Free Forgotten by Catherine Gardiner Page B

other side of Suzanne, looking equally shocked.
    For a long time, the room was silent.
    Finally, Marcus stood up to place a log on the fire and stroke the embers. “I don’t know about anyone else but I think it is really cold,” he said nervously.
    “Should I tell you what I think,” Suzanne said as she stood up, her voice low and steely.
    “What’s that?”
    “I think,” Suzanne replied, her voice beginning to crack, “that you’re a liar! My sister is not a murderer!” On the last word she burst into tears, then bolted from the room.
    “Suzanne!” Marcus called after her, but only heard the front door slam in reply.
    “Marcus, you’re so insensitive!” Emily snapped. She stood up, straightening her dress and petticoats.
    “Emily!”
    “Yes?”
    “Remember that we have to leave early tomorrow for the Southampton docks.”
    At the door, Emily paused and glanced back at Marcus and Jonathan and did a quick mind sweep, an ability to read thoughts and emotions that both she and Marcus had perfected in the past hundred years. A feeling of disgust came over her. I have got to stop doing that. Reading minds is a minefield and the only thing those two ever think of is blood. It’s disturbing. Quickly closing the door behind her so Marcus couldn’t sense what she was feeling, Emily hurried downstairs and grabbed her cloak on the way out of the front door.
    Once outside, Emily sniffed the air to see which direction Suzanne had taken. Finding a faint scent, Emily made her way through the deserted, mist shrouded streets of London, getting lost twice in the maze-like streets of the East End before hours later she finally reached the nearby countryside of Southern Buckinghamshire and onto the small cemetery in Greendale.
    “Suzanne!” Emily called into the cemetery.
    Silence.
    “Suzanne!” Emily called again into the darkness.
    “I’m over here, Emily,” a sad voice called back.
    Emily made her way through the broken tombstones until she came across a grave marked ‘HARVEY’. In the moist soil lay a silver wolf, its hazel eyes tinted with gold. Around its neck it wore an instantly recognizable silver pendant.
    “Suzanne, what are you doing?” Emily asked, taking a seat next to her.
    “Nothing, I guess,” Suzanne replied, laying her head on her two front paws.
    “You call sitting in a dark cemetery in the middle of the night nothing?” Emily said, rolling her eyes.
    “I come here to be closer to them.”
    “Who?” Emily asked, looking around.
    “My family. I come to visit my parents’ grave most nights.”
    “But alone!” Emily replied, concerned. This was so unlike Suzanne’s normal behavior. It made Emily worry.
    “Yes, alone! I prefer it that way.”
    Emily hesitated momentarily before venturing a reply. “Do you miss them? Your parents, I mean.”
    Suzanne sighed, “The last time I saw them we argued, and I let them down. So, yes … I do miss them.” Suzanne cleared her throat. “Even more so now that Katrina is missing.”
    “But, Suzanne, Marcus said that Katrina was in New York. She can’t be missing.”
    “Marcus also said that my sister attacked a little girl,” Suzanne said, tears of fury stinging her eyes. “I know my sister wouldn’t do that.”
    “But what about the evidence?”
    “What evidence?” Suzanne growled, baring her fangs and letting her hackles raise on her arched back.
    “The evidence that proves that your sister was in America!”
    “It’s all circumstantial; there’s no real proof!” Suzanne insisted, lying back down.
    “I’m sorry, Suzanne, but I must disagree. You get blind-sighted when anyone says anything remotely bad about your sister.”
    “So you’re saying that Katrina is a murderer then?” Suzanne snapped.
    “No!” Emily replied defensively.
    “It doesn’t sound like it!”
    “Please, let me explain!”
    “No, Emily. I think you have said plenty already.” Suzanne jumped up and began to stalk away.
    “Suzanne!”
    Turning back