To Tell An Altswood Lie (The Altswood Saga #3)

Chapter 22 - Cold

Chapter 22 - Cold

"Freeze!"

The federal agents hauled Crystal off of me, each taking one shoulder. By the time I had pushed myself upright again and Gabriel was by my side, they had Crystal in handcuffs, leading her out the front door.

"Please," she was sobbing. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"Yeah, right," Gabriel muttered. He bobbed down in front of me, peering at my neck and sighing in relief when there was no knife wound. "Are you alright? Does your leg need stitches?"

My thigh had already stopped bleeding.

"It's only a small nick," I assured. I shoved his arm. "But you gave me such a scare! I thought you weren't going to wake up."

Gabriel grimaced, holding out his hands to help me upright.

"I was conscious by the time Crystal started talking about wanting to shut Beatrice up," he said. "I just thought it would be safer to continue playing comatose."

I let him pull me onto my feet. "You thought right."

When we walked out of the dreadful house, I was almost surprised by how dark the night was still. For some bizarre reason, I had expected it to be morning already.

Meanwhile, the agents were pushing Crystal into the back of a police car they must have borrowed. I meant to approach them—to ask what was happening next—but I suddenly became so tired that I had to sit down on Crystal's front steps.

Despite how much I wanted to keep moving, keep working, my body was forcing itself to power down. All my energy had been sapped. Fatigue clawed at my every movement, desperate to lead a rebellion against the rest of my resolve.

"After all this," I muttered, sinking my chin into my hands. "We still don't know where our parents are."

Gabriel sighed too, collapsing down next to me and letting me lean on him.

"This doesn't make any sense," he said. "Who were we supposed to be looking for? I thought finding the killer would mean finding our parents."

We were supposed to find Beatrice's killer, and we did. We did everything the note writer asked. So now what?

"Crystal killed Beatrice five years ago, and her involvement ends there," I said, more or less thinking aloud than really reaching a point. "So someone else offed Maire. Someone else orchestrated this entire operation. Someone else attacked me in that house back there and blew it up."

"Someone else has our parents," Gabriel muttered.

With no feasible moves left, we drifted into silence. We were both absently watching the federal agents talk to each other beside the car, even if we couldn't hear what they were saying. They would whisper a few quick words, then turn their attention to Crystal, who was seated tearily at the back, then continue whispering again. At last, they reached a conclusion, both nodding to each other. Agent Gatti got into the front seat and started fiddling with the radio to report back to the station, but his partner came towards us.

"Hey," Agent Tam greeted. "Some night you two have been through."

"It's not over yet," I muttered bitterly. "Are you going to haul us back in?"

Agent Tam crouched down to come to our eye-level, and for the first time, I saw sympathy in the hard line of her mouth.

"Listen," she said. "We heard everything Crystal admitted to you when you connected the phone line. We have it recorded."