Adventures of a Graveyard Girl (19 page)

I was already sitting at a table with a peanut butter banana milkshake in hand. It was such good comfort food that it almost made everything seem all right, but my nerves were definitely still on edge. Regardless, it was helping, even if just a little.

Ethan saw me, waved, and walked up to the counter to order a coffee. A moment later, he came toward me carrying a steaming mug.

"I need this," Ethan said, taking a sip of his coffee gratefully.

"Long night?" I asked.

Ethan shrugged, "I couldn't sleep, so I messed with some songs."

"I'd love to hear them," I said.

"Sure," Ethan said. "I was actually thinking of maybe going up here sometime. I heard they have an open mic night on Tuesdays."

"Really?" I asked, excited for him. "That would be awesome!"

"Yeah," Ethan said. "I think it's about time I start playing in front of people. You know, before you got that gunk thrown on you at the funeral, your speech really struck a cord with me. It made me think that I need to just do it and put my music out there. I've never seen you put yourself out there like that. It was very inspiring."

I was touched, "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Ethan said and leaned in and quickly kissed me.

This was really nice - an afternoon spent at Wired drinking peanut butter banana milkshakes and coffee with Ethan. Stop! My brain screamed. Murder and Ariel, remember? It was time to get down to business. My notes were in front of me. I had already been looking them over for about ten minutes while I waited for Ethan.

"Okay, onto tonight. I think we need to assume that Seth didn't do it," I said.

"Well, then who did?" Ethan asked. "I mean, the police arrested Seth last night. They must have a good reason."

"Well, as cool as Detective Dixon was to us at the Funeral Home, I don't think he's right in this case," I said.

"We could go talk to him again," Ethan said. "You still have to go down there and continue your statement to the police about last night."

"Yeah," I said. "I would like to do that because I mean, even if he didn't kill anyone, Seth should get in trouble. What if that stuff had gotten into my eye or something? And, I really could have lived without the
Carrie
life moment ever happening to me. Still, I don't think Detective Dixon will change his mind or anything, so it's pointless to do it today."

"What do we do then? We have no idea who else might have done it either," Ethan said, sipping more coffee. I could tell the caffeine was finally waking him up. He seemed to have a little more life around his eyes then when he walked in.

"We investigate some more," I said.

"In the next six hours? What are we going to find?" Ethan asked.

"Well, negative Nancy, we won't find anything if we don't look," I said.

"Negative Nancy? Where did you get that from?" Ethan laughed.

I rolled my eyes, "Who knows. A book? That's not the point."

"Ok, where do you want to start?" Ethan sighed.

"Our list of suspects besides Seth Wilcox, are these four people: Noah Robertson, Sebastian Zane, Jenny Kendall, and Ray Newton," I said.

"But what if it's someone that we haven't suspected yet?" Ethan asked.

"True," I said. "And, it totally could be."

"So, we're basically at square one. Anyone could have done it. Do you have a favorite for the killer?" Ethan asked.

Last time we had argued over the best candidate for murderer. I looked at the list. My number one suspect at first would have been Julia Morgan, but now she was dead too. They all had motives, but were they really enough to make someone commit multiple murders?

"I don't know," I said. "It could be any of them."

"Exactly. We can't follow them all," Ethan said.

An idea lit up like a light bulb in my brain, "Yes, we can!"

"We can?" Ethan asked.

"Here's the plan," I said and proceeded to tell Ethan that since we had four main suspects, all we had to do in the next few hours is to convince four friends to follow them from a safe distance. I'd follow Ariel to keep her safe and Ethan, because it was the only way he'd agree to the plan, would follow me, for the same purpose. Ethan also demanded we see Detective Dixon and tell him about our fears, even if he didn't believe us. I reluctantly agreed.

We started to make the calls to our friends. I was hoping that our friends would just assume that some of the goo from the night before had gone straight to my brain if we were wrong. If we were right, I only hoped nobody got hurt.

It was six pm and Ethan and I were parking his car in the school parking lot. Ethan was a little disgruntled because Detective Dixon hadn't had time to see us. He was off trying to pin the murders on Seth Wilcox. So, I gave my full statement on what happened the night before to Officer Quincy. We also told Officer Quincy our fears, but I could tell he thought we were crazy. I didn't blame him. We were just kids to him, even if he wasn't much older than us. Besides, the police really thought Seth was the murderer. Maybe Seth was, but I couldn't take the chance.

On the upside, a bunch of our friends had agreed to help us follow our murder suspects. I hoped none of them thought I was totally insane, but they had all humored Ethan and I regardless.

That being said, the assignments were as follows: Kyle and Suzie were on Jenny Kendall watch. They were doing their detective work together because they couldn't stand to spend their first football game apart. Gag. I hoped Ethan and I weren't that ridiculous. Still, I was really happy for Kyle and Suzie. I just had to make fun of them so that I wouldn't get weirded out by all of their making out. It was better if it was funny.

Dave was following Sebastian Zane. Mike was following Ray Newton. I wished I'd had a chance to get to talk to him, but time had run out. I was hoping that he was just a ladies man, but Mike would keep me posted if he did anything weird. They were both keeping an eye on Noah Robertson, since he was supposed to be sitting on the sidelines in his football uniform not playing, and should be relatively easy to spot. Ethan and I were going to keep an eye on him too.

Just to be sure, everyone was also keeping an eye out for Casey Hunt and anybody else who might be suspicious. I wasn't sure if the murderer was in the top few of our list or not and I couldn't take the chance with Ariel's life. I was trying to cover all of our bases. I hoped it was enough.

If anyone heard or saw anything out of the ordinary, they were to text Ethan or I and then call 911. Then they were supposed to get to a safe spot. It was going to be a crazy night, if only just because there were now six of us playing detective and spy.

Ethan and I found the Pep Club. There were already about thirty people waiting with posters, painted faces, and school colored outfits. I was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt and so was Ethan. We hadn't decked ourselves out in school spirit. Oops. I found Ariel pretty quickly in the crowd, lips connected to Troy. At least Troy was also around to protect her. Still, Madison had a date to the Homecoming Dance and he hadn't protected her. I wasn't planning on letting Ariel out of my sight, though, not even to go to the bathroom.

I dragged Ethan toward Ariel and Troy. I had another dejavu moment. It was like our faux double date from a few weeks ago, except the people within the couples were switched. Weird.

"Hey, Ariel. Troy," I said brightly.

Ariel frowned at me, suspiciously, "Hey."

"Hey, Kait. How's it going?" Troy said.

Ethan put his arm around my shoulders.

"Good," I said. "How's the steampunk art?"

"Amazing," Troy gushed, "I was just showing Ariel my latest project today before we drove over here. It's a whole entertainment center. I'm steampunking it out with a bunch of brass and ornamentation, like old clocks and dials. I'm really excited about it. It's going to make my room look amazing and I'm hoping that when I'm done I can take some pictures and maybe start doing it for other people. I'd really like to make my living as an artist. It's the only thing that I really love to do."

"And, he's totally an amazing artist," Ariel stated. "Totally amazing."

Then Ariel kissed him. It was a sloppy kiss and it was kind of gross. I looked at Ethan. He smiled at me and shrugged.

Ariel stepped away from Troy and looked at us, "Anyway, I have to go and be Pep Club president now. Have fun."

Ariel turned to leave. She was going to leave Troy with us and go off on her own. I couldn't let that happen.

"Let me go with you," I said. "I'm part of Pep Club too."

"Uh, okay," Ariel didn't know what to say. "I was just going to go help distribute posters."

"Cool," I said.

Ariel gave me a weird look, but kept walking. She walked over to Mrs. Davis and we helped hand out the rest of the posters that we had made at the meeting to members. I don't think I had ever said hello to so many people in my high school before in all three years put together as I did handing out posters with Ariel and Mrs. Davis. I'll admit it. It was kind of weird. A lot of the people were actually really friendly. It was disconcerting.

There was a break in the distribution and Ariel turned to me, "Okay, Kait, what's the deal? Why are you following me?"

Wow, it had taken her this long to figure it out? I hesitated - did I warn her or lie? I was bad at lying to Ariel.

"I think you're in danger," I said.

Ariel's eyebrows shot up as she processed this, "But the guy who killed Madison and Julia is in jail."

"I'm not so sure," I said.

"Why?" Ariel asked. "What do you know that the police don't?"

"That's the thing. It's a gut feeling," I said. "I can't prove that Seth didn't do it, but I really don't think he did. I have a lot of other suspects."

Ariel frowned, "And can you prove any of them did it?"

"No," I said. "But it just doesn't add up that Seth did it either. And I'm trying to figure it out, but I think you're in danger tonight. Time ran out. It's another big Pep Club event and..."

"Kait," Ariel said.

"Ariel," I said back. "They haven't signed, sealed, and convicted Seth yet. It could be someone else. Like, do you know Ray Newton?"

"Ray?" Ariel asked. "Madison's ex?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Not really," Ariel said, "I mean, besides Madison complaining about him and how he never did anything romantic for her. Then it was about how he started dating Julia, but kept calling Madison and telling her that he wanted her back. What a jerk."

"Did Madison say anything else about him? Like did he ever hit her or was he super jealous or..." I started.

Ariel sighed, "Kait, just stick to funeral crashing and leave me out of it."

Then Ariel turned her back on me to talk to some members who had come up to get their posters. At least I had learned a little more about Ray. Too bad the time to narrow down suspects was running out. At least between all of Ethan's and my friends we were covered. I watched Ariel's back, silently. It didn't matter if she didn't believe me. My gut was still telling me I was right and that she was in danger.

I tried to keep tabs on Ethan and Troy, who had been left alone together. They had moved toward us and were talking avidly to each other. I sort of wondered what they were talking about. Ethan was so weary of Troy before and now they looked like bffs.

"What do you think they're talking about?" I asked Ariel, who had tried to ignore me for the last ten minutes.

Ariel looked over at Ethan and Troy and frowned too, "I don't know, but I think it's time we get back to them. We're pretty much done with the posters anyway."

I followed Ariel back over to Ethan and Troy. Their conversation stopped short as soon as we approached. That was interesting.

"So, were you guys talking about us?" Ariel asked, using her seductive voice.

I thought it was funny, but Troy was suddenly sliding toward Ariel, in response.

"We were just talking," Ethan grinned.

"You're not gonna tell us, are you?" I asked.

"Nope," Ethan said.

Troy and Ariel started making out again. I would have dragged Ethan as far away from them as possible, but we had a pact to watch Ariel. If she got murdered because I couldn't stand some of the uncomfortableness of watching her makeout with Troy, I'd never forgive myself.

"So," Ethan said, staring at me wide-eyed, trying not to notice what was happening next to us.

"So," I responded staring back at him.

This was so totally awful that I had to force my limbs to stay put and not run away screaming. How were we going to do this all night? I couldn't take one more minute, much less hours of this!

"Okay, everyone! Let's head off to the stands! It would be great for the group to sit together, but if you sit with your friends, just remember to show your school spirit! Support your team!" Mrs. Davis said. "Ariel, do you want to say anything?"

Ariel stopped making out with Troy just in time to pay attention to Mrs. Davis, "Go Palos Grizzlies!"

The group cheered. Ariel had that effect on people. Minimal effort and yet she still got an amazing response. It was definitely a talent.