"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 and shrugged.
"Anyway, this morning I waited outside her house, and she went back to meet him. They had a booth at the back, though, not near a window. So I went inside, but I really couldn't see what was going on. I think she gave him something, but I don't know what."
"Wonderful," Suzan said, and Deborah glared at her.
"I mean, wonderful that she's - what do you call it? In league with him. Is anybody going to eat that doughnut?" Suzan daintily shook off powdered sugar and bit in.
Laurel murmured something about white sugar being worse than rat poison, but she didn't have the energy to say more.
"It's good," Suzan said indistinctly. "The only thing it's missing is cream filling."
"I think we'd better go talk with the old ladies," Cassie said. "With Adam's grandmother, I mean, and Laurel's grandmother and Melanie's great-aunt."
"Today's a good day," Melanie volunteered. "Every Sunday afternoon they get together and have lunch at our place: a kind of tea, you know, with sandwiches and little cakes and stuff."
"That's right," Cassie said. "My grandmother used to go too."
"Cakes?" said Suzan, looking interested. "Why didn't you say so? Let's go."
"Right - no, wait," Diana said. She looked around the group. "Look, it's probably pointless to ask this, but did any of you take the piece of hematite out of Cassie's room?" Everyone stared at her, then at each other. Everyone except Cassie and Laurel. Heads were shaken, and all the faces wore the same look of puzzlement.
"Somebody took the hematite?" Deborah asked. "The piece you found at Number Thirteen?" Cassie nodded, unobtrusively studying the other members of the Circle. Adam was frowning, the Henderson brothers looked blank. Sean looked nervous, but then Sean always looked nervous. Melanie seemed troubled, Nick was slowly shaking his head, and Suzan was shrugging.
"I didn't think anybody would admit to it," Diana said. "But I suspect that's because the person who took it isn't here. She's at Perko's Koffee Kup." Diana sighed. "All right. Let's go to Number Four."
Cassie had been getting quite familiar with Melanie's house since her mother had been taken to stay there. The house was in the Federal style, very similar to Cassie's grandmother's, but in much better repair. The white clapboard walls were freshly painted and everything inside had a shipshape, tidy look. Great-aunt Constance was sitting in the front parlor with old Mrs. Franklin, Adam's grandmother, and Laurel's Granny Quincey. She didn't look at all pleased to see the eleven of them crowding in the parlor door.
"Great-aunt Constance? Can we talk to you?"
The elderly woman turned a cool, disapproving eye on Melanie. She was thin and regal, and in her high-cheekboned face Cassie could detect some resemblance to Melanie's classic beauty. Her hair was still very dark, but maybe she dyed it.
"Are you here to see your mother?" she said, spotting Cassie in the group. "She's fast asleep right now; I really don't think she should be disturbed."
"Actually, Aunt Constance, we came to talk to you," Melanie said. She looked at the other women in the parlor. "To all three of you."
A line appeared between Great-aunt Constance's eyebrows, but the short plump woman sitting on the sofa said, "Oh, let them in, Connie. Why not? There you are, Adam. What kept you out so late last night, hm?"