Underworld by Meg Cabot Page A

down into the creaky chair behind his large desk and began to shuffle through some papers. “Presumed dead. Mrs. Ortega fainted because she thought you were a ghost.”
    John, who’d been leaning against one of the cemetery sexton’s many metal file cabinets, straightened upon hearing this, bristling. “Why do they think Pierce is dead?”
    Mr. Smith had known John for a long time, since dealing with the local death deity was one of the unwritten job responsibilities of the Isla Huesos Cemetery sexton. He’d gotten to know me only recently, however, and I couldn’t help feeling as if he didn’t care for me too much … or maybe it was that Mr. Smith didn’t approve of me, exactly.
    “Well, there’s already been one young woman brutally murdered in this cemetery in the past forty-eight hours,” Mr. Smith said, giving me a sour look as he pushed on the center of his gold-rimmed glasses. “A young woman who happened to be Pierce’s guidance counselor, Jade Ortega. Now another young woman has disappeared. It’s a small community, what do you expect people are going to think?”
    I was sitting in front of Mr. Smith’s desk. During all the commotion after Jade’s grandmother fainted, the cemetery sexton had smuggled John and me through the back door of the small cottage that served as the graveyard’s administrative offices.
    I was having a hard time processing the fact that it had been my former guidance counselor’s family — of all people — that we’d surprised in the cemetery. They’d been arranging a place in the Ortega family crypt for her.
    On the one hand, Mr. Smith was right — Isla Huesos was a small community, and Jade had died recently, so why wouldn’t we have run into her family in the cemetery?
    On the other hand, I didn’t understand why anyone would want to bury their daughter in the same cemetery in which she’d been murdered.
    Mr. Smith had explained that, as soon as Jade’s body was released from the coroner, her family wanted to place her remains close to where they lived, so they could “visit her often.” Jade had grown up in Isla Huesos, leaving it only to go away for college, after which she’d returned to work at Isla Huesos High School, so she could “give back to the community.”
    “She gave back to the community, all right,” I’d muttered. “With her life.”
    “I don’t suppose you can tell me where you’ve been.” Mr. Smith lowered his glasses to peer at us over the frames. “Although if it was one of those horrible cheap motels up the Keys, I don’t want to know, actually. It will destroy all my romantic illusions.”
    It was my turn to bristle. “Of course not!” I cried, feeling my cheeks turning red. “John took me to the Underworld, to escape the Furies.”
    Mr. Smith’s skin turned the opposite of mine … not red, but a shade or two lighter. He grew very still behind his desk.
    “The Underworld,” he repeated. “To escape the Furies. God help me.”
    “What did you think?” John hadn’t liked the motel remark anymore than I had, but it didn’t make him blush. He looked angry, his dark eyebrows furrowed, his mouth tightening to a thin line. I saw that muscle in his jaw begin to throb dangerously. Outside, thunder rumbled … but this could have been an approaching rain band from the hurricane that must, judging from the darkening sky, still have been on its way. “You saw firsthand what happened to Jade. Do you think I was going to stand by and let that — or worse — happen to Pierce?”
    Mr. Smith seemed to have trouble formulating his next sentence. “No, of course not. But I would have hoped — certainly, I can understand why, after what happened to Jade — and with Miss Oliviera’s uncle getting arrested — you were both upset … but you , John … I would think you’re old enough to know better.”
    John glanced at me. I looked back at him, concerned. I could tell John wanted desperately to stomp out of the cemetery sexton’s