“Am I a suspect?” Belinda asks, looking between my father and me.
“No,” he answers, again, too quickly.
At the same time, I reply, “Officially, I would say you’re a person of interest.” Belinda closes her eyes and lets out a weighted sigh. “Only until we can rule you out, and Pops thinks that will be easy,” I add, feeling slightly bad for the woman. I need to ensure I’m not letting her relationship with my father color my opinion of her any more than I want Dad to allow his opinion to influence him.
Belinda looks over at my dad and her expression softens, but she appears sad too. I hope this didn’t blow his chances with her, at least I do if she isn’t a murderous librarian.
Chapter 11
Say: I
Spell: map
Say: ness
Iexcuse myself from the room, telling Dad, “I’ll meet you outside,” so he can say his goodbye in private. He’s muttering words of reassurance before I can clear the doorway.
It’s easy enough to find my way back to the entrance of the home. I stand in the foyer for a few moments, thinking I’m avoiding a prolonged conversation with the guys, but then I start to wonder if they really did stick around.
My departure from Hill Crest wasn’t unplanned, but the fact that I went alone was. They were supposed to be with me, each with our own plan for the future, but then everything changed in a single night. I didn’t stick around long once the dust settled, and none of them even tried coming after me.
My curiosity gets the better of me, and I pull open the wooden door. A wave of warm air pushes through the screen and curls past me. Remy and Felix are both looking in my direction, their gazes drawn by the sound of the door, but Grayson is making it a point not to glance my way. He looks half pissed off and half bored, if his scowl is any indication.
Now that I know they waited, I have a petulant desire to slam the door, but I refrain and step out to the shade of the porch. I’ve never been one for the heat. I thought about moving north once I was done with the academy, but I just couldn’t bring myself to move that far away from home, even though I haven’t been back in years.
Remy lifts his hand and shields his eyes from the sun. The move tightens the fabric of his shirt over his bicep, and I can’t help but notice. It’s the off season, but you’d never know it by looking at him. His body is like a finely tuned race car—nice to look at but even better to drive. Simply put, professional sports look good on him.
I act like I don’t keep tabs on the guys. However, my private browser would tell a multitude of secrets. In my moments of weakness, I’ve searched for info about his team and stats, and googled all of their names. I have no idea how I missed the fact that Grayson was the Mayor of Hill Crest. I suppose it wasn’t big enough news to have landed a story in the paper, which is surprising since he’s got to be the youngest mayor in the history of our small town.
“Where to next?” Remy does a mock bow. I snicker as Felix pulls open the rear door and stands off to the side for me to enter.
The door behind me opens, and Dad stomps out. “She’s done for the day.”
My gasp hisses through my lips at his abrupt announcement. I didn’t think he would be happy with me after the hard conversation with Belinda, but I didn’t think he would be so pissed he’d toss me to the wolves.
Dad looks over at me, and his face falls. “Frankie,” he adds much softer, but I just shake my head and walk away from him. His sigh is heavy in my ears as I make it to the bottom of the steps. What I did inside wasn’t personal, what he just did was. “Uh, you can take her to the station,” he amends.
“Not necessary. If you’ve sent the preliminary reports and interviews to me, I’ll go over everything on my laptop.” My tone is flat. He knows what he just did was wrong, but I’m too mad to accept his offer of going to the station. “I’ll type up a report and send it back this afternoon.” Before he has a chance to respond, I slide into the backseat of the SUV, and Felix climbs in behind me, closing the door. He wraps his pinky over mine while looking straight ahead. The silent comfort sends a pang through my heart. It’s hard to see just how much I lost by leaving that night.
“Why don’t we grab some lunch?” Remy says after getting behind the wheel.
“I’m not hungry,” Grayson mutters.
“I am, unless you have a reason you want to get back to the house sooner?” Remy challenges. Grayson turns his head slowly and gives his best friend the evil eye. “That’s what I thought.” Remy puts the car in gear, and we pull out of the old Wompler place—well, I suppose I should start calling it the Miller place now. It seems Belinda has made quite a home for herself here.
The destination for lunch isn’t discussed. In fact, the car is nearly silent except for Grayson’s heavy sighs expressing his obvious disapproval of the situation, and I’m pretty sure I’m the situation that has him so disgusted.
As we hit the main strip, I notice all the new development. When I left town, half the storefronts on Main Street were empty, but now it’s bustling with even more buildings which fit the same architecture of the original town square. “Wow,” I whisper, ducking to look out the front and side windows.
Farther down the road, I can make out the heavy gray outline of the school. It’s large enough to block most of the library, but I can just see the stone steps leading up to the doors. I don’t see anyone gathered around, and I wonder if the cloaking spell is still in place.
“Really?” Grayson deadpans as Remy parks the truck in front of the old hardware store.
“What? We come here almost every day when I’m home.” Remy tries to sound nonchalant, but I hear a note of something in his tone. I hate that I don’t know why Grayson is upset or why Remy seems to be goading him. I guess that’s what happens when you grow apart though.
Grayson grabs the door handle and wrenches it open while shaking his head. As soon as he slams it closed, Felix says, “You knew this would piss him off.”
“Better to be pissed off than pissed on, I always say.” Remy hops out of the car as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
