Meg Cabot - Darkest Hour

He looked up, startled. I don't know what freaked him out more, my slip dress or the fact that I'd asked to see Cee Cee.

"Over there," he said, pointing. His voice wobbled all over the place.

"Thanks," I said, and started down a long and quite messy corridor, passing a lot of industrious journalists who were eagerly tapping out their stories on the recent spate of wind chime thefts off people's front porches, and the more alarming problem of parking in front of the post office.

Cee Cee was in a cubicle in the back. It appeared to be the photocopier cubicle, because that was what she was doing: photocopying.

"Oh my God," she said, when she saw me. "What are you doing here?"

She didn't say it in an unhappy way, though.

"Slumming," I said, and settled myself into an office chair beside the fax machine.

"I can see that," Cee Cee said. She was taking her role as girl reporter very seriously. Her long, stick-straight white hair was coiled up on top of her hair with a Number 2 pencil, and there was a smudge of toner on one pink cheek. "Why aren't you at the resort?"

"Mental health day," I said. "On account of the dead body they found in our backyard yesterday."

Cee Cee dropped a ream of paper.

"Oh my God!" she gushed. "That was you ? I mean, there's a mention of a coroner's call up to the hills in the Police Beat section, but somebody said it must have been a Native American burial site or something...."

"Oh, no," I said. "Not unless the Native Americans around here wore spurs."

"Spurs?" Cee Cee reached for a notepad that was resting on top of the copier, then pulled the pencil from the knot on top of her head, causing her long hair to fall down around her shoulders. Because she is an albino, Cee Cee keeps the vast majority of her skin protected from the sun at all times, even when she's working inside an office. Today was no exception. In spite of the heat outside, she was wearing jeans and a brown button-up sweater.

On the other hand, the air-conditioning in the place had to be on high. It was like an icebox in there.

"Spill," Cee Cee said, perching on the edge of the table that supported the fax machine.

I did. I spilled it all. Everything, from the letters Dopey had found to my trip to Clive's office to his untimely death the day before. I mentioned Clive's grandfather's book and Jesse and the historically significant role my house had played in his murder. I told her about Maria and Diego and their no-account kids, the fact that Jesse's portrait was now missing from the historical society, and my suspicions that the skeleton found in my backyard belonged to him.

When I was through, Cee Cee raised her gaze from the notepad and went, "Geez, Simon. This could be a movie of the week."

"Lifetime channel," I agreed.

Cee Cee pointed at me with the pencil. "Tiffani-Amber Thiessen could play Maria!"

"So," I said. "Are you going to print it?"

"Heck, yeah," Cee Cee said. "I mean, it's got everything. Romance and murder and intrigue and local interest. Too bad almost everybody involved has been dead a hundred years, or more. Still, if I can get confirmation from the coroner that your skeleton belonged to a male in his twenties . . . Any idea how they did it? Killed him, I mean?"

I thought about Dopey and his shovel. "Well," I said, "if they shot him - you know, in the head - I doubt the coroner will be able to tell, thanks to Brad's ham-fisted digging technique."

Cee Cee looked at me. "You want to borrow my sweater?"

Surprised, I shook my head. "Why?"

"You're shivering."

I was, but not because I was cold.

"I'm okay," I said. "Look, Cee Cee, it's really important you get them to run this story. And they have to do it soon. Like tomorrow."

She said, not looking up again from her notepad, "Oh, I know. And I think it'd go great alongside Dr. Clemmings's obituary, you know? The project he was working on when he died. That kind of thing."

"So," I said, "it'll run tomorrow? Do you think it'll run tomorrow?"

Cee Cee shrugged. "They won't want to run it until they get the coroner's report on the body. And that could take weeks."

Weeks? I didn't have weeks. And though Cee Cee didn't know it, she didn't have weeks either.

I was shaking uncontrollably now. Because I had realized, of course, what I'd just done: put Cee Cee in the same kind of jeapordy I'd put Clive Clemmings in. Clive had been just fine until Maria had overheard him telling his dictaphone what I'd said about Jesse. Then faster than you could say The Haunting , he was suffering from a massive, paranormally induced coronary. Had I just sentenced Cee Cee to the same gruesome end? While I highly doubted Maria was going to ransack the offices of the Carmel Pine Cone the way she had the Carmel historical society, there was still a chance she might find out what I had done.

I needed that story to run right away. The sooner people found out the truth about Maria and Felix Diego, the better my chances of them not killing me - or the people I cared about.

"It's got to run tomorrow," I said. "Please, Cee Cee. Can't you call the coroner and get some kind of unofficial statement?"

Cee Cee did look up from her notebook then. She looked up and said, "Suze. What is the rush? These people have been dead for like forever. What does it matter?"

"It matters," I said. My teeth were starting to chatter. "It just really matters, okay, Cee Cee? Please, please see what you can do to put a rush on it. And promise you won't talk about it. The story, I mean. Outside these offices. It's really important that you keep it to yourself."

Cee Cee reached out and laid a hand on my bare shoulder. Her fingers were very warm and soft. "Suze," she said, peering down at me sort of intently. "What did you do to your head? Where'd that giant bruise under your bangs come from?"

I pushed self-consciously at my hair.

"Oh," I said. "I tripped. I fell into a hole. The hole they found the body in, isn't that funny?"

Cee Cee didn't seem to think it was funny at all. She went, "Have you had a doctor look at that? Because it looks pretty bad. You might have a concussion, or something."

"I'm fine," I said, standing up. "Really. It's nothing. Look, I better go. Remember what I said, will you? About the story, I mean. It's really important that you don't mention it to anyone. And that you get them to run it as soon as possible. I need a lot of people to see it. A lot of people. They need to see the truth. You know. About the Diegos."

Cee Cee stared at me. "Suze," she said. "Are you sure you're all right? I mean, since when do you care about the local gentry?"

I stammered, as I backed out of the cubicle, "Well, since meeting Dr. Clemmings, I guess. I mean, it's a real tragedy that people so often overlook their community's historical society, when you know, really, without it, the fabric of the - "

"You," Cee Cee interrupted, "need to go home and take an Advil."

"You're right," I said, picking up my purse. It matched my slip dress, pink, with little flowers embroidered on it. I was overcompensating for all the days I'd had to wear those khaki shorts. "I'll go. See you later."

Then I got the hell out of there before my head exploded in front of everybody.

But on my way back to Father Dominic's car I realized that the reason I'd been shivering back in the photocopying cubicle hadn't been due to the excessive air-conditioning, the fact that Jesse was gone, or even the fact that two homicidal ghosts were actively trying to kill me.

No, I was shivering because of what I knew I was about to do.

When I got to Father Dom's car, I bent down and said through the open passenger window, "Hey."

Father Dominic started and hurled something out the driver's side window.