Ninth Key (13 page)

“What,” I heard Jesse say, “is
that
?”

I looked up. I hadn’t seen Jesse since our fight the night before. He was leaning against one of my bedposts — my mom had gone whole hog when she’d decorated my room, going for the frilly dressing table, canopy bed, the works — looking down at the cat like it was some kind of alien life form.

“It’s a cat,” I said. “I didn’t have any choice. It’s just until I find a home for it.”

Jesse eyed Spike dubiously. “Are you sure it’s a cat? It doesn’t look like any cat I’ve ever seen. It looks more like…what do they call them? Those small horses. Oh yes, a pony.”

“I’m sure it’s a cat,” I said. “Listen, Jesse, I’m kind of in a jam here.”

He nodded at Spike. “I can see that.”

“Not about the cat,” I said, quickly. “It’s about Tad.”

Jesse’s expression, which had been a fairly pleasant, teasing one, suddenly darkened. If I hadn’t been sure he didn’t give a hang about me aside from as a friend, I’d have sworn he was jealous.

“He’s downstairs,” I said quickly, before Jesse could start yelling at me again for being too easy on a first date. “With his father. They want me to come over for dinner. And I’m not going to be able to get out of it.”

Jesse muttered some stuff in Spanish. Judging from the look on his face, whatever he said hadn’t exactly been an expression of regret that he, too, had not been invited.

“The thing is,” I went on, “I’ve found out some things about Mr. Beaumont, things that kind of make me…well, nervous. So could you, um, do me a favor?”

Jesse straightened. He seemed pretty surprised. I don’t really ask him to do me favors all that often.

“Of course,
querida,
” he said, and my heart gave a little flip-flop inside my chest at the caressing tone he always gave that word. I didn’t even know what it meant.

Why am I so
pathetic
?

“Look,” I said, my voice squeakier than ever, unfortunately, “if I’m not back by midnight, can you just let Father Dominic know that he should probably call the police?”

As I’d been speaking, I’d taken out a new bag, a Kate Spade knockoff, and I was slipping the stuff I normally use for ghost-busting into it. You know, my flashlight, pliers, gloves, the roll of dimes I keep in my fist ever since my mom found and confiscated my brass knuckles, pepper spray, bowie knife, and, oh yeah, a pencil. It was the best I could come up with in lieu of a wooden stake. I don’t believe in vampires, but I do believe in being prepared.

“You want
me
to speak to the priest?”

Jesse sounded shocked. I guess I couldn’t blame him. While I’d never exactly forbidden him from speaking to Father Dom, I’d never actually encouraged him, either. I certainly hadn’t told him why I was so reluctant for the two of them to meet — Father D. was sure to have an embolism over the living arrangements — but I hadn’t exactly given him the all clear to go strolling into Father Dominic’s office.

“Yes,” I said. “I do.”

Jesse looked confused. “But Susannah,” he said. “If he’s this dangerous, this man, why are you —”

Someone tapped on my bedroom door. “Susie?” my mom called. “You decent?”

I grabbed my bag. “Yeah, Mom,” I said. I threw Jesse one last, pleading look, and then I hurried from the room, careful not to let out Spike, who’d finished his meal and was doing some pretty serious nosing around for more food.

In the hallway, my mother looked at me curiously. “Is everything all right, Susie?” she asked me. “You were up here for so long….”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “Listen, Mom —”

“Susie, I didn’t know things were so serious with this boy.” My mom took my arm and started steering me back down the stairs. “He’s so handsome! And so sweet! It’s just so adorable, his wanting you to have dinner with him and his father.”

I wondered how sweet she’d have thought it if she’d known about Mrs. Fiske. My mom had been a television news journalist for over twenty years. She’d won a couple of national awards for some of her investigations, and when she’d first started looking for a job on the West Coast, she’d pretty much had her pick of news stations.

And a sixteen-year-old albino with a laptop and a modem knew a heck of a lot more about Red Beaumont than she did.

It just goes to show that people only know what they want to.

“Yeah,” I said. “About Mr. Beaumont, Mom. I don’t think I really —”

“And what’s all this about you writing a story for the school paper? Suze, I didn’t know you were interested in journalism.”

My mom looked almost as happy as she had the day she and Andy had finally tied the knot. And considering that that was about as happy as I’d ever seen her — since my dad had died, anyway — that was pretty happy.

“Susie, I’m just so proud of you,” she gushed. “You really are finding yourself out here. You know how I used to worry, back in New York. You always seemed to be getting into trouble. But it looks as if things are really turning around…for the both of us.”

This was when I should have said, “Listen, Mom. About Red Beaumont? Okay, definitely up to no good, possibly a
vampire.
Enough said. Now could you tell him I’ve got a migraine and that I can’t go to dinner?”

But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I just kept remembering that look Mr. Beaumont had given me. He was going to tell my mother. He was going to tell my mother the truth. About how I’d busted into his place under false pretenses, about that dream I’d said I’d had.

About how I can talk to the dead.

No. No, that was not going to happen. I had finally gotten to a point in my life where my mom was beginning to be proud of me, to trust me, even. It was kind of like New York had been this really bad nightmare from which she and I had finally woken up. Here in California I was popular. I was normal. I was cool. I was the kind of daughter my mom had always wanted instead of the social reject who’d constantly been dragged home by the police for trespassing and creating a public nuisance. I was no longer forced to lie to a therapist twice a week. I wasn’t serving permanent detention. I didn’t have to listen to my mother cry into her pillow at night, or notice her surreptitiously starting a Valium regimen whenever parent-teacher conferences rolled around.

Hey, with the exception of the poison oak, even my skin had cleared up. I was a completely different kid.

I took a deep breath.

“Sure, Mom,” I said. “Sure, things are really turning around for us.”

He didn’t eat.

He’d invited me to dinner, but he didn’t eat.

Tad did. Tad ate a lot.

Well, boys always do. I mean, look at mealtime in the Ackerman household. It was like something out of a Jack London novel. Only instead of White Fang and the rest of the sled dogs, you have Sleepy, Dopey, and even Doc, chowing down like it might be their last meal.

At least Tad had good manners. He’d held my chair for me as I’d sat down. He actually employed a napkin, instead of simply wiping his hands on his pants, one of Dopey’s favorite tricks. And he made sure I was served first, so there was plenty to go around.

Especially since his father wasn’t eating.

But he did sit with us. He sat at the head of the table with a glass of red wine — at least, it
looked
like wine — and beamed at me as each course was presented. You read that right: courses. I’d never had a meal with courses before. I mean, Andy was a good cook and all, but he usually served everything all at once — you know, entree, salad, rolls, the whole thing at the same time.

At Red Beaumont’s house, the courses all came individually, served by waiters with this big flourish; two waiters, so that each of our plates — Tad’s and mine, I mean — were put down at the same time, and nobody’s food got cold while he or she was waiting for everyone else to be served.

The first course was a consommé, which turned out to have bits of lobster floating in it. That was pretty good. Then came some kind of fancy sea scallops in this tangy green sauce. Then came lamb with garlic mashed potatoes, then salad, a mess of weeds with balsamic vinegar all over them, followed by a tray on which there were all these different kinds of stinky cheeses.

And Mr. Beaumont didn’t touch a thing. He said he was on a special diet and had already had his dinner.

And even though I don’t believe in vampires, I just kept sitting there wondering what his special diet consisted of, and if Mrs. Fiske and those missing environmentalists had provided any part of it.

I know. I
know.
But I couldn’t help it. It was creeping me out the way he just sat there drinking his wine and smiling as Tad chatted about basketball. From what I could gather — I was having trouble concentrating, what with wondering why Father D. hadn’t given me a bottle of holy water when he’d first realized there might be a chance we were dealing with a vampire — Tad was Robert Louis Stevenson’s star player.

As I sat there listening to Tad go on about all the three-pointers he’d scored, I realized with a sinking heart that not only was he possibly the descendant of a vampire, but also that, except for kissing, he and I really had no mutual interests. I mean, I don’t have a whole lot of time for hobbies, what with homework and the mediating stuff, but I was pretty sure if I’d had an interest, it wouldn’t be chasing a ball up and down a wooden court.

But maybe kissing was enough. Maybe kissing was the only thing that mattered, anyway. Maybe kissing could overcome the whole vampire/ basketball thing.

Because as we got up from the table to go to the living room, where dessert, I was told, would be served, Tad picked up my hand — which was, by the way, still a bit poison oaky, but he evidently didn’t care; there was still a healthy amount of it on the back of his neck, after all — and gave it a squeeze.

And all of a sudden I was convinced that I had probably way overreacted back home when I’d asked Jesse to have Father Dominic call the cops if I wasn’t home by midnight. I mean, yeah, there were people who might think Red Beaumont was a vampire, and he certainly may have made his fortune in a creepy way.

But that didn’t necessarily make him a bad guy. And we didn’t have any actual
proof
he really had killed all those people. And what about that dead woman who kept showing up in my bedroom? She was convinced Red
hadn’t
killed her. She’d gone to great lengths to assure me that he was innocent of her death, at least. Maybe Mr. Beaumont wasn’t that bad.

“I thought you were mad at me,” Tad whispered as we followed Yoshi, who was carrying a tray of coffee — herbal tea for me — into the living room ahead of us.

“Why should I be mad at you?” I asked, curiously.

“Well, last night,” Tad whispered, “when I was kissing you —”

All at once I remembered how I’d seen Jesse sitting there, and how I’d screamed bloody murder over it. Blushing, I said, unable to look Tad in the eye, “Oh, that. That was just…I thought…I saw a spider.”

“A spider?” Tad pulled me down onto this black leather couch next to him. In front of the couch there was a big coffee table that looked like it was made out of Plexiglas. “In my
car
?”

“I’ve got a thing about spiders,” I said.

“Oh.” Tad looked at me with his sleepy brown eyes. “I thought maybe you thought I was — well, a little forward. Kissing you like that, I mean.”

“Oh, no,” I said with a laugh that I hoped sounded all sophisticated, as if guys were going around sticking their tongues in my mouth all the time.

“Good,” Tad said, and he put his arm around my neck and started pulling me toward him —

But then his dad walked in, and went, “Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Susannah, you were going to tell us all about how your class is trying to raise money to restore the statue of Father Serra that was so unfortunately vandalized last week….”

Tad and I pulled quickly apart.

“Uh, sure,” I said. And I started telling the long, boring tale, which actually involved a bake sale, of all things. As I was telling it, Tad reached over to the massive glass coffee table in front of him and picked up a cup of coffee. He put cream and sugar into it, and then took a sip.

“And then,” I said, really convinced now that the whole thing had been a giant misunderstanding — the thing about Tad’s dad, I mean — “we found out it’s actually cheaper to get a whole new statue cast than to repair the old one, but then it wouldn’t be an authentic…well, whoever the artist is, I forget. So we’re still trying to figure it out. If we repair the old one, there’ll be a seam that will show where the neck was reattached, but we could hide the seam if we raise the collar of Father Serra’s cassock. So there’s some wrangling going on about the historical accuracy of a high-collared cassock, and —”

It was at this point in my narration that Tad suddenly pitched forward and plowed face-first into my lap.

I blinked down at him. Was I really
that
boring? God, no wonder no one had ever asked me out before.

Then I realized Tad wasn’t asleep at all. He was
unconscious.

I looked over at Mr. Beaumont, who was gazing sadly at his son from the leather couch opposite mine.

“Oh my God,” I said.

Mr. Beaumont sighed. “Fast-acting, isn’t it?” he said.

Horrified, I exclaimed, “God, poison your kid, why don’t you?”

“He hasn’t been poisoned,” Mr. Beaumont said, looking appalled. “Do you think I would do something like that to my own boy? He’s merely drugged, of course. In a few hours he’ll wake up and not remember a thing. He’ll just feel extremely well rested.”

I was struggling to push Tad off me. The guy wasn’t huge, or anything, but he was dead weight, and it was no easy task getting his face out of my lap.

“Listen,” I said to Mr. Beaumont as I struggled to squirm out from under his son, “you better not try anything.”

With one hand I pushed Tad, while with the other I surreptitiously unzipped my bag. I hadn’t let it out of my sight since I’d entered the house, in spite of the fact that Yoshi had tried to take it and put it with my coat. A few squirts of pepper spray, I decided, would suit Mr. Beaumont very nicely in the event that he tried anything physical.