Kylie gaped at the screaming redheaded girl locked in the big purple cage in the middle of Miranda's room. Then her gaze shot to Miranda, reclining in the middle of her bed, painting her toenails as if it were a lazy Sunday morning.
"Let me out of here, you bitch!" The girl shook the cage.
Miranda finished spreading fuchsia pink on her pinky toenail before she glanced up. "What's up?" She smiled extra wide at Kylie.
"Bitch!" the girl screamed at Miranda then glared at Kylie. "Make her let me go!"
"I think I should be asking you what's up," Kylie said to Miranda, and then she looked back at the girl. A quick sniff of the air said there hadn't been any blood lost.
Yet, anyway.
"Release me!" the prisoner snarled.
Kylie glanced back at Miranda and raised an eyebrow.
"See what I caught." Miranda giggled. "Remember I've been telling you that someone was lurking around our cabin? I set a trap. And damn if I didn't catch Tabitha Evans."
"Do you know her?" Kylie asked.
"Yup, she's one of the witches I'm competing against in two weeks."
Tabitha shook the bars so hard that the cage rocked. "I'm the witch that is going to put a hex on you if you don't let me out!"
"Don't worry," Miranda said. "Her powers don't work as long as she's kept in my special cage. And I put a silencer about a hundred feet away, so no one can hear her yell."
"What's she doing here?" Kylie asked, concerned for the prisoner. "Trying to undermine my confidence so I'd drop out of the competition."
"And if I'd known you were such a screw-up I wouldn't have wasted my time," the girl screamed.
Okay, so Tabitha deserved to be caged. "Do you think she's the one who's been cutting off the security alarm?" Kylie asked.
"No, this was done with magic. Pathetic, barely excusable magic, of course." Miranda glanced at the caged girl.
Tabitha hissed. "You're the one who's pathetic."
Miranda raised an eyebrow at her prisoner. "And you're the one in the cage."
The girl returned to shrieking. Miranda beamed with pride.
No doubt, catching Tabitha was good for Miranda's ego. Kylie hated to pop Miranda's bubble, but ... "As cute as she looks in the cage, you do know you can't keep her."
"I don't plan on it," Miranda said. "I told her that as soon as she turns Socks back into a kitten, she can leave."
"And I've told you that I didn't do that! That was your screw-up! All you!"
"Please," Miranda said. "For weeks almost everything I tried to do came out wrong."
Miranda swung her feet off the bed and leaned close to the cage.
"Change the skunk back into a kitten and you can go."
"And for the millionth time, I didn't do that!"
Miranda glanced back to Kylie. "Do you want me to paint your toenails?"
Doubt filled Miranda's eyes.
"Look," Tabitha snapped. "If it wasn't you who did it, then maybe it was that old guy."
"I've got some nice reds," Miranda told Kylie, ignoring Tabitha. Kylie wasn't so good at ignoring. "What old guy?"
"Don't believe anything she says," Miranda said.
"I don't know who he is, but he's vampire. But he has some other powers, too, because he was here using a similar spell as I was. Scary old guy."
"Please," Miranda said. "Tell me something I can believe."
"I'm telling the truth," Tabitha snapped.
Miranda rolled her eyes. Then she wiggled her pinky.
"Wait," Kylie said, but too late, the cage and Tabitha disappeared. "Wait for what?" Miranda asked.
"Where did she go?"
"You said I couldn't keep her."
Kylie frowned. "What if she was telling the truth about the weird old guy?"
"Please, she's making up crap. Della would have smelled a vampire. Tabitha's crazy."
Kylie had to admit Miranda had a point. Della could sniff out vampires a mile away.
Miranda dropped back on the bed. "Can you believe I caught Tabitha Evans. I'm good."
Socks came slinking into the room cautiously. His puffy black and white tail pointed in the air as if ready to blow and go if needed. Kylie looked back at Miranda. She might be good at setting traps, but she hadn't quite gotten the spell down to turn Socks back into a kitten.
Then Kylie remembered her conversation with Derek. She mentally reached for the rubber band to snap herself out of thinking about him, but the dang rubber band wasn't there. All she could feel was a big empty hole in her chest where her heart used to be.
"I'm gonna lay down." Before she went into her bedroom, she stopped at the fridge. Yanking opening the freezer, she grabbed one of the many quarts of ice cream Miranda had bought to nurse her broken heart. Snatching a spoon out of the drawer, Kylie wondered if there was enough ice cream in the universe to make her feel better.
She really didn't believe so.
The next week passed in a haze of heartbreak. Kylie gave her pint of blood and ate at least ten pints of ice cream. Derek continued to avoid her; Lucas continued to show up. Not that she could even get mad at him. He never made any passes. He was just being a friend. With her heart on the mend, she could use another friend.
Of course, they never discussed Fredericka or the dreams-and thankfully she'd managed to keep the dreams at bay. He had asked about Derek, though, and Kylie told him it was a sore subject. The only thing Lucas said was that Derek was an idiot. For some reason, Kylie appreciated Lucas saying it.
She also appreciated the fact that Fredericka had stayed out of her way. Kylie wasn't sure, but she suspected Lucas had something to do with that, too.
The ghost showed up every morning. Sometimes she'd speak, but she never offered anything that helped Kylie figure out who was in danger. Whenever Kylie would start to worry about the ghost's warning, Holiday would take her to the falls. They'd gone three times. Kylie kept leaving with the same message: stay focused and keep the faith.
Holiday hadn't mentioned anything about Burnett in all this time.
Kylie wondered if she'd told him she'd found another investor, or if she was reconsidering his offer. Kylie caught Holiday spying out the window and watching Burnett and the others play ball at least six times. Two or three of those times Kylie had even stood with her, just so she could watch Derek. Not that he didn't know she looked on. He would always glance at the window.
Their eyes would meet. Kylie would remember how much she missed him while he appeared annoyed.
"You want to talk about it?" Holiday had asked the last time it happened.
Kylie had agreed to spill her guts, but only over ice cream. She'd eaten all of Miranda's stash and needed more. So Kylie and Holiday took the afternoon off and went back to the ice cream parlor where they ate their weight in cold creamy scoops of bliss.
"Why does ice cream go with a broken heart?" Kylie asked.
"Because if you eat enough of it, it freezes the heart and numbs the pain for a bit," Holiday answered, and they both laughed.
Daniel hadn't visited since the day her mom had broken into the camp and had to be erased, but her stepdad had called twice. Kylie had taken his second call. They talked about his job, about the weather, and then he mentioned the possibility of Kylie attending the Shadow Falls boarding school. He hadn't been positive or negative and said it was up to her mom.
When she hung up, she realized that her mom and dad must be talking for him to know about the boarding school. Kylie wasn't sure how she felt about that. Was her mom ready to forgive him? Kylie almost called her mom and asked, but with parents weekend less than one week away, Kylie figured she should wait and do it in person.
Miranda seldom mentioned Perry anymore. Not that it stopped Perry from watching Miranda. Anytime he was within a hundred feet of her, he had his gaze locked on her. Kylie knew that Miranda noticed it. She chose to ignore it. Not too hard considering her stress about the upcoming competition that her mother had entered her in during parents weekend. If she wasn't practicing for the event, she was attempting to solve the puzzle of what happened to Socks.
After two weeks, Socks didn't seem to mind being a skunk. He seemed to understand the power of his tail, and he'd raise it up in a threat at the least provocation. He even had Della walking a line. Thankfully, he hadn't sprayed again.
Della dreaded going home. And now she dreaded coming back to the FRU job waiting on her. Going undercover to find out if her cousin was responsible for the murders wasn't going to be easy for Della. A grumpy Della and a stressed-out Miranda meant the two were at each other's throats. Kylie often wondered if she didn't intervene if the two would really kill each other. But she loved the two of them too much to chance it.
The PI had finally discovered that Kent and Betty Brighten had taken a long vacation in Ireland. So Kylie's quest to discover what she was had been temporarily put on hold. Wasn't that just lovely?
The one good thing that happened lately was Kylie no longer felt that strange sense of being watched. She wondered if Tabitha had been the cause of it. But when she'd recall Tabitha, Kylie would remember what the girl said about an old vampire hanging around. For some reason, that bothered Kylie. Not enough to mention it to Holiday, because in doing so she might get Miranda in trouble. And after the Burnett incident with Della, getting friends in trouble was the last thing Kylie wanted to do. On Tuesday morning, Kylie woke up with what felt like an extra chill in the air. Either the ghost was trying to send a message or Kylie had more than one spirit hanging around. Great. That's all she needed, another ghost.
"What do you want?" Kylie trembled beneath the covers.
Her phone started croaking. Either her phone's ringtone had gotten changed or Miranda had managed to turn it into a frog. Kylie grabbed her phone. It stopped making the hideous sound and went directly to her voicemail messages.
First it played the one her dad had left, then one the PI left a few days ago. Next it played one that Kylie hadn't heard. From Trey, her boyfriend from the past. How had she missed this call? He asked her to return his call, saying it was important.
"Yeah, right," she muttered. "What, did you find out my breasts got bigger and you want to see them?" She shut the phone off, but not before deleting his message.
She had no sooner laid it back on the nightstand when the cell commenced croaking.
Grabbing it, she looked at the dang thing to make sure it was off. It was. So how did it make noise? She hit the off button again. The croaking continued.
"Are you doing this?" she asked the spirit. "If so, stop. Because it's not funny. And it's not telling me crap about what I need to know."
The phone went silent. The ghost appeared at the foot of her bed. "You have to do something soon. She's dying."
Just like before, the spirit didn't offer a freaking clue as to who the mysterious "she" was.
Kylie got dressed and decided to visit Holiday. She doubted if hearing Holiday say she thought everything was going to be okay would take the edge off the fear, but she had to try.
She hadn't even gotten to the office porch when she heard the voices ringing in her ears.
"Tell me it isn't dangerous?" Holiday insisted, sounding furious.
"I can't tell you that," Burnett said. "This work is always dangerous."
"Then no. He can't go."
"I didn't come to ask you," Burnett said, sounding equally annoyed. "He's gotten permission from his mother. He'll be leaving today around noon."
Kylie turned and started walking in the opposite direction. She would have covered her ears, but that had never worked before, so she just kept walking, hoping the voices would fade.
"It's wrong," Holiday said. "First, you involve Lucas, and now Derek. I have to put my foot down."
Kylie stopped. First Lucas and now Derek ... what?
"They are both exceptional boys," Burnett said.
"And that's my point. They are boys, Burnett."
"I was sixteen when I went to work for the FRU. Lucas is eighteen. Derek is only a few months shy of that. And he's an eraser, Holiday. Do you know how few there are of those?"
"I don't care about that. I care about him."
"He'll only be gone a month or less. Back in time for the school year to begin."
"Assuming he's not killed trying to do the government's work," Holiday snapped.
"I'm sorry," Burnett said, and there was regret in his voice. Kylie heard a door slam. Burnett had left but she didn't move. She stood there on the trail, digesting what she'd just heard. Derek was leaving.
He was going to work for the FRU. He wouldn't be back for a month. Assuming he's not killed trying to do the government's work. Holiday's words played in Kylie's mind. Her heart froze. She took off down the trail toward Derek's cabin.