new leader now. Everyone seems to think so. And they were sent to find out what I learned from the guérisseur. So it’s not personal—they’re not going to hunt me down for the rest of my life.
“Besides—if Arthur is the one talking to the numa …” Georgia’s eyes bugged, and she looked at me like I had suddenly gone stark-raving mad. I held up my hand in a “just wait” gesture. “If he’s the leak, then Vincent’s whole house is in danger. But when I told Vincent my reasons for suspecting Arthur, he wouldn’t even listen to me.”
“Well, that’s probably because you’re insane. Besides the fact that I think Arthur is deliciously dreamy—”
“And your taste has been so reliable in the past,” I cut in.
“Touché,” Georgia admitted. “But I know I’m right this time. I actually had coffee with him this afternoon.” She gave me her sly cat grin and pretended she was fanning herself from the memory of his hotness.
“What?” I exclaimed. “He asked you out?”
“Well, not exactly,” Georgia allowed. “I just kind of stumbled across him sitting at the Café Sainte-Lucie, and he asked me to sit with him. And since the evil munchkin wasn’t there to piss me off, I said yes.”
“This afternoon after school?” I asked.
“Uh-huh,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously.
“That’s when the standoff at Papy’s happened. Arthur was probably waiting for the numa to report back to him.”
Georgia’s mouth fell open. “Um, paranoid much? Earth to Kate: You’re losing your grip on reality. Arthur is a totally normal and very nice dead guy. I would be much more suspicious of Violette.”
I shook my head. “I trust Violette. If Arthur is behind it—wittingly or unwittingly—she must not know a thing about it. Otherwise she would have told me. We’ve gotten really close, Georgia. I know you don’t like her, but I do.”
She patted my arm, as if comforting an invalid. “I think the key word in what you just said was ‘unwittingly.’ If he does hang with fringe numa types, it’s possible he could have given something away. Although I just can’t see him buddying up with the evil ones. I seriously don’t think that Arthur would hurt a fly. He seems kind of anxiously reserved, but he’s such a nice guy I’m starting to suspect he’s actually too nice for me. He seemed genuinely upset about having offended you.”
“See! He was talking about me. And he’s probably just pretending to be remorseful to throw everyone off.”
“That’s enough, Kate. You’re on a one-way train to cuckoo-land.”
“I’m going to prove that he’s the one.”
“Okay. It’s a challenge. I’m going to prove that he’s not. Especially seeing that if you’re right and he’s evil, that will mean I’ll have to cancel my date with him for Saturday night.”
“Georgia!”
“Just kidding,” she said, and then under her breath added, “Not really.”
A pot of tiny purple-spotted violet flowers sat on the hall table the next morning. Papy lowered his newspaper long enough to nod toward them, and I wondered if he would have been so blasé about it if the card attached had said “Vincent” instead of “Violette.”
Heard about your frightful experience yesterday. Let’s have coffee later on. Café Sainte-Lucie after school? Kisses, Violette
I pulled my flower dictionary out of my book bag and found the picture of the flowers—they were oak-leaved geraniums. “True friendship,” I read, smiling as Georgia walked up behind me. “Those are pretty,” she commented, leaning down to smell them.
“They’re from Violette,” I said, watching for her reaction.
“They look like weeds,” she replied, straightening, and went to sit next to Papy at the breakfast table.
“Are you okay?” was all Papy uttered at breakfast, but he said it with a look of concern as he glanced over at Georgia—like he would say more if she weren’t there. If my grandfather thought I wouldn’t tell my sister everything, then he really didn’t know us. Maybe our occasional fights threw him off the scent of just how close we actually were.
A half hour later, we stepped out of the house to see Ambrose waiting for us at the corner, standing next to a black 4x4. “Ladies,” he said in a Barry White voice, and stretching his arms in front of him, cracked his thick neck from side to side. “This way, please.” He opened the door, and I jumped into the backseat. “And the lovely Georgia?”
“All this yummy muscleness first thing in the morning is almost too much for me to take,” she cooed, and gave him a playful wink