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He had been shaken. Zezi had been writing to him! What had she been writing? And why did this Diana girl have the letters?
He had sat at his table with his fists clenched, pretending to read a book, but really with his mind in turmoil. The memory of Zezi was an unpleasant blast from the past, and one that left him feeling all kinds of things that he had thought he had left behind him.
When the Diana girl had gotten up from her table, he had followed her down the street until a cowboy driving a pink Cadillac of all things had pulled up next to her. She had been about to get into it. She was leaving, and she was taking Zezi’s letters with her. Before he had known what he was doing, he had called out to her, and she had turned and seen him.
And now she was striding towards him with her eyes narrowed as if she intended to grab hold of him and throw him down on the ground and arrest him. He took a step backwards, and she calmed down, perhaps realizing that he was not going to run away. Finch thought fast.
“Hi!” he said brightly. “You’re the girl that left a note on my door, right? I tried to catch up with you earlier but you disappeared. Good job I saw you again.”
By her narrowed eyes, he could tell that she was not falling for this. “You’ve been giving me the run round all day, little man,” she accused.
Finch blinked. She could hardly call him a little man, being shorter than him by several inches and slender enough that it looked like the wind might blow her away.
“Er, so what did you want?” he asked.
She took a glance back at the Cadillac as if she was impatient to get going. The cowboy had got out and was standing by the driver’s door wi
th his arms crossed, watching them curiously. Finch felt like if he ran, the cowboy would happily run him down.
“Since you’ve wasted my time all day, you’re going to have to come with me now,” she said. “I haven’t got time to hang around.”
“Where are you going?” Finch asked warily.
He desperately needed to know about Zezi but no way was he going to trap himself in a car that he might not be able to get out of later. Not without giving himself away. Something was off about this Diana girl, and he wouldn’t put it past her and her cowboy chauffeur to have more to them than met the eye. And if they really worked for the Agency there was no telling what sort of magic might be in that car.
“Never you mind where I am going,” said Diana, and flashed him her agency ID card. “I’ll interview you on the way and drop you off at the other end you. You can make your own way home.”
The look she gave him told him that she would not be taking no for an answer. And Finch needed answers from her too. The last thing he needed in his life was for the ghost of Zezi to mess it up.
“Fine,” he said, getting into the car.
She got into the back seat beside him and the cowboy started driving. Finch hoped that he wasn’t about to regret the choice he had just made.
Diana didn’t bother to put her seatbelt on, and turned sideways to face him. Her long very pale hair was flapping about in the wind but it didn’t seem to bother her, and she had fixed him with big over-bright eyes that were the oddest color he had ever seen. Midnight blue or purple or black at turns, and so shiny and lustrous that they made him stare.
Realizing that he was staring, he quickly looked away.
“Tell me what you know about Zezi Shahidi,” she said abruptly, making no attempt at small talk.
Her quick concise voice was at complete odds with the way she looked. Everything about her was jarring, and those eyes… Those eyes. For some reason that he couldn’t quite put his finger on they made him feel deeply, deeply uneasy inside. It reminded Finch of the way he had felt before once as a very young child, in the presence of a being that most people didn’t believe existed. The mere memory made him break out into a light sweat. He knew this is making him seem suspicious, but he couldn’t help it.
“So… erm… how can I help you?” he said, trying to gather his thoughts.
“Zezi Shahidi,” she repeated, her voice clipped.
“Zezi was a friend of mine,” he said. Which was true. “Why? What happened to her?”
“I’m asking the questions,” she retorted. “Tell me about your friendship. And don’t even think about lying. I’ll know.”
And so Finch told her. He and Zezi had been best friends through high school. He had liked her a lot, far more than she had liked him. Zezi had been like the sunshine. Everyone had loved her. He’d had hopes of something more between them, but then her mother had found out through the rumor mill that Finch was half-goblin.
It hadn’t mattered to Mrs Shahidi that she had known Finch for years and should have been able to trust him. She had freaked out. She had refused to let Zezi see him any more, and gone to the extent of making trouble at school for him. Everyone had found out he was a goblin. The parents of the other kids had been angry and Finch had been forced to move schools. Zezi had listened to her mother and everyone else. She had refused to take his calls. She had refused to see him again. Their friendship that had meant so much to him had been snuffed out as if it had meant nothing to her.
“Then why did she write you these letters?” Diana showed him the diary.
She even let him read a little before pulling it away from him. Seeing Zezi’s words made him hurt inside. She had missed him. She had wanted him back in her life. There was even a tone of longing. It made him angry. Why had she pushed him away then? And now suddenly, fiercely, all Finch wanted was to see her again. To feel the sunshine of being in her presence. All these years trying to forget her, and it turned out he was still in love with her after all.
“I don’t know,” he said. His voice emerged husky and raw. “What happened to her?” This time he looked Diana right in the eyes, difficult as that was for him to do.
