Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
After Mina had been taken away, I spotted Presley wearing a stricken expression. Joe wrapped his arms around her. Though clearly shaken, she let herself be held.
“It wasn’t the curse,” she said, pulling back to look into Joe’s eyes.
“I told you.” Compassion and something else—love, most likely—played about Joe’s lips. “You didn’t need to stay with him.”
“Not for the publicity, not for the money, not for any other reason,” Presley said, almost as if she were reminding herself of this truth. She stared into Joe’s eyes, saying loudly enough for the room to hear, “Our big romance is better than anything I could’ve ever had with Brett.”
Our Big Romance. Those had been the words written on the CD case.
Joe had been telling the truth. It had been reminders of Joe and Presley’s romance that he’d been carrying around in his backpack, and it must’ve been her handwriting in his old yearbook.
They’d been planning to reveal their relationship this weekend, but they hadn’t been planning a murder.
“God rest his bastard soul,” Joe said softly.
The two people at the top of my list hadn’t been the murderers, and though I’d eventually helped bring the real culprit out of the woodwork, I hadn’t discovered the killer as quickly as I would’ve liked.
I’d even felt sympathy for Mina and the impending loss of her grandmother, which was still a reality she would have to face.
Perhaps Mina could even use that as part of her defense.
Not only had the murder not been premeditated, it had been a decision made during a time of psychological stress.
I didn’t want Mina to go free, but I wasn’t sure that a life in prison was warranted in her case.
Thankfully, I wasn’t the decider of such things.
Now that I’d brought her crime to light, my job was done.
After Charlie had cuffed Mina and sent her with the deputy ahead of him, he came back to me in the Vampire Room, where I sat behind the table, Brett’s watch in front of me and Aunt DeeDee’s hand on my shoulder as we surveyed the tools of our fake séance – that had actually worked.
“I’m proud of you, baby girl,” my aunt said, as she planted a kiss on the top of my head. “Though I hate that it had to be Doris’s granddaughter.”
“Me too,” I told her, meaning it. “They’ll take into account that it was an accident, right?”
“The Lord only knows.”
“Do you think Doris—Miss 1962—will be all right?”
“She’s a tough cookie, might do something to get herself jailed just to be with her granddaughter, but either way, Doris isn’t long for this world, and she knows it. But I’m sure she’ll do everything she can for Mina until the end.”
“I guess that’s to be expected.”
Aunt DeeDee nodded slowly, studying me. “You are a wonder. I see more and more of your momma in you every day.”
This meant more to me than anything else she could say.
“Her way of seeing the world, her way of processing what life threw at her. The two of you would’ve made a great investigative team.”
I put a hand over hers. “You and I aren’t too bad either.”
“You did good, Dakota,” Charlie said, interrupting us. He gave me an official nod as Aunt DeeDee left the two of us alone. “I’ll be at the station for a while, getting Mina booked in.”
“I figured.”
“What about breakfast tomorrow?” he asked. “Before you head back to school?”
“Are you buying?”
Charlie grinned. “Happily.”
“Then, maybe we could go back to your place for a few minutes?” I asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Kitty would love to say goodbye before you leave.”
“Goodbye for now,” I said firmly. “I’m coming back, one way or another.”
“Oh yeah?” Charlie’s eyes lightened at the news.
“Someone once told me that I shouldn’t make decisions to try to impress people who don’t give a fig about me. I’ve still got to think through what that means, but either way, Aubergine is home.”
“Sounds like a wise someone,” he mused.
“Well, it was my mother, so, yeah,” I said with a slight chuckle.
Charlie leaned forward and gave me a kiss on my forehead and then the tip of my nose. He wanted more, I could feel it, but he showed self-restraint.
“Till the morning,” he breathed, before making his way out of the house.
Lacy and Anton had rushed to the door as soon as Mina was in handcuffs, likely trying to find a phone signal. With only a few minutes until midnight, Lacy said the password aloud—a series of numbers, symbols, and letters—as she typed frantically.
“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, and everyone 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.