Chief of Police Santos did eventually arrest Mike both for the murder of Jade Ortega and the attempted murder of Patrick Reynolds. After the missing wrench was dredged from the bottom of the harbor, Mike struck a plea bargain and took a sentence of life in prison in order to avoid the death penalty. All charges against Uncle Chris were dropped.
Seth Rector, who’d successfully murdered Alex, was a little more fortunate. There was no proof he’d murdered Alex, since there was no body …. Alex was still alive. So Seth couldn’t be prosecuted for that crime.
Oddly enough, however, Chief of Police Santos happened to find more than a dozen gold doubloons dating back to the seventeen hundreds (and worth more than ten thousand dollars each) in a black velvet bag in Seth’s locker during a random locker sweep at Isla Huesos High School one afternoon.
Seth, completely shocked, claimed he’d never seen the coins before and had no idea where they’d come from. As he was led down the breezeway in handcuffs, he saw John Hayden leaning casually against one of the outdoor cafeteria tables, his arms folded across his chest. As Seth passed by, John narrowed his eyes at him, then wagged a single index finger. Shame on you.
Seth began to shout that he’d been “set up by Pierce Oliviera and that freak boyfriend of hers.”
Chief Santos advised Seth to save it for his father’s lawyers.
Mr. Rector’s lawyers, however, were quite busy, as Nate Rector was facing prosecution for numerous felonies, including willful and wanton destruction of a known indigenous burial site, improper disposal of human remains, desecration of a cemetery, disturbance of a historically significant archeological discovery, and willfully misleading the Reef Key Luxury Resort investors through purposeful obfuscation, lack of disclosure, and lack of fiduciary responsibility.
Which meant that not only were the Rectors broke, but Reef Key was also very likely going to be reverted back to the roseate spoonbill sanctuary and mangrove habitat my mother had always remembered so fondly.
Since Mr. Rector had misled not simply his investors, but also his business partner, Farah’s father, Mr. Endicott was spared the many charges against the Reef Key developers. This was good, since I’d grown fond of Farah. After Kayla returned to school, she reported that Farah continued to be friendly, no longer hanging out with Serena and Nicole and the Rector Wreckers (which more or less fell apart as a group after Seth went to jail for felony theft, anyway). Farah ate lunch every day with Kayla — who was determined to graduate a semester early and get her cosmetology degree, in order to open Save Yourselves — and had decided the local community college might not be so bad after all. It turned out Bryce was going to go there, and Bryce’s father owned most of the bars downtown, as well as a private plane.
“I can go to Miami whenever I want to go shopping,” Farah said. “Bryce has his own platinum American Express card. Seth didn’t even have that.”
I was pleased to hear that things were turning out so well. Maybe Mr. Smith was right … not just about storms sometimes being a good thing, but about Fates really being small acts of kindness by random people. Certainly that seemed to have improved the quality of life in the Underworld.
Being John’s consort — and cousin to the personification of death — had its challenges. People can be resistant to change, even positive change. I could understand that when you’ve spent more than a century and a half living in an underground castle sorting dead people onto boats all day, spending a few months or weeks or even days aboveground with live people could be a scary concept.
When you’re a flower that’s suddenly had all its protective bracken swept away, facing the sunshine for the first time could be frightening.
Maybe that’s why — after things had settled down and it became clear that, while we’d never be entirely free of the threat of a Fury attack, we might not be in imminent danger of one — when I suggested the idea of going on a vacation to John, he completely freaked out.
I explained to John about work sharing and how vital it can be to a successful and happy place of employment, and how much healthier everyone would be — and how much better they would get along — if we took a day off from the Underworld every once in a while. Frank was always asking for time off to meet Kayla for dinner — and sometimes even entire weekends — in Isla Huesos, and John was happy to allow it. Why couldn’t we do the same?
“It’s different,” John said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because of your grandmother.”
I was ready for this argument.
“You know my dad won’t allow her in the house because of what she did,” I said, “even though she doesn’t remember it. And Mom won’t have anything to do with her, either. It turns out Grandma’s personality without a Fury possessing her isn’t that great. All she wants to do is go to church and criticize people. I have no idea why my grandfather married her,” I added with a sigh, “except that she must have been pretty, once.”
“She’s weak-minded and negative,” John said. “That’s why it was so easy for a Fury to possess her. And also why there’s no reason a Fury wouldn’t be able to take possession of her again. And your uncle, who doesn’t know about any of this, still lives with her.”
“Not for long,” I said defensively. “Uncle Chris is moving out.”
“He is?”
“Yes, he is, remember, I told you? My dad bought him that boat, and he started a fishing charter business, and now he’s saved up all that money and he’s getting his own place, since he can’t stand Grandma, either. Also because Alex went to boarding school —”
The excuse Alex gave to his father for why he wasn’t living at home anymore was that he’d gotten a scholarship to a very prestigious boarding school … the same boarding school in Switzerland, in fact, that my dad had always been threatening to ship me off to.
Alex now saw his father only when he came home from “boarding school” during holidays and breaks. But when he did, they spent almost the entire time working together on Uncle Chris’s boat. I’d never seen the two of them happier.
My father was only too pleased to facilitate Alex’s lie. He’d found the entire adventure with John — teleporting to get the boats, visiting the Underworld, even discovering that his daughter had a boyfriend with supernatural powers — extremely exciting.
The only problem was, now every time he saw John, Dad wanted to be teleported somewhere, such as Paris, even just for a few seconds, as a joke. He didn’t understand why John wouldn’t participate with him in a joint-teleporting — or corpse-reviving — venture.
“Even if you only revived people’s dead pets,” he’d insist, “we could make billions.”
This might perhaps have been another reason John wasn’t particularly eager to leave the Underworld often, especially to visit my parents, though he was too polite to tell me so to my face. He cited fear of lingering Furies as the main reason, and the fact that we had so many responsibilities in our roles as lord and queen of the Underworld to simply dash off whenever we wanted to.
Mr. Graves didn’t approve of any of us leaving at all, at first, for any reason, but as time went by and nothing bad happened — the realm of the dead returned to normal; hot, delicious meals began appearing again on the dining table three times a day, courtesy of the Fates; and new rooms and wings showed up in the castle as if by magic … a chapel for Chloe, a gym for Reed, a library for Mrs. Engle, and a “sick” game room for Alex, complete with every console imaginable — there was really no protest he could give. Nothing except — as Mr. Graves stood outside the game room one night, watching, with his fully restored sight, Alex and Reed patiently explaining to Henry, Mr. Liu, and Frank the finer points of Call of Duty — “We’re doomed.”