Meg Cabot - Ninth Key

Because as we got up from the table to go to the living room, where dessert, I was told, would be served, Tad picked up my hand - which was, by the way, still a bit poison oaky, but he evidently didn't care; there was still a healthy amount of it on the back of his neck, after all - and gave it a squeeze.

And all of a sudden I was convinced that I had probably way overreacted back home when I'd asked Jesse to have Father Dominic call the cops if I wasn't home by midnight. I mean, yeah, there were people who might think Red Beaumont was a vampire, and he certainly may have made his fortune in a creepy way.

But that didn't necessarily make him a bad guy. And we didn't have any actual proof he really had killed all those people. And what about that dead woman who kept showing up in my bedroom? She was convinced Red hadn't killed her. She'd gone to great lengths to assure me that he was innocent of her death, at least. Maybe Mr. Beaumont wasn't that bad.

"I thought you were mad at me," Tad whispered as we followed Yoshi, who was carrying a tray of coffee - herbal tea for me - into the living room ahead of us.

"Why should I be mad at you?" I asked, curiously.

"Well, last night," Tad whispered, "when I was kissing you - "

All at once I remembered how I'd seen Jesse sitting there, and how I'd screamed bloody murder over it. Blushing, I said, unable to look Tad in the eye, "Oh, that. That was just … I thought … I saw a spider."

"A spider?" Tad pulled me down onto this black leather couch next to him. In front of the couch there was a big coffee table that looked like it was made out of Plexiglas. "In my car ?"

"I've got a thing about spiders," I said.

"Oh." Tad looked at me with his sleepy brown eyes. "I thought maybe you thought I was - well, a little forward. Kissing you like that, I mean."

"Oh, no," I said with a laugh that I hoped sounded all sophisticated, as if guys were going around sticking their tongues in my mouth all the time.

"Good," Tad said, and he put his arm around my neck and started pulling me toward him -

But then his dad walked in, and went, "Now, where we were? Oh, yes. Susannah, you were going to tell us all about how your class is trying to raise money to restore the statue of Father Serra that was so unfortunately vandalized last week …"

Tad and I pulled quickly apart.

"Uh, sure," I said. And I started telling the long, boring tale, which actually involved a bake sale, of all things. As I was telling it, Tad reached over to the massive glass coffee table in front of him and picked up a cup of coffee. He put cream and sugar into it, then took a sip.

"And then," I said, really convinced now that the whole thing had been a giant misunderstanding - the thing about Tad's dad, I mean - "we found out it's actually cheaper to get a whole new statue cast than to repair the old one, but then it wouldn't be an authentic . . . well, whoever the artist is, I forget. So we're still trying to figure it out. If we repair the old one, there'll be a seam that will show where the neck was reattached, but we could hide the seam if we raise the collar of Father Serra's cassock. So there's some wrangling going on about the historical accuracy of a high-collared cassock, and - "

It was at this point in my narration that Tad suddenly pitched forward and plowed face-first into my lap.

I blinked down at him. Was I really that boring? God, no wonder no one had ever asked me out before.

Then I realized Tad wasn't asleep at all. He was unconscious .

I looked over at Mr. Beaumont, who was gazing sadly at his son from the leather couch opposite mine.

"Oh, my God," I said.

Mr. Beaumont sighed. "Fast-acting, isn't it?" he said.

Horrified, I exclaimed, "God, poison your kid, why don't you?"

"He hasn't been poisoned," Mr. Beaumont said, looking appalled. "Do you think I would do something like that to my own boy? He's merely drugged, of course. In a few hours he'll wake up and not remember a thing. He'll just feel extremely well rested."

I was struggling to push Tad off me. The guy wasn't huge, or anything, but he was dead weight, and it was no easy task getting his face out of my lap.

"Listen," I said to Mr. Beaumont as I struggled to squirm out from under his son, "you better not try anything."

With one hand I pushed Tad, while with the other I surreptitiously unzipped my bag. I hadn't let it out of my sight since I'd entered the house, in spite of the fact that Yoshi had tried to take it and put it with my coat. A few squirts of pepper spray, I decided, would suit Mr. Beaumont very nicely in the event that he tried anything physical.

"I mean it," I assured him, as I slipped a hand inside my bag and fumbled around inside it for the pepper spray. "It would be a really bad idea for you to mess with me, Mr. Beaumont. I'm not who you think I am."

Mr. Beaumont just looked more sad when he heard that. He said, with another big sigh, "Neither am I."

"No," I said. I had found the pepper spray, and now, one-handed, I worked the little plastic safety cap off it. "You think I'm just some stupid girl your son's brought home for dinner. But I'm not."

"Of course you're not," Mr. Beaumont said. "That's why it was so important that I speak with you again. You talk to the dead, and I, you see …"

I eyed him suspiciously. "You what?"

"Well." He looked embarrassed. "I make them that way."

What had that dopey lady in my bedroom meant when she insisted he hadn't tried to kill her? Of course he had! Just like he'd killed Mrs. Fiske!

Just like he was getting ready to kill me.

"Don't think I don't appreciate your sense of humor, Mr. Beaumont," I said. "Because I do. I really do. I think you're a very funny guy. So I hope you won't take this personally - "

And I sprayed him, full in the face.

Or at least I meant to. I held the nozzle in his direction and I pressed down on it. Only all that came out was sort of spliff noise.

No paralyzing pepper spray, though. None at all.

And then I remembered that bottle of Paul Mitchell styling spritz that had leaked all over the bottom of my bag the last time I was at the beach. That stuff, mixed with sand, had gunked up nearly everything I owned. And now, it seemed, it had coated the hole my pepper spray was supposed to squirt out of.

"Oh," Mr. Beaumont said. He looked very disappointed in me. "Mace? Now is that fair, Susannah?"

I knew what I had to do. I threw down the useless bottle and started to make a run for it -

Too late, however. He lashed out - so suddenly, I didn't even have time to move - and seized my wrist in a grip that, let me tell you, hurt quite a bit.

"You better let go of me," I advised him. "I mean it. You'll regret it - "

But he ignored me, and spoke without the least bit of animosity, almost as if I hadn't just tried to paralyze his mucus membranes.

"I'm sorry if I seemed flippant before," he said, apologetically. "But I really mean it. I have, unfortunately, made some very serious errors in judgment that have resulted in several persons losing their lives and at my own hands. … It is imperative that you help me speak to them, to assure them that I am very, very sorry for what I've done."

I blinked at him. "Okay," I said. "That's it. I'm out of here."

But no matter how hard I pulled on my arm, I couldn't break free of his viselike grip. The guy was surprisingly strong for someone's dad.

"I know that to you I seem horrible," he went on. "A monster, even. But I'm not. I'm really not."

"Tell that to Mrs. Fiske," I grunted as I tugged on my arm.

Mr. Beaumont didn't seem to have heard me. "You can't imagine what it's like. The hours I've spent torturing myself over what I've done...."