The ride home was quiet. Lia was in the back, her legs stretched out the length of the seat. Michael was driving the speed limit. I stared
out the window into the black.
“That actually went better than I expected it to,” Lia said finally. “If we can sneak back in without getting caught, I’m willing to call it a win.”
“I thought you never got caught,” I told her, pulling my eyes away from the window and turning to look at her.
Lia inspected her fingernails. “We live in a house with a trained FBI agent and a former military sniper. I’m stealthy, not magic. Call it an acceptable risk.”
That was a very different tune than the one she’d been singing when she talked me into this.
“Are you sorry you came?” Lia gave me a pointed look. “Or, given the opportunity, would you do it all over again?”
I couldn’t be sorry I’d agreed to this. We’d learned too much. “What did you think of the TA?” I asked Michael.
“Yes,” Lia said, yawning and fanning her hand over her mouth. “Do tell, Michael. What did you think of the TA who was such a promising lead that Cassie left the party to go with him, with you on her heels?”
That was the first time Lia had referenced the fact that we’d left her. She tossed the words off like she couldn’t be bothered to care.
“The guy was looking at Cassie like she was some kind of specimen under a glass.” Michael eyed Lia in the rearview mirror. “You really think I should have let him take her off alone?”
“I’m surprised, that’s all.” Lia executed an elaborate shrug. “I mean, following Cassie worked out so well for you last time.”
The last time Michael had followed me, he’d gotten shot.
I deserved that. For leaving her at the party, for not even thinking twice about it, I deserved whatever verbal darts she threw out. “We shouldn’t have left you there,” I said.
“Puh-lease.” Lia closed her eyes, like this whole conversation was boring her to tears. “I can take care of myself, Cassie. I saw you leaving. I could have joined you. I chose not to. And if Michael had bothered asking, I would have told him to go with you.”
“I told you to stay at the party,” Michael muttered. “Excuse me?” Lia shot back. “What was that?”
“I texted you when I left. You were supposed to stay at the party!” Michael slammed the heel of his hand into the steering wheel, and I jumped. “But no, you went off with not one, but two strange—”
“Witnesses?” Lia supplied. “Trust me, I had a handle on it. I could handle the Dereks and Clarks of the world in my sleep.”
I read more into those words than I would have a week ago. Lia was certain she could handle the Dereks and Clarks of the world—because, in all likelihood, she’d seen and handled much, much worse.
“Now, Michael, dearest,” Lia continued, her words designed to grate, “concentrate. Cassie’s TA. What were your impressions?”
Michael ground his teeth for a moment, but eventually answered. “He wasn’t happy when I showed up. He was even less happy to see me with Bryce. I caught a flash of guilt when he saw her, followed by possession, condescension, and titillation.”
I said a brief and silent thanks that Michael had been focused on Geoffrey’s reaction to seeing him with Bryce—and not mine.
“Geoffrey considers himself above it all.” I forced myself to focus on the issue at hand. “He likes holding a position of power in the class.” I paused, sorting through my impressions of him. “He chose me because I look young. He expected me to lap up every word of that lecture, to be a little bit afraid of him, but also drawn to the things he could teach me.”
“A leader in search of followers?” Lia said. “What does that make the professor?”
“If I had to guess,” I told her, drumming my fingers contemplatively against the side of my seat, “I’d say that Professor Fogle has a magnetic personality. Geoffrey was reading his lecture slides. The professor is a performer. And if Derek was telling the truth about Emerson’s relationship with Professor Fogle—”
“He was,” Lia confirmed.
“—the good professor is not opposed to groupies.” I turned that over in my mind. “That’s part of what attracts him to this area of study. It’s there in the title of his class. These men are larger than life. They’re legends. They’re the train wreck we can’t stop watching, the forbidden, dangerous other.”
Michael accepted my appraisal at face value. “I’d have to see the man to tell you anything about him,” he said. That was one of the key differences between Michael’s ability and mine. Michael read people. I read personalities and behaviors—and I didn’t always need a person present to do it. “But I can tell you that TA Geoff enjoyed talking about Redding’s MO just a little too much,” Michael continued. “He wanted to see an expression of horror on Cassie’s face, and when he didn’t get it, he turned the topic to Emerson.”
“And what did his face tell you about Emerson?” Lia asked.
“No guilt,” Michael reported. “Not even sadness. A tiny sliver of fear.
Satisfaction. And loyalty.” “Loyalty?” I asked. “To whom?”
“I truly hate to say it,” Lia said with a sigh, “but Derek might have been right. Maybe the professor is our guy. The entire time I was talking to the dynamic duo of God’s Gift to the Planet and the Blushing Wonder, I only caught one interesting untruth.”
“Derek?” I guessed.
“Clark.” There was no question in Michael’s voice. “When he was talking about Emerson.”
“Point to the emotion reader,” Lia drawled. Their gifts overlapped with each other’s more than either’s overlapped with mine. “When Clark said that Emerson ‘wasn’t like that,’ he was lying.” Lia twirled her ponytail around her index finger. “If you ask me, Clark knew that she was doing the horizontal mambo with Professor Creepy.”
I turned to Michael. “What did you see?”
“In Clark?” Michael pulled off the highway. Soon, we’d be home. “I saw longing,” he said. “Fear of rejection.” He flicked his eyes over to mine. “Rage.”
Not just anger, but rage. At Derek, for speaking badly about a girl that Clark had cared about? At us for asking the questions? At the professor? At Emerson?
“So what do we do now?” I asked. “Assuming we don’t get caught the second we get home.”
“We need to figure out if the FBI knows about Emerson’s relationship with the professor.” Lia flicked her hair back over her shoulder. “If they don’t, we have to find a way of passing that information on.”
“What about Dean?” I asked.
“We don’t tell Dean.” Lia’s voice was quiet, but it cut through the air like a whip. “He needs this case solved. He doesn’t need to know what we’ll do to see that happen.”
Dean wouldn’t understand why we would go out on a limb for him, because deep down, he believed he wasn’t worth saving. He would have taken a bullet for any of us, but he wouldn’t want us risking anything for him.
Most people built walls to protect themselves. Dean did it to protect everyone else.
For once, Lia and I were in total agreement. “We don’t tell Dean.”
