Free Secrets in the Dark by KD Blakely Page A

nodded, and I pulled out my phone,
using the speaker so everyone could hear.
    “ Hi, Ronny. I’m sorry it’s
late. We’ve a lot to tell you.”
    Ronny said, “Did you find
out about Mother?”
    “ No, that’s part of what
we need to tell you.”
    “ It is almost dinner time,
so I know you cannot meet with me tonight. Tomorrow is another day,
right? Can we meet then?”
    I bit my lip, knowing she
wouldn’t like what I was about to say. “Uh…Faith has soccer practice tomorrow. Can we meet Monday
after school?”
    There was a short pause.
For a moment I was sure she was going to
argue about waiting so long. Then she sighed. “Can we meet at 4:30
at Johnny’s?”
    I got everyone’s nod of
agreement. “Yeah, we’ll meet you then. Bye.”
    
    School crawled by on
Monday. Doug had promised to meet us, so when the final bell rang,
Faith, Olivia and I grabbed our stuff and headed out. We got there
a few minutes early, and remembering how Doug had listened last
time, we picked a booth where no one could overhear us.
    Ronny got there a few
minutes later. As she took her seat, I asked, “Could we wait until
Doug gets here? To talk about what happened.”
    Before I could say anything
else, the smell of fries and burgers made my stomach growl loud
enough that everyone at the table heard it. Olivia and Faith
laughed, while Ronny smiled at the blush crawling up my face. She
held up her hand and asked a waitress for sodas and fries for each
of us.
    Then the waiting
began.
    I actually forced myself to
wait a couple minutes after the fries were delivered. My mom would
have been proud of me, being all polite, waiting for Doug to show
up. But when it got to be 4:40, I decided it was his fault for
being late and said so. As if that were a signal, we all started
chowing down. By the time the fries were gone, Doug still hadn’t
shown up.
    I looked across the table,
intending to ask Olivia if she remembered Doug saying anything
about being late, but got distracted. Everyone was waiting
so…different.
    Faith’s eyes were bouncing
around, looking all around the restaurant. Although her hands were
folded quietly on the table, her shoulders were hunched and she
kept shifting around in her seat. Sitting still was always hard for
Faith.
    Olivia was drumming her
fingers on the table. Although she did stop occasionally to check
herself out in the mirror by the exit. Johnny had put it there as a
joke with a sign over it saying, “Check your face and shirt for
mustard.”
    Ronny held so still she
might have been a stone statue rather than flesh and
blood.
    I was the only one acting
anxious. I kept picking up my phone and checking for a text or
voicemail from Doug. I was really starting to worry — Doug
was usually early, never late. He said he
hated missing anything. I tried calling and texting him, but the
call went straight to voicemail and he didn’t text me back. I was
going to start bouncing off the walls if he didn’t get here
soon.
    The next ten minutes were
some of the longest I’d ever spent. Occasionally one of us would
try to start a conversation, but it kept dying out as the door opened and someone other than Doug came
in.
    Finally I said, “I can’t
stand this waiting. Will you tell us more about how you met
Chris?”
    Ronny looked down, twisting
her wedding ring on her finger. Her voice was very quiet as she
started speaking. “I met Chris by mistake. I was only here to find
out what all the escaped magick was doing to Santa Ramona. But I
came across this ten year old boy, crying because his dog had been
hit by a car.”
    My breath caught in my
throat and my voice came out strangled. “That was Lucky.” I grew up
on stories about Lucky, our miracle dog who survived against all
odds.
    “ Yes. Lucky was dying and Chris knew it. I could see how much he
loved that dog.” She shook her head before continuing. “I should
not have done it. It broke all our rules. Magick does not even work
well outside Chimera, so I