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Connor walked with us back to the bookstore, although he first put on the black hoodie I’d seen Kari wearing to cover his head and face.
“Kari, don’t let anyone see you from the front windows,” he said when we reached the back door. “I’ll wait out here. ”
“Don’t get abducted,” Kari told him. After we went inside the store, she said, “Cat, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention Connor’s secret identity to anyone. Principal Deaver would expel him like instantly, and then his parents would probably ship him off to some boot camp or military academy. If they didn’t have him committed first. ”
“My lips are sealed. ” I gave her a wry look. “I can’t believe Connor is running the Ledger. I mean, he’s … ” I couldn’t think of an analogy. “He’s Connor Devlin. ”
“I had a problem getting my head around it, too, until I realized he’s Zorro. ” At my blank look, she said, “You know, rich, entitled golden boy by day; rebellious, secretive whistle-blower by night. ” She grinned at me. “That’s why no one ever suspects him. Connor Devlin can’t be the editor of the Lost Ledger. The universe would implode first. ”
“Well, I never would have guessed it was him. ” I was still puzzled, though. “How did you and he end up getting, you know, involved?”
“Oh, that. ” She waved a hand. “He’s been totally in love with me since the fifth grade. I’m not kidding. I’m the boy’s reason for living. ” She sighed. “And now he’s mine. ”
“Wow. ” My heart melted a little, and I wanted to ask her a couple thousand questions about how they were coping with being so different, but Jesse was waiting somewhere nearby for me. “Okay. Are you ready to do this?” When she nodded, I went to the phone and dialed home.
“Youngblood Farm,” Trick answered.
“Hey, it’s me, back from shopping, safe and sound. ” I grimaced at Kari. “While I was out I met a girl who was in my Ceramics class at school, and she invited me to come over to her house to hang out. ”
“Tonight?” Trick asked. “What about work?”
“I can work Saturday night to make up for it,” I said, which was true. “Please, Trick? Kari’s really nice. She’s right here if you want to talk to her. ”
Kari plucked the receiver out of my hand. “Mr. Youngblood? Hi, this is Kari. I know this is all kind of last minute, but I could use Catlyn’s help with my laptop. Every time I boot it up, I get the scary blue screen, and I don’t know what to do. ” She listened for a minute. “Yes, my folks will be there. ” She eyed me. “Sure, we’ll be glad to give her a ride home. ” She nodded. “Got it. Great, thanks so much. ” She handed the phone back to me and gave me a thumbs-up.
“I want you home by midnight,” Trick told me when I got back on the line. “You can call me if you need some computer advice. ”
I winced. “Thanks, I will. See you later. ” I hung up the phone and heaved out a breath. “He bought it. ”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he did,” Kari told me. “But even over the phone, he’s one scary dude. I know I wouldn’t want him catching me in a lie. ”
“It’ll be okay. ” On impulse I hugged her. “I really appreciate this, Kari. ”
She patted my back. “Always happy to acquire new blackmail on someone. ” She drew back. “He’s going to ask you what was wrong with my laptop. Tell him that an Internet virus corrupted my start-up program, and we had to wipe my hard drive and restore the factory settings. Also, mention how much I whined about all the photos I lost because I never backed them up. ”
“Whoa. ” I gave her an admiring look. “You’re really good at this. ”
“That actually happened to my laptop last year, so it’s one hundred percent believable. ” Kari wagged a finger at me. “Never tell a lie unless you back it up with a truth. Like Tony would love for you and a date to attend the teens and tacos party at his place on Christmas Eve. Now, what part was the lie?”
“Tony’s not serving tacos?” I guessed.
“He’s not serving anything. He doesn’t know about it. ” She grinned. “He’ll actually be up in Brooklyn visiting his mom. So we’ll have the place all to ourselves. ” She glanced around the store. “Unless, of course, you don’t want us to meet this incredibly mysterious boyfriend. ”
“That would not be fair, would it?” Jesse said from behind her.
Kari yelped and whirled around. “Hey, that’s not … ” her voice trailed off as she looked from his boots to his face. “Man. Oh, man. Am I glad I’m taken. ” She grinned and held out her hand. “How you doing? Karise Carson, excellent liar. ”
“I’m very well, thank you,” my dark boy said as he clasped her hand. “Jesse Raven. Excessively grateful. ”
“You are excessively pretty much the total package, dude. Plus you’re a Raven, which I think makes you richer than God. ” Kari gave me a sideways glance. “I’m curious. Has he been in love with you since the fifth grade?”
“Not quite,” I said. “We don’t have a lot of time, Kari, so … ”
“ … I should get out and leave you to it. Gotcha. ” She turned to Jesse. “Cinderella has to be home by midnight. Also, make sure nothing bad happens to her, or I will personally deliver a full confession to Sheriff Yamah and Patrick Youngblood. After I find you and kick your amazingly handsome ass all over town, of course. ”
I walked Kari out to the alley, where Connor still stood keeping watch. “Thanks, guys. I owe you. ”
“Yes, you do, and I will collect. ” Kari regarded her boyfriend. “I met her guy, and he’s cool. By the way, he makes you look like a hunchback with one eye and a harelip. ”
Connor bent over, cocked his head to one side and leered at her. “Why would you think that, my pretty?”
After we all laughed, and I promised Kari (again) that we’d be careful, I went back into the store. In Mrs. Frost’s office Jesse sat working on her computer. On the monitor was an image of some type of construction diagram.
“This is the floor plan for the ground level of Hargraves’s mansion,” he told me, and pointed to one section at the back. “He had this addition constructed thirty years ago. ”
I blinked. “How did you find that?”
“I have access to the database at City Hall. ” He opened another window and read a document. “According to the papers his builder filed for the permit, it was intended to serve as a new library. ” He read further down. “Julian designed it with steel doors, a dedicated generator and an independent alarm system. ” He glanced at me. “Whatever he had in this room, he considered it extremely valuable. ”
“That has to be where he hid the rest of his journals with his findings,” I said. “But we can’t break into a house with an alarm system. ”
“If it were active, we could not. ” Jesse printed out a copy of the floor plan. “I called James and told him I wanted to look through the antiques at the mansion so I can instruct our property manager which to acquire tomorrow at the auction. He has disarmed it for tonight. ”
I didn’t know whether to feel relieved that we would have easy access to the mansion, or angry at James Yamah for being such a hypocrite. “We’d better get going. ”
Julian Hargraves’s mansion sat atop the highest point of elevation in Lost Lake, a place I told Jesse that some of the kids at school referred to as “Haunted Hill. ”
“Why do they call it that?” I asked as he drove up the long road to the front gates. Then I saw the house, which was old, huge and painted gray, and could have served as the setting for just about any haunted house movie. “Never mind. ”
Jesse parked right in front of the gates, which weren’t locked, and scanned the area. “This was a beautiful place when Julian’s parents were alive. They kept the house painted white and surrounded it with flower beds. ” He pointed to a neglected-looking wooden swing hanging from one of the black oaks. “Mrs. Hargraves would sit out there at night with Julian and read him
stories. Sometimes I would stand behind the hedge there so I could listen, too. ”
“Why did he let it get like this?” I asked as I followed him up the brick drive.
“I’m not certain,” he admitted. “After his parents died Julian stopped coming to town, and soon he never left the house. James came to check on him, but he behaved normally and insisted he was well. ” He took my hand as we walked up the steps to the front door. “Some said his loss had forever broken his heart. ”
I looked down over the trees. From here I could see all of Lost Lake, including Raven Island and the roof and some of the windows of the enormous building that occupied the center.
“That’s your house down there. ” I could also see the docks and part of what appeared to be a lighted trail through the trees. “If he used binoculars or a telescope, he could probably see whenever you left the house or the island. ”
“At home we never bother to stay out of sight,” Jesse said. “We’ve never suspected anyone was watching us. ” He tried the door, which was locked, and then went to the window. It looked as if it hadn’t been opened for years, but he removed the dirty screen panel and forced up the bottom half.
I heard the window latch inside pop off. “Someone is going to notice the window was opened. ”
“I know how to fix it so they will not. ” He climbed over the sill, and then held out his hand. Once I was inside, he picked up the screen panel, putting it back in place before he closed the window.
I picked up the broken latch and handed it to him. “You can’t fix this. ”
Using his inhuman strength, he bent the metal of the catch and the latch straight before he put them back together so they looked like all the other latches. “If anyone tries to open the window, they will assume it broke as they made the attempt. ”