“I gotcha. It’s hard when you’re paying your own way, right? I work at the library.”
He nodded, extending the folded bills. “I’ll feel a lot better if you take it. It’s all there, four hundred dollars.”
Enough for a hundred pumpkin lattes, a semester of books, an online shopping spree.
Still . . . it wasn’t for me.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t know what to do with it,” I said. “Did you talk to Lydia’s best friends? Tori . . . or Courtney. Do you know them?”
“I know of them. A guy like me can’t get close to girls like that. They’re, like, tens.”
I felt for Charlie, knowing that it was true. It made me wonder how I’d gotten connected with bitchy fat-shamers, though I hadn’t known that when I’d pledged Theta Pi. “Wow, Charlie. I guess I can take it and find a way to get it to Lydia’s mom. Or maybe if she owes money to Theta House.”
“Whatever. I just need to know my part is done.”
He handed the bills over, his cheeks puffing as he blew out a breath of relief. “Man, that’s a weight off my mind.”
“This feels kind of weird,” I admitted, “but I promise, I won’t keep it for myself.”
“Whatever. I just needed to get right with her. You know? Thanks for helping me straighten it out.”
“Sure thing.” I slipped the cash into my pocket, feeling as if it might burn a hole through the lining.
CHAPTER 24
Back inside, I expected Rory to go off with his frat brothers, but he lingered behind the table as Angela told the students in line to hold on while she surrendered her post.
“All these people in the hall are in for session three. We just need three more girls to fill it. And I don’t know where we’re going to put all the pancake people. Girls are starting to sit on guys’ laps.”
“Which may be a whole new form of speed dating,” Rory said.
I couldn’t help but smile at that.
“You’re laughing, but some of those guys are beasts, and we’re in deep shit if the dining room chairs start breaking. Who’s the comedian?” Angela asked, and I introduced her to Rory.
“You’re making me go back to that crappy job?”
“Thanks for covering,” I said, pointing her back toward the dining room.
She plodded down the hall with a sigh. “I’ll be glad when this is over.”
“You and me both,” I called, and then turned to the next person in line, a girl with a team jersey, tight cornrows, and a big smile. “Dating, pancakes, or both?”
“How does the dating thing work?” she asked, squinting curiously.
As I launched into another explanation, Rory took the seat beside me and started setting up a sign-in sheet for the fourth session.
At one point I turned to Rory and asked if he was going for pancakes.
“I’ll hang with you. If that’s okay. Not like I’m stalking you or anything, but I wanted to talk to you.”
Oh-kay. Not to sugarcoat it all in my mind, but this was turning out to be a better night than I’d expected.
Working side-by-side, Rory and I made it through selling tickets to five more shifts of dating, and way too many pancakes. Around one a.m., people started coming in for pancakes to go, and though we had no containers they didn’t mind walking out with stacks of flapjacks on paper plates. Theta House would probably reek of burned grease and maple syrup in the morning, but we had delegated the freshman sisters for cleanup duty.
It was after two when our line seemed to dry up for good. Someone had turned music on in the dining room, and some people were dancing in the living room. We had strict orders from Mrs. J not to let the night evolve into a party, but the warm, sleepy glaze over the room didn’t come close to a gathering anyone would object to.
I was stacking up the leftover name tags as Rory scoped out the pledge class photos in the foyer.
“This is you, right?” He pointed to the middle row, and looked at me. “You look pretty much the same.”
“It’s just from last year. I was an old pledge. Gap year and all that.”
He moved his finger down to the caption. “Emma Danelski. That’s your last name?”
“Yes, and please, no jokes.”
“What, you don’t like your last name?”
“The boys in grade school used to torture me with a string of Polish jokes.”
“That’s not cool. Unenlightened little brats. I’d never do that, Danelski.”
“Thanks, MacFarlane.” I lowered the lid on the cash box and gave it a lift. “This thing is heavy. I think I’d better go upstairs to count it.” I pointed to it, mouthing the words: “A lot of cash.”
“I’ll go with you.” When I gave him a skeptical look, he folded his arms. “What? Is there a rule?”
“Of course. But come on.” In the world of rule breakers and followers, I leaned toward the followers, which made it edgy and thrilling to be leading a guy upstairs and carrying thousands of dollars under my arm.
The suite was empty and dark, all my roommates working downstairs. Someone had left a window cracked open, and the air was cool with the smell of smoke from a wood fire, probably from someone’s backyard fire pit. I closed it and set the cash box on the table. I kicked off my boots as Rory sat cross-legged on the rug.
“Honestly, I’ve never seen this much cash before. Sort of makes me nervous.”
“Cash is such a liability,” he said. “Pretty soon we’ll be a cyber-cash society.”
We set to work putting the bills in stacks, which we counted twice. I found some rubber bands from the drawer, and we bundled everything up and tucked it back into the box.
“More than two thousand dollars,” I said. “Not bad for a night’s work.”
“And your overhead?”
“For pancake ingredients and name tags? Less than two hundred dollars. Are you a business major?”
“That’s the plan. It’s so dry, but I’m good with numbers. How about you?”
“Nursing. I need a job when I get out, and I’m pretty good with people. I’m sort of the house nurse here.”
“Do you like science?”
“I know how to use WebMD.”
“What was Lydia’s major?”
“I don’t know. Sociology or liberal arts. She was going for her MRS degree. Why do you ask?”
He pointed to my T-shirt. “It’s her party, right? But I didn’t hear anyone but Charlie mention her.”
“Exactly what I’ve been saying.” I told him how my objections to having a party event in Lydia’s name had been buried by the sisterhood. “I wouldn’t have participated at all, but it was a mandatory event.”
“That’s ironic. I wanted to come so I could find you and talk about Lydia.” He leaned back against the foot of the couch and rubbed his eyes. “This thing is messing me up. Seeing her jump from the bridge, that’s all I can think about. It’s very disturbing.”
“It’s a trauma,” I said. “I’m sure I would be a wreck if I saw something like that.”
“I can’t get it out of my head.”
“It helps to talk about it.”
“I feel that,” he said, “but for most people on campus, it’s just a sad news event. The bros think I’m stuck on it; they don’t get it. The only time I feel semi-normal is when I’m with you.”
“Because I knew her and we can talk about her?”
“Not so much. I think it’s just you, Danelski.” He took my left hand and held it to his chest. The dim lamplight behind him accentuated the angles of his jaw, and again I could smell his shampoo, a soft citrus, mixed with the scent of his skin. “You’ll make a good nurse. There’s something about you that’s reassuring. Kind of comforting.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I said. “I’m like everybody’s best friend.”
“Yeah. Maybe more than a friend.” He leaned closer, and oh, I wanted to breathe him in. “If you want.”
He didn’t have to wait for my answer.
* * *
On Sunday, as Rory and I sat in a booth at Oogey’s feasting on plates of eggs, bacon, and waffles, a wrinkle developed in my romantic euphoria. “Wait a minute. You’ve been talking with Dr. Finn? Scott Finnegan, from English?”
“About this suicide task force,” Rory said. “He got my name from the police report and sent me an e-mail, and we got together yesterday. I thought the task force was a good idea. Maybe a way to help me get my head away from remembering that night.”
“So you’re going to be on it?”
“I’m in. I met with Dr. Finn yesterday for a while. He mentioned that he asked you but you turned him down.”
“I can’t do it.” I took a sip of water, trying to get this straight in my mind. “I don’t have time for something like that.”
“Think about it. It’ll be like therapy. It’s a résumé builder. And I’ll be there.”
“You make it tempting, but still. I’ve got a killer Anatomy class this term, and I work whenever I have free time.” I stabbed a piece of cheddar-spinach omelet—a special treat for me. We were only here because Rory was treating and I wanted it to be a regular Sunday thing, getting together with him. But I didn’t want “us” to be a result of some wacky professor’s persistence. “Hold on. Did Dr. Finn put you up to this? Is that why you came to the pancake supper last night?”
“I’m not an asshat.” He put his coffee mug on the table and rotated it in his hands. “I knew about the party and wanted to see you. Besides, I’d promised Charlie I’d help him with his weird closure thing.”
I hadn’t forgotten about Charlie Bernstein and that wad of money that I had stashed in a bottom drawer as if it were someone else’s balled-up love letters. “What’s the story on that money?” I asked.
“He says that he owed her. I figured it was a loan.”
“But he denied that. And Lydia wouldn’t have had the cash to give out. She claimed to be rich, the granddaughter of a billionaire, but it wasn’t true. I mean, four hundred dollars? No one has that lying around, unless you’re a . . . drug kingpin.”
“Do you think Lydia . . . ?”
“No, definitely not. That girl had a lot of mysteries, but she wasn’t dealing drugs out of Theta House. We would have noticed. Our housemother is fairly observant.” I knew there had to be a simple explanation. “Can you just ask Charlie about it, sometime when he’s relaxed? Make it a dude thing.”
“He’s just one of the brothers. It’s not like we ever talk.”
I gave him a hard look.
“Fine. I’ll see what I can find out.” Using a fork, he chased the last triangles of waffle on his plate. “What about the task force. Are you in?”
I cupped the ceramic mug with the googly-eyed Oogey’s logo. “I’m thinking about it. Dr. Finn would be good to work with, and it would be nice to have an impact on something that’s so broken. The student health policies are useless, and maybe if students designed a program—”
“It would be more effective in targeting the problems?” Our minds were already working in tandem; a little scary. “They should invite some of the students who led those protests against the health center.”
“Great idea.”
“And there’s this guy named Stephen Kim—I see him all the time when his group gets together in the library. They call themselves Merriwether Faith in Action, an interfaith prayer group. Stephen said they couldn’t get Asian-Americans to join when they called it a support group because it seemed shameful. A cultural thing. Stephen should be on the task force.”
“So you’re in.” He smiled, and it made something inside me sparkle.
“I didn’t say that. I’ve got so much to juggle.”
“You can’t say no. You’re a helper. Nurse Emma.”
I felt myself sliding into that gooey, warm glow of attraction, and although it was the wrong time and place in my life, I couldn’t latch on to anything to stop my fall down the rabbit hole. And in my heart, I wanted to slide down, down, down and be with Rory.
But last time, it had been a mistake. Painful and costly. By the time I’d finally stood up for myself, Sam had eroded my soul down to the nub of boulders and tree roots.
“Let me think about it a while.” I put the napkin on the table and slid out of the booth. “I’ll be right back.”
As I moved toward the restroom, I passed the waitress, an obvious student, serving a latte at the next table. The female diner had the look of a professor kicking back on Sunday with hair pulled back from brown freckled skin, black raincoat, jeans, and a big leather bag. There was a notebook open on the table with coffee and a croissant. She was talking with the waitress when I passed by. I didn’t think anything until my gaze swept her notes and I recognized my name.
What the . . . ?
I paused behind her and took a longer look.
E. Danelski & Rory. $400. Drug kingpin. Theta House a drug house? Charlie. Dr. Finn. Merriwether Faith in Action. Stephen Kim.
“Oh my God. You’re spying on us! You’re a cop?”
The woman glanced back at me, her tight expression all the proof I needed. I’d blown her cover. She’d been caught. Though she wasn’t doing anything illegal, eavesdropping is not cool.
“Don’t I even get Sundays off?” I demanded. A stupid thing to say, I know, but I was pissed. “I am so sick of this!”
“You and me both.” She closed the notebook and flipped open a leather sleeve to show me her ID: Officer Tamara Caldwell, Pioneer Falls Police Department.
I pushed the badge and ID card back at her. “Don’t you have some real criminals to catch?”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do. I guess you haven’t seen the news today, but Lydia Drakos’s autopsy results were released this morning. There was a press conference at the precinct. The medical examiner found bruises on Lydia’s neck and there was damage to her larynx.”
Rory and I exchanged a confused look. “What does that mean?” he asked.
“Those are signs of manual strangulation,” Caldwell said. “Your friend was murdered.”
CHAPTER 25
Standing in a sea of yellow maple leaves that covered the ground outside Oogey’s, Rory and I stared at the screen of his phone, watching Chief Blue deliver a written statement about the death of Lydia Drakos.
“I’m really sorry to be bringing you folks this news today,” Blue said. His bass voice was clear and professional, but his rueful expression showed his humanity. “The physical evidence indicates that the actions of the attacker, the strangulation, at the very least contributed to the victim’s death. At this time we are officially investigating a homicide. We will be casting a wider net, and following up on interviews with everyone who knew the victim. As always, if you have any information that might lead to the apprehension of this individual, please call our crime tips hotline any time, day or night.”
“Holy crap.” Rory looked from the phone to me, unable to process. “So she wasn’t alone on the bridge that night. That person I saw in the hoodie must have been—”
“Trying to hurt her. Or kill her.” My gaze skimmed the paths and buildings around us with a new point of view. An edgy fear that a killer was out there, ready to strike again.
“Shit. I wish I’d gotten a better look at him. Not to be morbid, but Lydia didn’t make a sound going off the bridge. So maybe she was unconscious and he pushed her.”
“Or she,” I said. “The killer could be a girl. The police know that. They’ve got a cop following me to Sunday brunch.”
“They’re way off on that theory. Unless there’s something you haven’t told me?” He was joking, but the question made me feel a little wobbly.
“I didn’t kill Lydia,” I said.
“And the cops must know you’re an unlikely suspect. Everyone knows men are behind most violent crimes.”
He was right, but the image of some guy choking Lydia, manhandling a girl who was a little out of her mind and very vulnerable in her pink robe and nightgown . . . I shuddered
, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jacket. “Probably a guy,” I agreed. “And it had to be someone she knew. Lydia walked out of Theta House in her nightgown by choice. I know people are going to be frightened by this news, and it’s awful, but it’s not like some killer came into our house and kidnapped her during the night. She left the house with this person. She probably walked willingly to the bridge with him, too.”
“Could it be an old boyfriend?”
“She dated a lot, but no real boyfriends.”
“So a lot of possibilities there. Or somebody she knew from class or a club?”
“Her only extracurricular activity was Theta Pi and Greek life.”
“Then the cops will be looking closely at the frats.” He pulled me into his arms, looking down on me with concern. I felt safe there, less scared. “I’m worried about you.”
“Yeah.” My cheek to his sweatshirt, I breathed in the smell of Rory, woodsmoke and fabric softener. “If it’s not the cops after me, now there’s a killer out there.”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to be your escort on campus.”
I lifted my head, looking up at him. “That would be great, but our schedules don’t always jibe. You’ve got classes, and your workouts, and—”
“We’ll figure it out. You gotta stay safe.”
“I will. I won’t be wandering off with strangers at night. Not without my sisters.” I wondered if they’d heard the news. Word would travel fast, not just through Theta Pi, but all the Greeks, all women on campus. Besides that, a mass e-mail would be launched from Dean Cho’s office, advising of the incident and warning all students to travel in groups.
“This is going to scare the crap out of the Theta Pis,” I said.
“Not just them. Everyone’s going to be on alert.”
“I’d better get back.”
As we walked back to Theta House, Rory made yet another pitch for me to join the task force, and this time I saw how it might work. I’d be spending time with Rory, and I could pull in some vital people like Stephen Kim. It would look good as an extracurricular for my nursing job applications. Besides all that, I thought it might ease my conscience to be doing something constructive to reach suicidal students.
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