Page 94 of The Executioners Three
The lot was almost completely empty; stores closed early downtown, and Greg’s Chevy was nowhere in sight. Upon reaching the three steps leading up to the Frame & Foto, Freddie gave her reflection a cursory glance in the glass back door. Her nose and cheeks were pink. Snow dusted her hair. Other than her bandaged wrist, though, she looked like her normal self.
The lights were out in the back hall. She knocked anyway. Then knocked again, but when Greg didn’t appear in the hall after thirty freezing seconds, Freddie gave up and twisted to the lockbox.
Fingers clumsy with cold, she punched in the key code:0–4–5–1.A click sounded; the lockbox swung wide.
Freddie snatched out the key, and relief surged through her as she fumbled open the lock and shoved inside. Heat gusted against her, along with the pungent odor of darkroom chemicals. Before she could push all the way inside, though, a voice called her name. A voice from behind, in the parking lot.
“Gellar?”
Freddie’s throat closed off. Fear pummeled in. She half leaped around.
But it wasn’t Sheriff Bowman or an axe-wielding murderer striding across the parking lot. It was Theo Porter. He stood beside his Civic, a plastic shopping bag dangling from his left hand.
And now he smiled. Now he waved.
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For several seconds, Freddie had no idea what to do. Theo Porter was Sheriff Bowman’s nephew. He knew where Freddie was now, which meant he could tell his aunt. Maybe he’dalreadytold his aunt.
But no, no. That didn’t make sense. Freddie had only just arrived here, and Theo seemed as surprised to see her as she was to see him.
She forced a smile from her spot, half squeezed through the open door. “Just a sec!” she shouted, then she slipped inside and let the door swing shut behind her.
She would have to go back out there. She would have to talk to Theo, even if she didn’t know what to say.Hey, your family has some scary stuff happening. Any idea why your grandma has a secret murder room? Also, is your aunt possibly working with or hypnotized by a serial killer?
Plus, the truth was, if not for whatever had just happened at his grandmother’s house, then Freddie would have wanted to go see him. She would have been giddy and buoyant and flushing all the way to her core that Theo wasright over thereand smiling at her.
Freddie’s hands trembled slightly as she removed Xena from her neck and hung the camera on a coat rack by the door. Snow melted off her boots and onto the linoleum. Next, she withdrew the film canister and Sabrina from her pockets, then placed both items on the flat top of the coat rack. The power on her phone was still off, but she was afraid to change that. As if, even now, the ringing might alert the person from the attic of her whereabouts.
She exhaled thickly, smoothed at her too-tight uniform and her hair, then finally Freddie thrust back into the dregs of a gray sunset. The parking lot swept against her in a slurry of cold and snow and drifting white.Yet standing stark against it was Theo. He still waited by his car, the driver’s door open and the plastic bag no longer in hand.
“What are you doing here?” he called as Freddie hurried toward him. His blue eyes were bright, even the swollen one, and his lips were quirked handsomely to one side. Despite the fading bruises, he looked polished, he looked poised, and he looked…
Happy.
It was strange, actually. So completely at odds with the Theo that Freddie had kissed only that morning. The one who had needed distraction because his life was a mess right now.
“Why areyouhere?” Freddie countered, hoping he wouldn’t catch her blatant deflection. She was just her Usual Self: Frederica Gellar, obsessed with Lance Bass,The X-Files,and any mystery that might need solving.ThisFreddie had not just found a secret room in Theo’s grandmother’s house, andthisFreddie had not just fled someone who was probably a serial killer or controlled by one.
Freddie came to a stop several paces from him. He still wore his Fortin Prep uniform, but no tie now. And he’d loosened his shirt collar, which looked good. Like, really good, with just that glimpse of a collarbone and pale skin.
“Beef jerky,” he said simply.
Freddie kicked up an eyebrow. “Huh?”
“Beef jerky,” he repeated, and this time he nodded toward the open car. “My grandmother’s awake, and she has a hankering for it. So I just stopped in the drugstore before it closed.”
For half a breath, Freddie didn’t react to this statement—because howshouldshe react? “You, um… you must be so happy,” she said eventually. Not an admission of having met Mrs. Ferris, but also not a denial.
“I am indeed.” Theo’s head tipped sideways. “But didn’t the hospital call you? I gave them your number.”
Oh. Right.He knew about that part because he’d set it up.
Freddie’s lips compressed. Then parted. Then compressed again because the reality was that she sucked at this. She wasn’t good at gauging whether a lie would make things better or worse. And she was also stretched so thin by adrenaline she didn’t think she could manage a lie anyway.
So Freddie did the only thing she could think of to sidetrack Theo: she marched up to Theo, grabbed his blazer collar, and kissed him.
It was a simple kiss. Freddie’s lips against Theo’s, and nothing more. Or that was the plan, at least—the haphazard, slapped-together plan of a terror-crazed mind. She would kiss Theo Porter; then she would flee back into the Frame & Foto.
