Almost Midnight (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3.5)(116)

Fredericka heard his words and she wondered how he could know just what to say.

Right then she recalled Cary’s callous remarks about her father’s death and tears filled her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“Saying the right thing.” She brushed a few tears from her eyes.

“You okay?” he asked, as if he could tell she was crying.

“Yeah.” She took in a shaky breath. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. You want to hear me bitch about something? Maybe it will make you feel better.”

“Go for it,” she said and chuckled just a bit.

He laughed, but something about the sound said he was serious. “My sister.”

Fredericka glanced down at the newspaper still on the workbench. She’d brought it with her from Holiday’s office. She’d read the whole thing before she’d gotten to work.

When he didn’t say anything else, she spoke up. “I read about it this afternoon.” She paused. “What do you think happened to her?”

“What do I think happened? I think that * of a boyfriend happened. But I can’t prove it. I can’t even prove she’s dead, but I know she is. If they could just find her body then … then maybe they could hang that guy high.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Me, too.” There was a long pause. “She was only my half-sister. My dad was married to someone else before he knocked up my mom. Linda was ten years older than me. She used to tell me, ‘Don’t you sass me, I changed your diaper.’ We never lived together but we saw each other three or four times a year. But when I was in the hospital after the accident, she came to see me every day.”

Tears filled Fredericka’s eyes. And just like that she wasn’t afraid of seeing a ghost. She wanted to see her. Wanted to find a way to help both his sister and Brandon.

“I’d come to see her when she’d just moved here,” Brandon continued. “We were looking for a place for her to buy and we found this house. It was more money than she had. I’d just gotten paid for two big pieces I’d done, so I agreed to help her with the idea that when I got four or five pieces to show, she could open the front two rooms into a gallery.

“You want to hear something crazy?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said.

“I sometimes feel her. It’s as if she’s here.” She heard him inhale. “Have you seen the chimes hanging up in the front room?”

“Yeah.” Chills ran down Fredericka’s spine, remembering the ghostly sound of those chimes. And then she recalled going into the house to the absence of that sound when Brandon had gone to speak to … Oh, shit. Brandon had said the guy waiting in the car had been one of Linda’s old boyfriends. Was it the same boyfriend Brandon suspected of killing her? Was that why they had gone dead silent? Was Linda trying to tell her something?

“They were hers.” Grief sounded in Brandon’s voice and she ached for him. “She made them. She used to say she wasn’t really an artist, but she was. She needed to believe in herself. I hung them right after I got that room finished. Not to sell, but … because I just wanted some of her in the shop. But sometimes when they ring, there’s not a bit of air flowing in the house.”

*

The next day, Fredericka walked into history class, her last for the day. Afterward, she was heading to the gallery. When she saw Cary standing by his desk, offering her a slight smirk, she pushed back her fury. She didn’t do it because it was the right thing to do; she did it because if she was going to outfox and stop the jerk from causing her trouble, she was going to have to have all her wits. And when livid, one was often witless.

Cary met her gaze again, briefly, and she saw it. He wasn’t finished punishing her.

Game on, Fredericka thought. All she had to do was figure out what he planned on doing and put up a roadblock. It wasn’t even all that hard to do—just start thinking like an *, because that’s exactly what he was.

He moved in front of the class. As he did she wondered how she could have ever thought he was someone she wanted in her life.

“Okay, everyone, pass up the twenty questions you were to answer. And I’m not going to lie to you. These will count for a big part of your grade.” Something about the way he said it sent a warning bell through her.

Fredericka looked down at her paper. She’d spent two hours last night on her homework, making sure she hadn’t missed one question. No way in hell was she going to let him accuse her of not doing her work.

“Here.” Della—a vampire and one of Kylie’s roommates—who sat behind her, handed up her homework along with the other three students’ behind her. Fredericka hesitated and then she purposely didn’t put hers in the stack when she passed them up.

Only after Cary had collected all the papers in the front row and set them on his desk, did Fredericka raise her hand. “I’m sorry, I forgot to put mine in the stack.”

She stood up, and then turned to Miranda, the student sitting in the next row. She held out her paper to the witch. “Oh, did I complete them all?” she asked as if worried.

The witch leaned in.

“Weren’t there twenty questions?” Fredericka asked.

“Yeah,” Miranda nodded and glanced up from the paper.