeant turned for a second, gazing at me with an apologetic expression before following the others into the tunnel.
“I-I-I told you that they w-w-would try to make me stay in the cult. Dimitri said if I quit, he would cut out my tongue,” Camber whimpered. “I told you, Wolfe. We were here; our group was always here during the Witching Hour and tonight is no different. But that lady was already dead!”
Wolfe looked at her in dismay and then turned to me. My blood boiled with a fury he hadn’t mentioned to me she had confessed to being in the cave the night of the murder. We all knew they were there, but they held strong as a unit, trying to maintain their alibis of not being there the night of the murder—even when the evidence placed them there. Wolfe had crossed the threshold into the biggest betrayal of a crime lab. Withholding evidence.
“I’ve got to go. I’ll have Agent Bronson drive me home. Lauren, can you give Wolfe a ride to his house?”
“Uh, sure, Fiona. No problem. What’s wrong?”
“Did you hear what Camber just said?”
“No?”
“Ask Wolfe. He knows,” I said, storming out of the cave.
17 PRISON DONOR
My mind spun around in circles, trying to find a way out—too difficult to sleep with fury coursing through my veins. I silenced my phone, ignoring Wolfe’s repeated calls. Betrayal. Lies. There was no way he could talk his way out of it. Camber had confessed a valuable piece of evidence for the case, and he didn’t bother to report it to the group—even appeared as if he had encouraged her to keep quiet.
Questions without answers, riddled with grim sarcasm, floated through my conscious. How long was he going to let it go without telling me about Camber’s admission? How could I ever trust him again? And for her? Was she worth ruining our friendship? I finally drifted off to sleep. The next thing I remember was Janice’s voice.
“Fiona! Fiona!” Janice sang as she pulled open my drapes and fastened them with the rope ties on the wall. “Honey, it’s nearly noon!”
I peeked at her with narrow slits as my retinas soaked in the sunrays. I stretched my limbs inside of my new satin sheets, feeling along the soft faux fur of my new bedding. I wasn’t ready to get up, but I appeased her, gazing at my tray of breakfast with a smile. She turned on the television and asked me if there was anything else I needed.
“No, I’m fine, Janice. You’re too good to me!” I said groggily.
“Well, don’t say that yet. I have a little favor to ask of you, if you will,” she said demurely from around the corner, pulling a second tray of breakfast and placing it in front of my bed. She wouldn’t look at me as she straightened my bedding. I assumed she was doing this for someone else to join me.
“Are you joining me for breakfast, Janice?”
“Oh, heaven’s no, dear. You’ve got company.”
“Oh my. Who?”
Wolfe’s face flashed in my mind, and a sense of critical apprehension rushed over me. He couldn’t see me with a puffy face and crazy hair.
“Just be calm, Fiona and hear this person out, alright?”
“Janice, if it is Wolfe, I’ll die. Please don’t let him in here!”
“It is not Wolfe, dear. It’s somebody else who would like to offer their deepest apology to you. Stay calm; do I have your word?”
Platinum curls bounced from around the threshold. Haley eased into the room donning a tiny grin. She strolled over, taking a seat next to my feet on my bed.
“I will leave you two alone. Please hear her out, Fiona,” she said, hesitating for a moment before exiting.
Every muscle tensed as I glared at her, waiting for her to make another move to destroy my room. Instinctively I clenched my jaws with the intensity of my focus.
“Fiona, I’m sorry. I was wrong to bust in your lab without tellin’ ya. But I really didn’t break in! I borrowed your key and only jacked a few things I didn’t think you’d miss. It was the janitor dude who ratted me out and made it a big deal,” she defended, grabbing a piece of toast.
I cogitated her words for a moment before responding, silencing her with an icy stare. The tone of her voice surprised me. She sounded rehearsed, but there was something sincere about her delivery. I broke the silence.
“Haley, you broke in and stole my things. Not only that, since it is a federally funded lab, you nearly cost me the entire program and everything I have worked for in the last couple of years. You also could have put a huge dent in my future if I would have had a lab closed down for security reasons. What the hell were you doing it for? My dad said you wanted to collect microbe samples? That doesn’t sound like you, to be honest.”
Her eyes dropped to the ground. Letting go of her toast, it fell back onto her plate on top of her scrambled eggs.
“Fiona, I know. I didn’t know it was all that serious, and I’m sorry. I’m havin’ t’do community service, and they put me in a stupid alternative school where it’s do it at your own pace work. I can’t stand it, but yeah, I guess I deserved it. Me and my friends learned in science class ‘bout how to test for germs on stuff. The teacher said at school the most germs were in the girl’s bathroom, so we wanted to test around the city t’see if we could find the nastiest place. Then, we were gonna tell the news peeps and get famous for discoverin’ it.”
She hesitated, waiting for my reaction. Lifting her glass of orange juice, she gulped half of it down.
“I appreciate your new-found interest in science, but next time, please ask me for help and save us all the drama. You would have needed an incubator for that, you know,” I said, stifling a giggle after remembering she had just trashed my room.
“We know, we did the experiments in class. We were just gonna use the oven on warm,” Haley said softly, a glint of friendliness flashed in her eyes.
I mentally responded with a plethora of sarcastic comebacks about how dumb of an idea that would have been on many levels. Thinking better of bringing any of the remarks to fruition, I smiled. She surveyed my room and the new things Janice had purchased to replace what she had destroyed, and she looked mildly remorseful.
“Sorry ‘bout your room. I felt like you messed it up for me with Duncan on purpose. Found out later he thought I was older than fifteen, and when Carden told him I was a ninth grader, that’s why he broke it off. He thought I was a freshman at the college. I s’pose it wasn’t your fault,” she lamented, twirling a platinum lock with her finger.
“I don’t know why you make the poor decisions you do. You always choose to do the wrong thing, hang with the wrong people, and say the wrong things. You’re one of the most ungrateful people I have ever known,” my voice was paper thin.
I had wanted her to realize this ever since she moved into my house the previous summer. Her eyes welled up with tears as she stood up from the bed, pausing to see if I would stop her. I didn’t. She grabbed her tray and ambled towards the door, her head held down. I pondered whether or not if I wanted to stop her. I said nothing, turned my head towards my television.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Fiona. I know I’ve done this to myself.”
Listening to her footsteps down the hallway to her room, I stared at my breakfast for a long moment before grabbing my remote and turning the channel to something positive. Stopping on a Discovery Channel program about marmosets, I demolished my scrambled eggs and toast. I didn’t feel ashamed for what I had said to her. I figured she got off easy for everything she had done. The apology was a step, but I still longed for her to go to New Zealand and get out of my life.
I grabbed my phone. I had over twenty missed calls and text messages from Wolfe. Scrolling down the list, I read a text from Detective Chase requesting a call the moment I woke up. I called him, muting the volume on my television.
“Hello, Fiona! I received word you left the cave early last night,” he said.
“
Yeah, I did. I was a little angry about something, but it’s no big deal. Being worked out,” I lied.
“Well, I hope it didn’t have anything to do with the Wolfe—Fiona relationship, did it? You know I warned you that would lead to drama. You’re his boss for all accounts and purposes,” he lectured sternly.
If it were the real world, I would have fired Wolfe last night.
“I know, Detective. I figured I had observed Alex Drumley long enough to know he’s harmless, he’s not the one. Unless he is a total psychopath and knows how to maintain a façade for multiple hours, he’s not a murderer by my intuition.”
“Good you say that, Fiona. Alex Drumley isn’t a suspect anymore. He works part time at the Godley Grove Cemetery. He clocked in at his job at 1:25 AM the night of the murder. He must have got his paranormal readings in the cave and high-tailed it to make it to work on time. The murder was at 2 AM by the autopsy and witness accounts. He’s not the one,” the detective recounted.
“Good news. Glad to know I wasn’t in the cave with a murderer last night. Well, the vampire group showed up. Freaked everybody out, but I left right after they showed up. The cult went downstairs to Dracul’s Den. Sydney Sergeant was with them, and she looked rather nervous. I thought she wanted to disassociate with that group? You should check on her today, by the way.
“Will do, but the Hartford folks didn’t report any issues from last night in the cave, so I’m assuming everybody made it out alright. One more thing. The blood from the second murder in the cave came back as a match to a frequent blood donor that works at Huntville Prison. This person is not dead, in fact, made it to work last night.”
“Well, then it was a staged crime scene. Nobody died, right?”
“Doesn’t look that way.”
“Parker Thomas’s wife works at the prison. Gerald Smith, who is the only suspect in the staged murder due to his bloody fingerprint on the altar, escaped from prison on an inside job. Don’t know what to make of that, but I’ll add it to my evidence board to see if it fits,” I said before ending the call.
Fiona Frost: Order of the Black Moon Page 19