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Tobias exchanged looks with Regina. A hint of concern flashed across their faces. “I’ll be back. You know what to do.”
“Tobias,” Regina said.
Wasn’t Clarissa going, too? Fiona wished she would. The secrets they withheld from Fiona made her feel like an outsider.
The front door closed on Tobias’s departure, then Regina said, “He danced with you last night at the Halloween party.”
A sip of water went down the wrong way, and Fiona coughed and sputtered.
“He’s a bad influence.” Regina ran her long-tapered shimmering white fingernails over the black satin tablemat.
Great. Now her great aunt would lecture her about guys too. Here Regina had never shown any interest much in Fiona before. How had Regina known about him? Was someone at school spying on her for her great aunt? Things just couldn’t get any creepier.
“How did you know?”
“One of your teachers called me this morning to see that you got home safely. She said a boy followed your girlfriend’s car out of the parking lot. He was kicked out of school a year ago.”
Her heart fell so hard, Fiona couldn’t hear it beating any longer. “Kicked out of school for what?” Wouldn’t you know, some troubled teen would be interested in her.
“For stalking another girl. At first, he was really sweet and considerate. Then he became possessive and domineering. The girls’ parents had to get a court order to stop him from following her everywhere. Three months after their first date, someone murdered her. Though they questioned him, they could never pin the crime on him, nor did they ever find someone else who might have killed her.”
Fiona’s blood chilled. “What kind of a car did he drive?”
“A black sports car.”
Great. But then she wondered why she hadn’t seen the car park somewhere behind them, or even pass them by. She’d looked because she’d hoped they could flag down someone to help them when Emma ran into Ruric.
“Clarissa’s going to attend the rest of the school year with you. She has decided she would rather do that than homeschool now.”
“Oh?” Instantly, Fiona became suspicious.
“Yeah,” Clarissa said, her cheerful expression back in place. “We can do homework and have lunches together. It’ll be great fun.”
Fiona felt Clarissa was being assigned as an informer. Watch everything she does and report back to the head honcho. But Fiona wasn’t sure if that was her great aunt now or Tobias.
“What do your parents think of you going to public high school?” Fiona asked, and finished the last bite of her spicy spaghetti. She had to admit, despite her great aunt’s other shortcomings, she was a great cook.
“Tobias suggested it, really.”
“He’s your dad?” Fiona couldn’t help the surprise in her voice.
Clarissa giggled. “No, he’s my…uncle.”
Right. Just like he was Fiona’s. Just too eerie.
“Do you know anything about factorials, greatest common factors, or least common denominators? I’ve got some algebra homework to do.”
“Sorry, I don’t have a head for math. I have to run. See you both later.”
Clarissa fairly skipped out of the room, then Fiona faced Regina. She was chewing the inside of her cheek like she did when she was contemplating something.
“What did you hear last night?” her great aunt asked.
Back to that. “Some guy wanted some girl. The girl needed to reject him. If she didn’t, she needed to be killed.”
For a second, her great aunt sat in morbid silence, then she laughed out loud. “Your mother always said you had a vivid imagination.”
Her mother had never talked to Fiona or Justin, for that matter, about a Great Aunt Regina. Why wouldn’t she have?
