“One-four-three-four-seven-hashtag-minadavis,” Lacy mumbled. She paused for a second, and then her eyes grew wide in horror. “It didn’t work.”
“What?” I almost shouted. “It has to work.”
I went to her side and took the phone from Lacy. Under the login information, it now said,One attempt remaining.
Lacy let out a string of curses. Three minutes to go.
I took a steadying breath to calm my rapid pulse and ran back through the hint that I’d memorized:diamond numbers, hashtag, lowercase, name of the one that got away.
It took me almost a full minute of scanning the clues we’d collected, but then I knew what was wrong. “What was the serial number again?”
Lacy repeated the numbers she’d typed in.
“But it had a period in it, right?” Before she could respond, and with less than two minutes remaining, I dared the final attempt:1434.7#minadavis.
The account opened, I went directly to send and deleted the email that was about to make its destructive way into the world at large.
“It’s done. We stopped it,” I said, letting out a heavy sigh as Lacy fell back into her chair, relief washing across her features. She’d been able to undo the terrible work of her first love, Brett Brinkley.
“It’s deleted?” Anton asked.
“The email, the images, the video,” Lacy listed. “None of it will go out.”
Lacy threw her arms around her boyfriend before sinking into his shoulder in a way that melded the two of them together. She was crying, but this time, they were tears of relief. She waved me over and pulled me into their embrace.
“Thank God for both of you,” Lacy said, as she squeezed both of us tighter. “I don’t know what I would do without…” She continued crying a few more beats before releasing us and sniffling away the tears.
That’s when she looked from me to Anton and then back to me. I could almost read her mind, and though this seemed like neither the time nor place, when Lacy wanted something, she wouldn’t be stopped.
“Anton,” Lacy said, with all the love in her voice, “you’re my partner and the love of my life. We’ve been dating for two years, but I could spend two hundred with you.”
Anton smiled at her, but I could tell he had no idea what was coming next. He hadn’t yet learned to read Lacy’s mind like I could. Maybe I was clairvoyant after all.
To his surprise, but not to mine, Lacy threw both arms around his neck. Then, she leaned back and gazed into his eyes as she asked him, “Anton, will you marry me?”
Anton’s face registered his shock. He released her and stepped backward, though his eyes lingered on hers. His body created long shadows in the candlelit room as he turned around and made his way to the door of the Vampire Room, looking back over his shoulder one more time before walking away.
Wide-eyed, Lacy got back to her feet. I took her hand.
“Was it too soon?” Lacy asked, her eyes roaming from the door he’d exited and back to me, trying to understand why he’d run away. “Oh God. I’m too impulsive. I know this, and yet I keep trying to?—”
I pulled her close, quieting her like a mother with a child. As I comforted her, the other séance attendees began to leave or mingle, most of them talking about how crazy the night had been.
Anton was gone for several minutes before he returned, breathless and lit up with nerves. In his hand was a ring, andeveryone stopped what they were doing and watched him as he fell to one knee in front of Lacy, who had turned to watch him with tears in her eyes. Instead of asking the question though, he gave an answer to the question she’d asked him minutes earlier.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Anton said, as he slipped the ring on her finger and pulled Lacy in for a kiss.
EPILOGUE
It was Sunday afternoon. I would be heading back to New York that evening, and I was still debating what to tell my professor.
Aunt DeeDee was making a full spread at Momma’s house for our late lunch. Anton and Lacy were set to arrive, making it a sort of celebratory occasion, and Savilla would join us too. Charlie would get here after he checked in one more time at the station. Fried chicken, black-eyed peas, fried green tomatoes, and mashed potatoes. “With margarine to keep our figures intact,” Aunt DeeDee claimed, even as she added a thick slab of bacon to the peas.
“What in tarnation are you planning to do with your inheritance?” Aunt DeeDee asked now, for perhaps the fifth time. It had become a kind of singsong statement rather than a question as she cooked.
“Who knows how much I’ll actually end up with.” I’d already explained Savilla’s financial woes, but we had found the Rose Diamond. Presumably that jewel could be sold to remedy some of the Finch money troubles.
Aunt DeeDee waved away my thinking. “When it’s all said and done, however much you’re handed, it’ll be more than the Greens have ever seen before.”
