Classified Secrets
Chapter 6
About an hour later, Callie came back to the car, opened the door, and got in. She didn't say a word. For about a minute there was silence. Then, Joe broke it.
"Callie!" he shouted. "Well?! I can't even believe that you just did that. But now that you did, what do you have to tell us?"
"Nothing."
"What do you mean, nothing?!"
"Nothing," Callie spoke softly.
Frank looked over at his girlfriend. Although Joe thought with good reason that she was being obstinate, Frank saw that something was wrong. Only he could notice the way she was slightly biting her lower lip, or the fact that she was a bit paler than usual, or the fact that, if he wasn't mistaken, her eyes were slightly red-rimmed, as though she had been crying.
"Well, great work, Miss Investigations!" Joe was really angry.
Frank cut in quickly. "Joe, stop it."
Joe persisted. "No, Frank, I won't. We had everything perfectly planned, and we would have gotten some answers, but miss know-it-all, miss "I can do anything better than you" had to cut in where she didn't belong. Are you happy Callie? Because now we might not have a case."
"I said stop it!" Frank raised his voice, which he almost never did. Joe was surprised. "Fine," he said, finally. "Listen, Frank, since we no longer have a case, I'm hungry. Drop me off at that restaurant we saw a while back. I'll take Iola to dinner. I think you and Callie should go someplace else for a while. Then come back and pick us up and maybe we'll go home and salvage something left of the evening-- if that's even possible. Maybe we should ask the great detective over there what she thinks."
Frank held back a comment. Joe HAD to get that last dig in.
"Joe!" Iola cut in. He stopped after that.
After dropping Iola and Joe off and promising to be back in an hour and a half, Frank broke the silence with Callie, who was looking out the window.
"Hungry?"
"No."
"Okay, then. I'll just get something later."
Callie nodded absently.
He drove around for ten minutes until he came to a quaint picnic area. Pulling into the lot, he turned off the ignition. Silently, he got out of the car into the warm sunlight, and then walked slowly around to the passenger side, where he proceeded to open the car door. Callie looked up.
"Come on," he said, offering her his hand. She took it.
Sitting down at a nearby table, Frank wrapped an arm around Callie's waist and pulled her close. Callie just rubbed her forehead with her hand, as though she had a headache.
"Now," Frank said softly, "Would you like to tell me what's wrong?"
Callie looked at her boyfriend for the first time in a while. "Frank, I'm sorry."
He hugged her. "I know. It's all right. Look, the girl's family might not have said anything, anyway, to us."
"No, Frank. That's not what I meant. Her family DID talk to me."
Frank pulled back and looked at Callie.
Callie had to smile. "Don't look so shocked, hon. I told you when I set my mind to something, I usually get it done."
"But I thought…."
"No. You were wrong." She squeezed his hand. "It was easy to get in. I pretended to be a friend who simply wanted to see how everything was going. They had recently moved to the area, they told me, so I played on that and pretended to be a new friend. That's plausible, right? Anyway, what a lovely family they were! This poor girl, Frank. She had a scholarship to a university. She was young and pretty. She played tennis and loved her dogs. It's so senseless."
Frank nodded, and kissed Callie's forehead. Obviously, that had been tough to go through.
"It's not just her, Cal," he said gently. "A lot of teens have died in the four high schools so far. Whoever is doing this has got to be stopped."
Callie looked up at him. She felt her eyes brim with tears. "That's not why I'm upset."
"I don't understand," he said gently. He hated to see Callie upset; she was usually so vivacious!
"Frank, I…." she hesitated. "I was allowed to go to her room. Her parents asked if there was any small token I wanted to take to remember her by. They left me alone for a few minutes. It was so sad."
Frank nodded sympathetically. "Go on."
"I was about to leave when I saw something sticking out from under the bed. It was a letter. Apparently, this girl had just started a correspondence with a new friend. At least, that's what her mom told me." Callie wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, and swallowed the lump in her throat. "She had even visited this friend, apparently, a few days before she contracted Meningitis and died. He lived somewhere out of state. Her parents didn't know where he was; she just-- went."
"I still don't understand, honey," Frank gently encouraged her.
"Do you know who she wrote to? I have no idea if there's any connection, whatsoever, but…."
"But what?"
Callie reached into her purse and took out one of the letters that hadn't been sent.
Frank's eyes widened as the sudden realization hit him. The opening read, "Dear Prince Charming…"