The Power Page 0,20

I'll keep going through mine." She looked at the window seat where the red leather-covered book lay beside a block of multicolored Post-it notes and a scattering of felt-tip pens and highlighters.

"Have you found anything interesting so far?" Diana asked as Cassie settled into the window seat with the book on her lap.

"Nothing about Black John. In the beginning the spells seem to be pretty much the same as yours. But everything in it's interesting, and who knows what's going to turn out to be useful in the end," Cassie said. She was determined to get familiar with the range of spells and amulets in the book, to learn as many as possible of them and to at least know where to find the rest. Still, it was a project that would take years, and they didn't have years. "Diana, I think we'd better talk to the old ladies in town - soon. Before - well, before anything happens so we can't talk to them." She met Diana's eyes grimly.

Diana blinked, taking in Cassie's meaning, and then nodded. "You're right. He's already killed four people, at least. If he thinks they're a threat . . ." She swallowed. "We'll talk to them tomorrow. I'll tell Adam when he calls - he's supposed to call me when he and Deborah get through shadowing Black John."

"I hope Black John doesn't know he's being shadowed," Cassie said.

"I hope so too," Diana said quietly, and bent her head over the papers again.

The meeting was held the next day on the beach. Faye didn't have a chance to veto the location because Faye wasn't there.

"She's with him," Deborah said briefly. "I followed her this morning - Adam and I flipped for it last night. She met him at that same coffee shop where they met yesterday - "

"Hang on, hang on," Laurel said. "You're getting ahead of yourself. What coffee shop?"

"I'll tell it," Adam said, in response to Diana's look. "Yesterday we went out of the cemetery and followed - Mr. Brunswick. That's a joke, by the way."

Diana nodded. "I used to do a little oil-painting, and Brunswick is a kind of paint," she told Cassie and the group. "Black paint."

"Very funny," said Cassie. She was sitting beside Nick, a new position, and one that made her slightly self-conscious. She was very aware of him, of his arm beside her. If she leaned a little to the right, she could touch him, and it was comforting. "I wonder what he did with the real person who was supposed to be principal," she said.

"I don't know." Adam couldn't have helped but notice who she was sitting by, and the new expression in Nick's eyes, a sort of protectiveness. Right now Cassie could see his blue-gray gaze flicker toward Nick, looking him up and down narrowly. It wasn't a friendly look. "I don't know how he managed to get the position. I don't know why he would want it, either." He glanced at Nick again and opened his mouth, but Diana was talking.

"Go on with the story. Go on, Adam. Tell us what happened when you followed him yesterday."

"Huh? Oh, right. Well, he left alone, in a gray Cadillac, and we followed; Deborah on her bike and me in my jeep. He drove into town and went to the Perko's Koffee Kup there - and guess who drove up a few minutes later?"

"Wearing a black lace minidress and looking really perky," Deborah put in.

"Faye," Diana whispered, looking sick. "How could she?"

"I dunno, but she did," Deborah said. "We watched her through the window, and she went to his booth. He's a living, breathing man, all right - he was drinking coffee. They talked for about an hour. Faye was prancing and tossing her head like a little filly in a show. And he seemed to like it - anyway, he was smiling at her."

"We waited until they left, then Deb followed her and I followed him," Adam said. "He drove to a summer cottage on the mainland - I guess he's rented it. He stayed there all night, I think; I finally left around one in the morning."

"Where did Faye go?" Melanie asked Deborah.

Deborah made a face. "I don't know." "Why not?"

"Because she lost me, okay? Riding a Harley isn't exactly inconspicuous. She started going through red lights and suddenly making U-turns, and in the end she lost me. You want to make something out of it?"

"Deb," Cassie said. Deborah scowled at her, then rolled her eyes