Frenzy

by V. J. Chambers

“Okay,” he said.

  “Just how experienced are you?”

  He laughed. “What do you mean?”

  I bit my lip. “Like, um, how many people have you, you know?”

  “Oh,” he said. “You want to know that.”

  I raised my gaze to his, feeling nervous. “What, is it a lot?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “You’re, um, number six.”

  I took a deep breath. Okay. That wasn’t so bad. Well, it wasn’t great, either. Images of Levi with five other girls started to dance in my head. I wondered if he’d touched them the way that he’d touched me. Had he had sex with them in the shower? Well, he must have, if he knew all of these things that we could do together in the shower.

  “You’re not saying anything,” said Levi. “Did that freak you out?”

  I shook my head, forcing myself to smile. “No, of course not.” But I peeled myself away from him and opened the door to the bathroom.

  He came after me. “I generally think that conversations about the past are better not to really do.”

  I’d brought new clothes with me in my backpack, which was in the living room. I went to it and unzipped it. “It’s not really a conversation, it was only a question.”

  “Yeah, but now you seem freaked out.”

  I took out my clothes. “I’m not freaked out.”

  “Yeah, that’s why you’re not looking at me.”

  I turned to him, holding a pair of socks. “I guess I’m being stupid. It’s only that there’s all of this stuff that you’ve done, and I wasn’t there, and… I don’t know, I feel weirdly possessive about you all of the sudden.”

  He smiled. “That’s good, because I kind of feel the same way about you.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “But I didn’t know you back then. You didn’t know me. So, it’s no good for us to be hung up on the past. It’ll only drive us both crazy.” He dragged a toe against the floor. “That being said, uh, can I ask you a question?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “This other guy before me, the one who didn’t make you come? Was he Wyatt?”

  “What?” I said. “Oh, no. I didn’t have sex with Wyatt.”

  “Oh, good,” he said.

  “If it had been Wyatt, that would mean that I lost my virginity like three weeks ago.”

  “Yeah, I know that,” he said. “Which, uh, maybe that was bothering me.”

  “I haven’t been a virgin for a long time. I had a high school boyfriend,” I said. “It was serious and prolonged.”

  He nodded. “Like I said, conversations about the past? Unless now you’re going to insult everything about him, maybe I’d rather not know too much.”

  I laughed. “Okay. I get that.”

  “Cool.” He kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll let you get dressed.”

  “Levi?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is that why you’re keeping things from me? Because you don’t like to talk about the past?”

  He hung his head. “Motherfucker, Molly.”

  “I’m not stupid, you know, Levi. I know that you distracted me from asking questions last night. I just want you to know that you do have to tell me. I’m not going to forget about it. I need to know.”

  He slowly raised his gaze to meet mine. He swallowed. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Great.” I waited expectantly.

  “Do we have to do it now?” he said.

  “I don’t see a reason to put it off.”

  “If I promise you that I’ll explain everything after we meet with Professor X, can that be good enough?”

  “I don’t know, Levi.”

  His eyes begged me. “Please.”

  I sighed. “You promise?”

  “I swear.”

  * * *

  “Molly,” said Professor X’s voice.

  I held the phone close to my ear. “Hello.”

  “Time’s up. Do you have my money?”

  “Yes.”

  “You do?” He sounded surprised. Maybe even disappointed. “I have to admit I was almost hoping we’d have ourselves a little business arrangement.”

  “No.” I gripped the phone tighter. “But if you’re looking for someone to do business with here on campus, I might know someone who’s interested.”

  “Intriguing,” he said.

  “I’ll bring him with me when we meet to exchange the money.”

  “All right,” he said. “Midnight. Tonight. Same place. Parking lot behind the art building.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  “You’d better be. If I find out that you’re lying to me about any of this—”

  “I’m not.”

  “For your sake, I hope you’re telling the truth.” He hung up.

  * * *

  “Tonight?” said Levi.

  I was on my cell phone with him, pacing in my dorm room. “Midnight. Behind the art building.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “He knows you’re coming.”

  “What? Why’d you tell him that?”

  “The last time I spoke to him, he said something about having me work off the money by taking Cori’s place. He said creepy things, like he’d been watching me. Like he knew what I’d been up to. And when I told him I had the money, he said it was too bad, because he wanted to do business with me. I said I knew someone who might be interested in doing business with him. He said he was intrigued.”

  Levi let out a noisy breath. “Okay. Well, I hope that means it’s all right. Did he ask questions about me?”

  “No, it was a short conversation.”

  I could hear something in the background. It sounded like a phone was ringing on Levi’s end.

  “Where are you?” I asked him.

  “Nowhere. It’s not important,” he said.

  A voice in the background. “Hughes, you going to talk on the phone, or you going to do your check-in?”

  “Who’s that?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Someone’s checking in? Are you at a hotel?”

  “No, I’m not. It’s… “ He sighed. “Listen, I’d come over and hang out with you right now, but I’m kind of tied up with something. You going to be okay? I promise I’ll be there by midnight.”

  “Yeah, I’m all right.” I was only really suspicious. “Why won’t you tell me where you are?”

  “Molly, I have to hang up. I’m sorry.” He disconnected the phone.

  Damn it. What the hell was going on with Levi? I glared down at my phone for a few seconds, then tossed it on the bed in frustration.

  It was 9:00 now. I had three hours before I met with Professor X. What was I going to do with myself between now and then?

  The phone rang again.

  Levi?

  I picked it up without looking. “Finally going to tell me what the hell’s going on?”

  “Um, Molly?” The female voice sounded confused.

  “Jill?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Look, I feel like an idiot, but I lost my ID somewhere, and I can’t find it. Can you come down and let me in?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure.” I started for the door.

  “Who’d you think I was?”

  “Levi,” I said.

  “Oh. How are things going with that?”

  “Um, really good,” I said. “And really annoying, too.”

  She laughed. “That’s men for you.”

  * * *

  Levi’s car was running in the parking lot so that the heat would stay on. It was 11:50.

  “So, after this shit with the money is taken care of,” I was saying, “then I can focus on trying to figure out who killed Cori.”

  He gave me a lopsided grin. “That’s my girl. Won’t let it go.”

  I shrugged. “There’s nothing to really let go at this point. We’re basically still at square one. We’ve got nothing.”

  “But we did all that g
athering of suspects and interviewing them crap, didn’t we? We eliminated some people, didn’t we?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I guess we pretty much aren’t suspicious of Jonah King, or Kelly Willow, or Raven Garwood.”

  “See, that’s better than square one.”

  “What about Chase? Do we still think he’s a suspect?”

  “I don’t know,” said Levi. “Look, if he killed Cori to get the drugs from Professor X, it obviously didn’t work, because the O’Shaunessys aren’t dealing his product. And that was the best motive we had, right?”

  “He could have killed her for revenge,” I said.

  “Right, I guess so,” said Levi. “But it doesn’t seem likely, considering how he was all teary about her death. It’s hard to fake tears.”

  “You didn’t say that about Jonah.”

  “Jonah’s an actor. He’s good at that stuff,” said Levi.

  “That’s true,” I said. “Well, who else besides Chase?”

  “The professor, obviously,” said Levi. “That guy rubbed me the wrong way.”

  “Right, so he’s still in the running.” I thought about it. “We had more suspects, though. Like, um…”

  “Wyatt,” said Levi.

  “What’s Wyatt’s motive again?” I said. “Don’t get me wrong, I kind of hate the guy, considering he was a dick to me and all, but I can’t remember why we thought he could kill someone.”

  “He thought that he and Cori were going to get together and have a real relationship, but she rejected him,” said Levi. “And it kind of makes sense that maybe he hooked up with you as a surrogate Cori. So he could reject you and sort of vicariously reject her…”

  “But that doesn’t make him kill her,” I said. “I don’t know. I think Wyatt’s weak.”

  “Maybe.”

  “But you know who’s been really weird lately?”

  “Who?”

  “Parker,” I said. “He came into my room and tried to steal money from Jill.”

  “Parker,” Levi mused. “Yeah, he’s definitely got a more solid motive, considering she was cheating on him.”

  “And he’s been way strung out and strange since he found out about Cori—” I squeezed my eyes shut. “No, damn it. That doesn’t make any sense. Because if he killed her, he wouldn’t need to find out.”

  “Look, if we’re going to consider Parker, we need to consider Jill too.”

  “Jill?” I made a face. “I don’t see how Jill could be strong enough to drag a body around. Besides, she’s my friend.” Okay, sometimes she got pissed at me for being obsessed with Cori, but that hardly made her a murderer.

  “Yeah, that’s kind of a long shot,” said Levi.

  “See what I mean about square one?” I said.

  “Where the hell is Professor X?” Levi leaned forward and peered out the windshield. It was dark and silent outside.

  “He’ll be here,” I said. “I wonder if I should stand outside, like I did last time.”

  “No, you’ll freeze your ass off,” said Levi.

  It was pretty cold outside. The temperature had dipped down into the single digits the last few nights, and tonight was no exception.

  “I have to take a piss,” said Levi, opening the door.

  I bristled as cold air filled the car.“What? You’re just going to do it here?”

  “Well, it’s not like the building’s open,” he said.

  “You’ll freeze your… you know off,” I said. “And I don’t want that to happen, because I’m growing fond of that part of your body.”

  He laughed. “And my you know is pretty fond of you too.” He kissed me quickly. “It’ll take me five seconds.” He got out of the car and shut the door.

  I watched him go around the side of the car, but then I didn’t watch anymore, because I wasn’t really comfortable watching him pee. Seriously, boys had no sense of privacy.

  I waited for Levi to come back in the car. He didn’t. What was taking him so long?

  Idly, I opened up the glove compartment. I doubted he kept anything exciting in there. Maybe his registration and proof of insurance.

  I started to paw through it anyway. I was feeling anxious to get this crap over with Professor X, and I wanted something to occupy me.

  I pulled out the car owner’s manual.

  I pulled out the registration, like I’d thought.

  There was even a pair of gloves in the glove compartment.

  But when I picked them up, something glinted in the scant light.

  I shoved the gloves out of the way and picked it up.

  It was a badge.

  I swallowed. Oh my god. Why did Levi have this?

  And there was something else under the badge. A drivers license. There was a picture of Levi on it, but it didn’t say Levi’s name. Scott Hughes.

  Wait, last night on the phone, someone in the background had been talking to someone named Hughes.

  And he had a badge.

  Levi wasn’t himself. He was Scott Hughes. He was an undercover cop.

  Jesus.

  And when I’d asked him, he’d laughed it off. And I had believed him. What kind of idiot was I?

  I should have seen it. It all made sense now. Everything. I guessed I hadn’t wanted to see it. I hadn’t wanted it to be true, so I’d ignored the signs.

  But Chase had been right. Levi was a cop. He was undercover. He had a different identity. And he was doing this stuff with me, because…

  Oh, man, I was pretty much the stupidest person on earth, wasn’t I? All that crap about how much he was into me? He wasn’t into me. He was into my family. And he’d pretended to be surprised when he found out who I was. That jackass.

  My hands trembling, I fumbled with the door handle. At first, I couldn’t open it.

  But then I managed to get it free. I pushed the door open and lurched out of the car.

  I ran.

  “Molly?” Levi called.

  I kept running.

  “Molly, what the hell?”

  Tears were forming in my eyes. They spilled out angrily as I ran. I had to get away from him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Molly, where are you going?”

  “Stay away from me, Scott,” I threw over my shoulder, running as fast as I could.

  I barely saw him as he stiffened, his face freezing in a stunned expression.

  Then I turned away.

  “Wait!” he screamed after me.

  No way was I going to fucking do that. He might have had me right where he wanted before, but that had all changed. I knew who he was now, and I was going to get as far away from him as I could.

  All the things he’d seen me do, all the things he knew about me… He could arrest me.

  And I knew what that was like. I remembered the army of cops swarming my house when I was a little kid. My father was yelling, telling them not in front of his family, but they tackled him anyway, shoving their guns in his face.

  If there was one thing I knew deep in the fiber of my being, it was that cops were the enemy. They wanted to destroy my family.

  If Levi—Scott—whoever—was a cop, then he wanted to destroy me. And I was getting the hell away from him as fast as I could.

  My feet pounded against the blacktop of the parking lot. It was cold outside, and the frigid air numbed my nose and fingers.

  Ahead of me, the art building loomed, dark and shadowed in the midnight air.

  I ran for it.

  It was the closest building, the closest place I could take shelter.

  Of course, it was locked up tight.

  But I didn’t know where else to go. Maybe one of the doors was open. Maybe someone had left one of them unlocked.

  I shot another glance behind me.

  Levi was sprinting after me. The car was still running, and he was framed by a cloud of exhaust—as if smoke were pouring off of him.

  I still had a big head start, but he was running fast, and I was pretty sure he was gaining on me
.

  I let out a little whimper, doubling my pace, pumping my legs as fast as I could.

  There was a set of concrete steps in front of me—shallow and blocky, they wound up the hill to the art building in jutting, artful angles.

  I scrambled up them, clutching the railing to keep my balance. The steps might look pretty, but their design meant they were less-than-perfectly functional.

  Once at the top, I sped up again.

  I turned again, to see that Levi was still on the steps—almost halfway up.

  “Molly, wait!” he yelled.

  God damn it, he was still gaining on me.

  Now I was only a few feet from the building. There was a ring of two-foot-high bushes that surrounded the perimeter. Only two openings in the shrubbery—and both would require me to run pretty far.

  I took a running leap and cleared the bushes.

  Now I was on the sidewalk that ringed the building. There was a door right in front of me.

  I ran for it.

  My hand grasped the handle. I pulled.

  It didn’t give.

  Locked.

  Damn it, they were all going to be locked, weren’t they?

  But I couldn’t let Levi get to me. I imagined him tackling me, just the way that the cops had tackled my father. I imagined him yanking my hands behind my back, cuffing me.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  I had to get away from him.

  I darted away from that door, heading down the sidewalk as fast as I could.

  Next door.

  Locked.

  No.

  I took off again, throwing myself around the building as fast as I could, trying every door I came to.

  My breath came in loud gasps. My chest began to burn.

  And Levi was gaining on me. Every time I stopped to try a door, he got closer. He was still running, his expression like stone. He was coming for me.

  I tried to go faster.

  I was coming around to the front of the building now. Here, there was a big open area with benches and landscaped trees. The big, main doors to the building were here. There was no way they were open.

  I didn’t even try them.

  I veered around the benches and trees, moving as quickly as I could.

  I rounded the the edge of the building.

  When I turned, I couldn’t see Levi anymore, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still coming.

  I went to the next door.

  Locked.