Lia’s text didn’t lead us back to the party. Apparently, she hadn’t been quite as cautious as I was about going off with her quarry alone.
“What exactly did Lia say?” I asked.
Michael held up his phone for my inspection. There was an off-center picture of Lia with two college boys: one tall, one round, both slightly out of focus.
“‘Having a fascinating chat,’” I read the accompanying text. “‘Heron Hall, roof.’” I paused. “What’s she doing on the roof of some random building?”
“Interrogating suspects who don’t know they’re being interrogated?” Michael suggested, an edge creeping into his voice.
“Any chance the boys in the picture aren’t suspects?” I wanted to believe that Lia wouldn’t go off alone with someone she thought might be capable of murder. “Maybe they’re just friends of Emerson’s.”
“She sent a picture,” Michael replied flatly.
In case something happens, I filled in. Lia had sent us a picture of the boys she was talking to, in case we got to the roof of Heron Hall and she was gone.
We shouldn’t have left her at that party alone. I’d been so caught up in getting information out of Geoffrey that I hadn’t even told Lia I was leaving.
Lia did a very good impression of someone who could take care of herself—but Lia could do a good impression of just about anything.
Dean wouldn’t have left her, I thought, unable to stop myself. That was why he was the one person in this world that she’d walk through fire for, and Michael and I didn’t make the cut.
I walked faster.
“She’d mock us for worrying,” Michael said, as much to himself as to me. “Either that or she’d take it as a personal insult.” He picked up his own pace. With each step, I imagined the ways that this could go badly.
Lia was ours. She had to be okay. Please be okay. Finally, we made it to Heron Hall. The towerlike building was clearly Gothic in design—and just as clearly, it was closed and locked down for the evening.
NO TRESPASSING.
Michael didn’t miss a beat at the sign. “Do you want to trespass first, or should I?”
I heard Lia laughing before I saw her. It was a light, almost bell-like sound, musical and delighted—and almost certainly a lie.
A step in front of me, Michael opened the door onto the roof. “After you,” he said. My stomach muscles unknotted themselves slowly as I stepped out and into the moonlit night. My eyes searched for Lia. Once I’d seen for myself that she was okay, I registered the fact that her flair for fashion apparently extended to her choice of rendezvous points. Not just a tower, not just a locked tower, but the roof of a locked tower. From here, we could see the entire campus stretched out below, a splattering of lights in the darkness.
From the other side of the roof, Lia spotted us. There were two people with her, both of them male. “You made it,” she said, weaving on her feet
toward us in a way that would have made me nervous even if we’d been on solid ground.
“Don’t worry,” Lia whispered, throwing her arms around me like the very happiest of drunks. “I’m on the clock. Nothing but Gatorade since we arrived. And if anyone asks, my name is Sadie.”
Lia turned back toward the boys. I followed her, unable to keep from thinking that Sadie was Lia’s real name. None of us knew why she’d changed it.
Only Lia would use the name she’d been born with as her fake name. “Derek, Clark, this is…” Lia hiccuped, and Michael took that cue to take
over the introductions.
“Tanner,” he said, sticking out his hand to shake the others’. “And this is Veronica.”
The boy on the left was tall and preppy, with politician hair and classically handsome features. There was a distinct chance that he was flexing his pecs. “I’m Derek,” he said, slipping his hand into mine.
Definitely flexing, I thought.
Derek elbowed the boy on the right, hard enough that the boy actually stumbled. Once he regained his footing, he held out his hand. “Clark,” he mumbled.
“You sound like a duck,” Derek told him. “Clark, clark, clark!”
I ignored Derek and focused on Clark. His handshake was surprisingly firm, but his hands themselves were soft. In fact, soft was the best adjective to describe him. He was small and round and looked like he’d been made out of clay that had never quite set. His skin was blotchy, and it took him several seconds to actually meet my eye.
Suddenly, it clicked. “Derek,” I said. “And Clark.”
Hadn’t Bryce said that one of the guys she was assigned to work with in the Monsters or Men class was named Derek? And the other reminded her of
a roly-poly….
How in the world had Lia managed this? She met my eyes slyly, and I realized that I’d underestimated her. I shouldn’t have—not when the reason she was doing all of this was Dean.
“Brilliant deduction,” Derek told me, with a trademark smile that he’d probably practiced in the mirror. “Call Mensa,” he said. “This girl’s a genius!”
The patronizing tone in his voice told me that he didn’t expect me to recognize the put-down for what it was. I suddenly knew exactly what Bryce had meant when she’d described him as “that guy.” He almost certainly came from a wealthy family—I was going to guess a long line of successful lawyers, most likely with an Ivy League pedigree. He liked the sound of his own voice even more than Geoffrey did. He was the type who’d debate an issue in class just to prove that he was the better man. He probably whitened his teeth.
“Clark and Derek knew that girl,” Lia said, slurring the words. “I met Derek at the party. He called Clark. I asked him to.” She leaned into Derek’s chest and reached a hand out to Clark’s cheek. Clark flushed a brilliant red. Derek nodded at me over Lia’s head, as if her presence on his chest was proof that I should want to be there, too.
I was officially never wearing this dress again. “What girl?” I asked.
“The girl who got killed,” Derek answered. “Emmie.” “Emerson,” Clark muttered.
“What was that, Clark?” Derek said, shooting the rest of us a grin, like Clark’s inability to speak up was the world’s cleverest joke.
“Her name was Emerson,” Clark said, flushing even brighter than he had when Lia had touched him.
“That’s what I said.” Derek raised one of his palms upward in a gesture I translated to mean, roughly, What’s this guy’s problem—meh, what are you gonna do?
Clark mumbled something in reply. Derek ignored him. “She was in our class,” Derek told me.
“I think I met your TA tonight.” I measured their responses to that. Derek stiffened. Clark didn’t appear to move at all. Beside me, I could practically feel Michael cataloging every detail of their expressions.
“That guy’s a tool,” Derek replied.
Quite frankly, I thought that tools who lived in tool houses probably shouldn’t throw stones.
“Geoffrey seemed into death,” I said. “Like, really into death. And the way he talked about Emerson, it was like he didn’t even care.”
Agreeing with Derek was like throwing water onto a grease fire. It just made this situation that much worse.
“TA Geoff thinks that frowning and wearing black is a substitute for genuine intelligence. I bet he told you he knew Emerson.”
I nodded, willing to see where this was going.
“He didn’t know her,” Derek said. “He just sits up at the front of the class and grades papers. Clark and I, we knew her.” He leaned back on his heels. “That stuck-up blond chick in our group, she knew her. Hey, even Fogle knew her. But TA Geoff is just blowing smoke.”
“What do you mean ‘Fogle knew her’?” Michael asked. “Isn’t it a pretty large class?”
Derek turned his attention to Michael. Whatever he saw there, he liked. Given Michael’s background, he’d probably known a dozen Dereks growing up.
“When I say that the professor knew Emmie, I mean that he really knew her,” Derek said. “Biblically.”
I looked at Lia. She nodded slightly—Derek was telling the truth. Beside her, Clark’s face was growing red again.
“The dead girl was involved with the professor,” Michael said. “That kind of thing could get a guy fired.”
“No kidding. Person of interest?” Derek scoffed. “Try he did it.” Derek laughed under his breath. “He did her, and then he did it.”
“Shut up,” Clark said, the words exploding out of his mouth as his hands balled into fists at his sides. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He sucked in air like he’d just run a mile. “She wasn’t…she wasn’t like that.”
“Whoa there, buddy.” Derek held up both palms this time. I didn’t bother mentally translating the gesture. “Simmer down. I get it. Don’t speak ill of the dead.” Derek turned back to the rest of us and proceeded to continue blessing us with his wisdom. “I promise you, once the police find Fogle, the university will be looking for a replacement teacher for our class. Guy’s guilty.” Derek blanched. “I hope they don’t hand the class over to TA Geoff.”
Beside him, Clark sucked in another audible breath. Lia met my eyes, then Michael’s. We’d gotten what we came for—and more.
