December Frost (A Southern Romance Monthly) (12 page)

He laughed. "No. But I can ask for you if you need a confirmation."
 

"Yeah. And I need you to check on another name. Blair Hodges."
 

"Who's that?"

"I think this is that professor's daughter. He mentioned a Blair earlier. She's who told him the Phantom was going to be at the High."
 

"You suspect her?"
 

"I suspect everyone. How fast can you check on this stuff?"

"I'll call you right back." He disconnected. She checked her battery and dug her charger from her bag in the second room. Once the phone was charging she looked at the tablet. Oddly enough, it didn't have a password.
 

But it did have a lot of pictures, especially of someone outside the High. She assumed these were his surveillance shots of who he suspected was the Phantom. Cecelia increased the size as best she could and looked at each of the shots.
 

In her opinion, if this was the Phantom, it looked like a girl. And to her happiness, she found a small mpeg movie he'd taken which showed the target walking back and forth in front of the High as if casing it.
 

And in her opinion, not only did it look like a girl, but it also looked way…way too obvious. "Almost as if you wanted Thomas to see you."
 

Hadn't Thomas seen that? Probably not. He was a thief, not a cop.
 

Her phone rang again and she jumped. "Hey Lex."
 

"Hey…why were you asking about Frank Clark?"
 

"Because he's apparently a friend of Thomas's. He was the one that sent emails that the High was going to be the target of this Phantom." Cecelia looked at the TV. "Why?"

"Well…because Frank Clark's body was found early this morning, before the snow started. The ME estimated his death about a week ago."
 

Cecelia checked the dates on the emails. Thomas received his first email about this case six days ago. She checked the Professor's emails. Those started five days ago. Before then, the professor's last email was a month ago, and Frank Clark's was six months.
 

"Uh oh." She stood up slowly. "We have a problem, then. Someone's been using Clark's email address to set him up."
 

"Yeah, well, we know who."
 

"What?"

"The person that told me about Agent Clark's death freaked out when I asked him about Blair Hodges because they found her finger prints in Clark's house."
 

"Son of a—" Cecelia sat back and stared at the slide show on Thomas's tablet.
 

"Do you know if Thomas has been in contact with this Blair?"
 

"He said he left a message with the Professor when he was arrested. He said," Cecelia thought about where her gun was. "Lex—he said he seemed surprised the Professor never called back and didn't bail him out. Then the Phantom showed up in exactly the right lockup."
 

"If Blair's the Professor's daughter, and she got Thomas's message, then she'd know where he was."

"But that would mean she's in Atlanta. That she was always in Atlanta."
 

"I'm not sure you guys are safe anymore, sis. If Blair finds out you're the cop helping Carr, then she'll investigate you and find out about me, and everyone else."
 

"Which means she'll know about this cabin—"
 

The lights went out. Cecelia froze as every one of her senses went on alarm. She'd been expecting the power to go out but the timing was a bit suspicious.
 

"Cece…Cecelia!"
 

"Sshh…" she said in a low voice. "The lights just went out."
 

"That's not surprising, given that most of the state is out of power…but you don't think that's it, do you?"

"No."
 

"I'm calling the local police, Cece…but I don't know if they can get there."
 

That's when she heard the generator turn on outside and the lights came back on.
 

"Bro…we're not alone—" A noise brought her attention behind her and she ducked from instinct. Something clipped the side of her head with enough force to knock her off balance. Cecelia pitched forward over the coffee table and rolled to the floor beside the fireplace.
 

Her head hurt but she didn't have time to see how bad she'd been struck. She saw a shadow moving above her in the light of the fire and rolled into the coffee table, under the edge.
 

Something struck the wood floor just past her shoulder. She had enough time to see it was the blade of an axe. The attacker made a small grunt noise as they tried to yank the axe out of the floor. That gave Cecelia enough time to put both of her hands under the edge of the coffee table and shove it up. The edge caught the attacker in the head and knocked them back.

Cecelia put the pain aside and scrambled away, using the edge of the sofa and what little light came from the fire as her guide to the hallway. She needed to get to Thomas and protect him because she knew if this crazy asshole was able to get past her, then Thomas was next.
 

He was the main target.
 

But before she could round the corner something grabbed her hair and yanked her backwards. She yelled out, spun to her left and bent her body down at her torso coming under the attacker's arm, rammed her fist into the soft area of their stomach.
 

They let go of her hair. Cecelia dropped further down to stay out of striking range and braced herself on her hands. She swept her legs out and knocked the intruder on their ass.
 

Once they were down she launched on top of them and started hitting. But the attacker wasn't going to give up. They brought their knee up and got a hard knock in to the back of Cecelia's back. The strike was enough to cause her to hesitate and the intruder took the advantage.
 

She reached between Cecelia's arms and grabbed her neck. Cecelia grabbed their wrists and squeezed. The attacker tried to rock her off so she could flip their positions, but Cecelia knew she couldn't let that happen. If the attacker got the advantage, it lowered her own chances of surviving.
 

The intruder started kicking her in the back by raising a leg and knocking her in the back of head. One of the hits struck the wound and she faltered. The attacker intensified the hold on her neck and Cecelia saw stars. She lost her edge and fell over.
 

The attacker rolled with her and squeezed harder. Cecelia felt panic set in as she kicked and struggled to get this person off of her. But her vision had blurred and the edges were darkening. She struck at where she believed their face was and kicked, but the combination of losing oxygen and her wound was taking its toll.
 

She struck out one last time before those darkening edges swallowed everything.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Thomas felt himself jerk awake. He lay still in the dark, listening for sounds in the other room. After a few minutes he didn't hear anything. A minute more and he realized none of the lights were on.
 

Not even the light from the porch that'd been filtering through the window while he and Cecelia had…

The memory made him smile like a love-struck school boy. He quickly pushed the warm glowy feeling aside and took stock of himself.
 

Shit. I feel like shit.
 

He thought he heard something fall in the other room, followed by more knocks and bangs. Thomas groggily pushed himself up into a sitting position and threw his legs over the side of the bed. He reached over out of habit to turn the lamp on—but nothing happened.
 

Right…power.
He shut it off.
 

He rubbed his eyes and listened. The noises stopped. He thought he heard footsteps move past the door and then the porch door open. Minutes later the generator cranked up, then the lights came back on. He heard the soft beep of the security system as it reset. Some systems actually read power-loss as a break in and sent the signal to the police, but he wasn't sure if this one did it. Or if the police were even at their posts.
 

He listened for Cecelia and hoped she would come into the bedroom to check on him. I wasn't ego—it was just—well—

After what they'd just shared, he would have come and checked on her. And he wanted to see her, and hold her. He never wanted to let go.
 

The door opened and light from the kitchen streamed in. He held up his left hand to block out the light and squinted. "Cecelia?"
 

She didn't answer him. Instead she stepped forward, her face hidden in the shadows, and closed the door. Thomas wondered if she wanted to repeat their earlier acrobatics and figured he should warn her he wasn't feeling up to it.
 

"Cece?"

When she still didn't answer and her shadow stood between him and the door, he reached over and turned the lamp on next to the bed.
 

"Hello, Thomas."
 

It wasn't Cecelia.
 

"Blair? How…why are you here?

He should have been more surprised and more suspicious and more…

Prepared.
 

To see his boss's daughter in the middle of the woods in Georgia?
 

But of all the people he'd known in his life, Blair Hodges was the last person he thought would betray his trust. He'd known her for four years. He'd helped her father teach her the trade, taught her how to shoot a gun, and even taught her how to read people.
 

So it wasn't surprising when she read him, stepped forward and pressed the barrel of a gun to his forehead. "Thomas Carr. You've become a constant thorn in my side."
 

It was the same thing the Phantom had said—only this time there wasn't a voice box.
 

The events of the past night started making sense as he stared past her hand and the gun and looked up into her face. She'd ducked and evaded every shot and every blow because she knew his moves.
 

She knew his habits.
 

She knew his tactics.
 

And she knew his obsession with finding and catching the Phantom.
 

But he realized all of this too late.
 

He swallowed and kept his gaze focused on her. "So…you're Phantom. And you're going to kill me."
 

"Yes."
 

"Why?"

"I told you why."
 

"I mean, why did you do it? Your father worked his whole life to stop thieves from taking what didn't belong to them and profiting from it."

"And he was poor," she snarled.
 

Thomas's heart plummeted. She talked about him in the past tense.
 

"Always poor. Didn't you ever wonder how he was able to pay for all those trips you took? How he was able to pay for your expenses? Or the thief before you? Or before her?" She slapped her free hand on her chest. "Because he made me sacrifice everything I ever wanted. We never had enough to eat or new clothes to wear. The house had holes in the ceiling and the floor. I missed so much school just working odd jobs to make up for the money that slipped through his fingers and into the pockets of his network of spies."
 

She shoved the gun against his forehead. He winced at the pain. "And forget any kind of extended education. Oh no, not for me. High school was good enough. My dreams of being more had to be put aside for the next piece of shit my father had to find."
 

He heard her, but Thomas was slack jawed. He'd never known any of this, especially how much he'd sacrificed of his own to keep him and the other thieves out in the field, taking back the treasures.
 

Thomas had always assumed the Professor kept a share of the money for him and for Blair.
 

She came closer to him and he could see her eyes were bloodshot. Red rimmed. Whatever was happening in her head was taking its toll on her physically. "And not once…not once, Thomas, did he ever pay as much attention to me as he did to you or the others. The only way I could share in that love was to become a thief. To become what would be something untouchable for him. To be something he'd obsess about."

Oh Blair had excelled in doing just that. It'd been the Professor's own desire to defeat the Phantom that caught on with Thomas, until the Professor's obsession became his own.
 

"And then I started returning your treasures."
 

She struck him with the gun. He hadn't expected it so the blow knocked him to his right, into the headboard. He put his left hand to the left side of his face and spit blood out where his tooth had cut into his lip.
 

"You made a mockery of what I'd done! Until you came along, my father's attention was focused on
me
. Me as the Phantom."
 

He didn't say anything. He was worried about Cecelia. He hadn't seen nor heard her in the house. Had Blair done something to her?
 

"So I was going to set you up as the Phantom and have you placed in prison. But that didn't work. I'm better at taking treasures."
 

"Where's Cecelia?" He finally blurted.
 

Blair smiled at him. "She's dead. Close your eyes, Thomas, so you can join her."
 

"Where's your father?"

She hesitated. "He's dead. You killed him."
 

"What did you do?"
 

"You did it. Not me! You killed him!"
 

He locked his eyes with her and pressed harder. "No, you killed him, didn't you? Did you kill Agent Clark as well? He gave me the exact information needed to get me caught—and he would never betrayed me." Thomas hadn't thought about Clark until that moment as he put the pieces together. Blair had destroyed both men in order to set him up.