Page 117 of The Executioners Three
“Right.” Freddie hugged at the blanket again. She was suddenly feeling the weight of everything that had happened. Thegut punchof how this night could have gone if Ibrahim hadn’t actually summoned backup.
How long would Theo and Kyle have been waiting for emergency assistance? Would they have died like Dr. Born had?
“Look,” she said wearily. “I know you guys want this statement from me, but can it actually wait? My adrenaline is all spent up, and my insides feel like someone scooped them out of a jack-o’-lantern. So… so I’d really just like to go home now, with my friends. If that’s alright.” She pointed toward Divya, who was waving both hands over her head.
“Right.” Harris nodded. “We understand.” She exchanged a glance with Li, who sighed but also tipped his head in agreement.
“No problem. If you can just give us your name and address, we can stop by your home tomorrow. And here, have one of these.” Li fished a card from his pocket and handed it to Freddie.
Who huffed another laugh—this one mostly just amused. Because the card read:Federal Bureau of Investigation.Department of Unexplained Phenomena.“So there is an entire department just for this kind of stuff. Like onThe X-Files.”
Li scowled. Harris rolled her eyes. “No,” they said in unison. “It’s not likeThe X-Files.”
Which only made Freddie laugh again, since she didn’t believe themat all. “Thanks,” she told them as she pushed the card into her pocket. “And I’ll see you both tomorrow.” With a turn, she hobbled back toward the Village Square.
Dr. Born’s head still steamed into the night, untouched. His corpse still swung side to side from his own intestines, and each gust of wind made him spin.
Yet somehow,still,no one noticed him.
Certainly not Divya, who immediately enveloped Freddie in the Greatest Best Friend Hug of All Time.
“You have a daddy longlegs in your hair,” she said as she squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.
And Freddie laughed one last time. A bright, bubbling sound that hovered on the verge of hysteria and was so at odds with the destruction all around. But hey—she was just so happy to be alive.
“Let’s go, Div.” She took her bestie’s hand into her own and climbed into Ibrahim’s squad car.
The last thing Freddie saw before they left City-on-the-Berme was the bell inside its cupola. Fully broken now, and Freddie hoped broken forever.
No bells are rung,she thought as they left it behind,when the Three leave the gate. Libérez-nous. Free us.
28
The funeral for Mrs. Ferris was on an unseasonably warm day. No wind blew, and the sun baked down through barren branches. Sheriff Bowman had waited to have the funeral until after Theo had been released from the hospital, so it was now five days since everything had gone down at City-on-the-Berme.
As funerals often were in Berm—where everyone knew everyone—the cemetery was crowded. Mrs. Ferris had been especially beloved, always at the heart of the small town and its talky people.
Freddie cried. Mom cried. Steve cried. Not Sheriff Bowman, though, or Theo. Nor Teddy Porter, who’d come from Chicago. The trio stayed tucked off to one side, Teddy with his arm around his son, helping Theo stand.
The official story was that Mrs. Ferris had died from the wounds of an animal. The story that Harris and Li had told Freddie privately was that Edgar Fabre Jr. had actually killed her in the hospital once he’d realized his first attack had failed.
It was awful, and the fact that Edgar had faced a gruesome sort of justice didn’t make it anylessawful. So Freddie let herself cry as hard as she wanted. For Mrs. Ferris, for Dr. Fontana, and for everyone else who’d died by Edgar’s hands.
And maybe most of all, Freddie cried for her dad.
Which was why, after the service, Freddie made her way to his grave beside a towering willow. The granite gravestone had simple, hard lines and read,Frank Carter, 1951–1987. Protector of the people.Next to it was a stone bench that had been donated by the town.In honor of Frank’s service to the city he loved.
“Hey, Dad,” Freddie murmured as she sat. “I know I don’t come often, but I was thinking maybe it’s time to change that. Plus, Mom actuallytalked about you last week. Wild, I know, but maybe that means it’s time for a new house rule:Thou shalt discuss Frank Carter. Especially since it seems… Well, I guess I’m a lot like you.
“I know you weren’t keen on being a dad—but youwerekeen on being a sheriff. And I get that. I don’t hold it against you or anything. Plus, I’d like to think if…” Here, Freddie’s voice cracked.
She scrubbed at her nose and tried again. “I’d like to think if maybe you hadn’t died, we’d have eventually gotten to know each other. Especially once you saw that I was an Answer Finder just like you.
“Although, I’m sorry you never got all the answers you were looking for. You were right, though: Edgar didn’t die. And I never would have figured that out if not for the clues you left behind. So thank you. You saved a lot of people in the end.
“And as for your dreams, well… they were real. I guess we’re descended from a carriage driver who was forced to come here three hundred years ago and—get this, Dad—disembowel people for José Allard Fortin. Crazy, right?”
Freddie paused, chewing at her lip. There was still so much to say, yet all her words felt too small. Too easy. How could she even begin to articulate everything she’d tamped down for the last twelve years?
