Page 52 of The Executioners Three

The funeral for Mrs. Ferris was on an unseasonably warm day. No wind blew, and the sun baked down through barren branches. Sheriff Bowman had waited to have the funeral until after Theo had been released from the hospital, so it was now five days since everything had gone down at City-on-the-Berme.

As funerals often were in Berm—where everyone knew everyone—the cemetery was crowded. Mrs. Ferris had been especially beloved, always at the heart of the small town and its talky people.

Freddie cried. Mom cried. Steve cried. Not Sheriff Bowman, though, or Theo. Nor Teddy Porter, who’d come from Chicago. The trio stayed tucked off to one side, Teddy with his arm around his son, helping Theo stand.

The official story was that Mrs. Ferris had died from the wounds of an animal. The story that Harris and Li had told Freddie privately was that Edgar Fabre Jr. had actually killed her in the hospital once he’d realized his first attack had failed.

It was awful, and the fact that Edgar had faced a gruesome sort of justice didn’t make it any less awful. So Freddie let herself cry as hard as she wanted. For Mrs. Ferris, for Dr. Fontana, and for everyone else who’d died by Edgar’s hands.

And maybe most of all, Freddie cried for her dad.

Which was why, after the service, Freddie made her way to his grave beside a towering willow.

The granite gravestone had simple, hard lines and read, Frank Carter, 1951–1987.

Protector of the people. Next to it was a stone bench that had been donated by the town.

In honor of Frank’s service to the city he loved.

“Hey, Dad,” Freddie murmured as she sat.

“I know I don’t come often, but I was thinking maybe it’s time to change that.

Plus, Mom actually talked about you last week.

Wild, I know, but maybe that means it’s time for a new house rule: Thou shalt discuss Frank Carter .

Especially since it seems… Well, I guess I’m a lot like you.

“I know you weren’t keen on being a dad—but you were keen on being a sheriff. And I get that. I don’t hold it against you or anything. Plus, I’d like to think if…” Here, Freddie’s voice cracked.

She scrubbed at her nose and tried again. “I’d like to think if maybe you hadn’t died, we’d have eventually gotten to know each other. Especially once you saw that I was an Answer Finder just like you.

“Although, I’m sorry you never got all the answers you were looking for. You were right, though: Edgar didn’t die. And I never would have figured that out if not for the clues you left behind. So thank you. You saved a lot of people in the end.

“And as for your dreams, well… they were real. I guess we’re descended from a carriage driver who was forced to come here three hundred years ago and—get this, Dad—disembowel people for José Allard Fortin. Crazy, right?”

Freddie paused, chewing at her lip. There was still so much to say, yet all her words felt too small. Too easy. How could she even begin to articulate everything she’d tamped down for the last twelve years?

Then again, she supposed she didn’t have to say everything in one go. This was hopefully only the first of many more grave visits to come. And heck, for all she knew, her dad was actually nearby and listening to her one-sided conversation.

After all, if spirits could haunt the forest and blood oaths could control people, why couldn’t her dad also be hovering somewhere just out of sight?

“Hey, Gellar.”

Freddie spun around to find Theo scuffing her way. He wore a suit under a black wool overcoat, and at first glance, he looked fine. But closer examination revealed a hunch, as well as a slight bulge around his abdomen where bandages kept his stitches protected.

Freddie leaped for him, careful to only touch his back when she reached him. “What are you doing, Theo? You’re not supposed to walk this far.”

“I wanted to see you,” he admitted. “Is this your dad?”

Freddie nodded. “You should sit.” She motioned to the bench, still warmed by the sun.

Theo didn’t answer. Nor did he move. Instead, he murmured: “I… I had a dream last night, Gellar. That I went to the Allard Fortin crypt and found something only I could find.”

“Ah.”

“And then I gave it to you.” He turned his blue eyes onto Freddie. With the sun in them, the pupils were small. The blue an icy crystalline. “But I don’t think it was a dream, was it? I think it really happened. And…” He shook his head, lifting one hand to rub at his temple.

Until this made the muscles in his abdomen contract, which in turn caused him pain. Silly boy.

Freddie glared. “Sit,” she commanded, and she forcibly lowered him onto the bench. Then she took sentry in front of him, her legs touching his knees so he couldn’t try to stand again.

“Yes,” she told him. “It all really happened, and I remember it too. I can explain everything, if you want, but… well, I’ll warn you now: it’s kind of hard to believe.”

“Harder to believe than the fact that my mom was apparently an Allard Fortin and I get an inheritance when I turn eighteen?”

Freddie laughed, a pitchy sound because it wasn’t actually funny—but she could also sense that Theo wanted this moment to be light. That sometimes making jokes was easier than digging into the darkness.

“I’m surprised you remember anything,” Freddie said truthfully. “No one else in town does.”

“I mean, I can’t say I want to remember, and it feels like my brain is trying to stop me from it. But…” A shrug. Then a wince from the subsequent pain. “I don’t like not knowing.”

No. He didn’t. Freddie had already learned that about him back in the Fortin library. Because he really was just like her in this regard. He needed answers, and he’d rather have them, even if the cost was high.

“Well,” Freddie said, “it’s a long story, and it’s cold out here.” She shivered. “Plus, there’s a reception we need to go to.”

“Not yet, please. And here.” Theo shifted as if he was going to peel off his coat, but Freddie grabbed his wrists.

“Don’t be stupid. That will hurt.”

“Not if you help me.” He smiled crookedly, head tipped higher to hold her gaze. She was very close now.

“I’m not going to undress you at a cemetery. By my dad’s grave.”

“Undress me?” His blond eyebrows shot high. The smile twitched wider. “Gellar, your mind went to a very different gutter than mine did.”

Suddenly Freddie was not cold at all. Heat fanned through her chest, her shoulders, all the way up her neck and across her face. “I didn’t mean it like that, Mr. Porter. I just… I think the optics… at a funeral… ugh, stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re laughing at me.”

“I’m not laughing at you.” He totally was. “This is my impressed face, Gellar. And my thank-you face.” He tugged his wrists free from Freddie, but rather than draw away from her, he slid his arms around her and pulled her close.

His head was against her stomach, and he looked very vulnerable. Very handsome too. (And also still quite tortured.)

“Thank you, Freddie Gellar. I might not remember everything that happened last week, but I do know I’m glad you were there for it all. And I’m glad you’re here with me now.”

“Yeah.” It was all Freddie could think to say. He was hugging her and it was kind of the best feeling ever. She’d visited him every single day in the hospital, but this was their first real conversation without nurses or doctors or family nearby.

And it was definitely their first embrace.

Which made Freddie’s heart do unexpected thumpy things inside her rib cage—a drumbeat he could probably hear with his head pressed against her like it was.

It also made her throat ache. Like she wanted to cry—for him, for herself, for Mrs. Ferris and for Dad—but she’d already drained her entire Emotional Quota for the year and there were no tears left to shed.

So she hugged Theo back, and together, they enjoyed a shining sun while the wind held back its fangs.

Autumn had swung back to its expected frost by the time Freddie met with Harris and Li to say goodbye. The partners sat on a bench at Fortin Park downtown, where the maple trees had lost the last of their leaves in the night. A crunchy covering that brightened an otherwise gray morning.

They both wore sunglasses and nondescript black coats, and it was just a little too obvious that they were Out-of-Towners Up to Something.

Freddie had to bite back the urge to sing, Here come the Men in Black! They won’t let you remember!

To be fair, it was actually a stunningly accurate song lyric. Except it wasn’t so much that the Department of Unexplained Phenomena wouldn’t let anyone in Berm remember, so much as—just as Li had told Freddie a week ago—people seemed really good at not noticing what their brains couldn’t explain.

Which meant, as far as Freddie could tell, she was the only person in all of Berm other than Theo who actually knew what had happened last Wednesday night. Laina, Bowman, the Prank Squad—they were still firmly locked on the It Can All Be Rationalized train.

It was most certainly for the best, since it was way easier for them than being on Freddie’s The X-Files Are Real train. Because the thing about learning that nature was actually way more deranged than she’d ever imagined meant she had an endless supply of questions brewing in her brain.

It was honestly overwhelming for an Answer Finder such as herself.

Although, it was also quite exhilarating .

“You’re really quite unusual,” Harris had told Freddie during their first debriefing last Wednesday morning. “Few people can keep it all in their heads, so it’s helpful when we find someone able to fill in so many gaps.”

Sure enough, with Freddie’s assistance, Harris and Li had been able to paint a detailed picture of the Executioners and the original José Allard Fortin curse. Of the bell that had controlled their spirits and the Original Fabre who’d made that bell.