December Frost (A Southern Romance Monthly) by CJ Hockenberry Page A

 
    "Mmhmm." She told him about the fever and went in to check on him while on the phone with Lex. His skin was still hot to the touch but he was breathing deep.  
    "Wait till the morning, and if the fever hasn't broken then or it's gone up, call me again. I would say get him to a hospital at that point, but nothing's going to be open by the morning."
    "Still snowing down there?"  
    "Oh…Atlanta's shut down, so is Macon…all the way to the border. There are reports of snow in Jacksonville, Florida."  
    "Wow." She looked at her sheets of paper. "Hey Lex, you do work with the FBI, right?"
    "On occasion."  
    "You ever heard of an agent named Frank Clark?"
    He laughed. "No. But I can ask for you if you need a confirmation."  
    "Yeah. And I need you to check on another name. Blair Hodges."  
    "Who's that?"
    "I think this is that professor's daughter. He mentioned a Blair earlier. She's who told him the Phantom was going to be at the High."  
    "You suspect her?"  
    "I suspect everyone. How fast can you check on this stuff?"
    "I'll call you right back." He disconnected. She checked her battery and dug her charger from her bag in the second room. Once the phone was charging she looked at the tablet. Oddly enough, it didn't have a password.  
    But it did have a lot of pictures, especially of someone outside the High. She assumed these were his surveillance shots of who he suspected was the Phantom. Cecelia increased the size as best she could and looked at each of the shots.  
    In her opinion, if this was the Phantom, it looked like a girl. And to her happiness, she found a small mpeg movie he'd taken which showed the target walking back and forth in front of the High as if casing it.  
    And in her opinion, not only did it look like a girl, but it also looked way…way too obvious. "Almost as if you wanted Thomas to see you."  
    Hadn't Thomas seen that? Probably not. He was a thief, not a cop.  
    Her phone rang again and she jumped. "Hey Lex."  
    "Hey…why were you asking about Frank Clark?"  
    "Because he's apparently a friend of Thomas's. He was the one that sent emails that the High was going to be the target of this Phantom." Cecelia looked at the TV. "Why?"
    "Well…because Frank Clark's body was found early this morning, before the snow started. The ME estimated his death about a week ago."  
    Cecelia checked the dates on the emails. Thomas received his first email about this case six days ago. She checked the Professor's emails. Those started five days ago. Before then, the professor's last email was a month ago, and Frank Clark's was six months.  
    "Uh oh." She stood up slowly. "We have a problem, then. Someone's been using Clark's email address to set him up."  
    "Yeah, well, we know who."  
    "What?"
    "The person that told me about Agent Clark's death freaked out when I asked him about Blair Hodges because they found her finger prints in Clark's house."  
    "Son of a—" Cecelia sat back and stared at the slide show on Thomas's tablet.  
    "Do you know if Thomas has been in contact with this Blair?"  
    "He said he left a message with the Professor when he was arrested. He said," Cecelia thought about where her gun was. "Lex—he said he seemed surprised the Professor never called back and didn't bail him out. Then the Phantom showed up in exactly the right lockup."  
    "If Blair's the Professor's daughter, and she got Thomas's message, then she'd know where he was."
    "But that would mean she's in Atlanta. That she was always in Atlanta."  
    "I'm not sure you guys are safe anymore, sis. If Blair finds out you're the cop helping Carr, then she'll investigate you and find out about me, and everyone else."  
    "Which means she'll know about this cabin—"  
    The lights went out. Cecelia froze as every one of her senses went on alarm. She'd been expecting the power to go out but the timing was a bit suspicious.  
    "Cece…Cecelia!"  
    "Sshh…" she said in a low voice. "The lights just went out."