All of them wave but only Spencer calls out a ‘goodbye.’
Yup. I’m no one special here, that’s for sure.
I walk up the driveway to my Shrike truck, throw my bag and purse onto the passenger seat, and climb in. I do love this truck, though. Although I’m careful not to speed on the road into town. That deputy who busted me for speeding is always on the lookout. I think he wants to date me though, not write a ticket.
I’d rather get the ticket. So I drive the fucking speed limit all the way into Fort Collins. And let me tell you this, living thirty minutes from town sucks. I hate it. La Porte is not very far, but that place has nothing, it might as well be Bellvue. It takes even longer to get to my community college because it’s all the way on the south side of FoCo, so by the time I make it to the math building, grab all my shit, and haul myself across the parking lot, my tutor Gage is already waiting for me outside.
“We gotta go somewhere else tonight, Rook. Water pipe broke and there’s a massive clean-up going on in there.”
Gage is kinda hot for a nerd. He doesn’t have those stupid black glasses and he doesn’t wear a pen protector in his pocket, but he’s definitely a nerd. I know this because I asked him what he does on the weekends yesterday and he said study. He’s in some special engineering department down at CU Boulder, not regular building stuff, but like robots or mechanical hearts or some shit like that.
“Well, where can we go? I’m not familiar with this area, Gage, sorry. You’ll have to pick.”
“There’s a coffee shop with wireless down the street. We could go there.”
“Great,” I say as we make our way back to the parking lot. “I’ll follow you.”
I have a better parking spot than he does, so I reach my truck first. He eyeballs it with a weird look on his face as he walks past. Probably wondering what I’m doing with a Shrike Bikes vehicle. It’s pretty conspicuous, this truck. I really need to buy a car of my own so I can blend in.
I pull the truck out and look around to see what he’s driving. There’s only one car on the move and that’s an old-ass light blue Camaro. He waves at me to follow and we pull out.
The coffee shop is busy and loud when we walk in, but Gage points to the back where there’s doors separating a section from the main room and a sign that says, Study Area.
We’re the only people in there, but he picks a table in the corner to get away from the noise in the other room.
“OK, here’s the deal. That guy who hired me for you called earlier and said you need to take that test tonight so you can leave town tomorrow. So we’re gonna pull up the test, you can do it yourself, but if you have a question, I’ll be here to answer it.”
“That’s cheating.”
“It’s an online math class, Rook. Everyone is cheating. It’s open book, anyway. What’s the difference?”
“I just don’t want help. I’d rather you check my work that I did last night and explain where I went wrong. I’ll take the test tomorrow night like I planned, my boyfriend down in Denver will wait and Ford can just butt the fuck out of my life. It’s none of his business, and just because he’s the one who pays you doesn’t mean you have to listen to him. I can pay you myself, you know. I don’t need his money.”
Gage is staring at me with another weird look.
“What?” I ask.
He laughs. Like loud.
“What?”
“I knew it!”
“Knew what?”
“Ford? The guy who hired me is Ford Aston, isn’t it?”
“Um, well, I don’t actually know his last name but—”
“Rich, pretentious asshole?”
I laugh. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“And you drive a Shrike Bikes truck because you’re working for Spencer Shrike?”
“Yeeeahhhh…”
“Please tell me the guy you’re meeting in Denver tomorrow is not Ronin Flynn. Please.”
“Why?” My heart starts beating super-fast at the mention of Ronin’s name. “He’s my boyfriend, why?”
“Are you from here?”
“No, what’s that got to do with anything?”
He shakes his head as he laughs, then huffs out a long breath of air. “Well, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your friends are bad fucking news. And if I were you, I’d get as far away from them as you possibly can because they committed a high-profile murder a couple years back and walked away free and clear on a technicality.”
Chapter Nineteen - ROOK
I blow through the doors of Best Buy on College Ave on my way home from tutoring and before the greeter guy can ask me what I need I bark out, “Laptops?” I’m already moving down the aisle he’s pointing to before he can get the words out. Back in computers another kid wants to help me so I manage to say, “The best laptop you have, now.”
Ten minutes later I’m cruising back down College, my mind racing with wild imagery of my friends committing murder. I need to do some serious research and a phone browser just isn’t cutting it. Hence the laptop purchase.
I played it cool with Gage earlier. “Oh, that,” I snorted. “I know the inside story, it’s nothing.”
I’m pretty sure he saw through me because I’m a terrible liar, but it was all I had in me. My head was spinning the whole time. I told him I’d do the test tonight on his computer if he left me alone so I wasn’t tempted to cheat. I did take the test, but I definitely failed. That’s because the only thing on my mind was the fucking search page I pulled up and was glancing at on and off while I was trying to subtract negative numbers.
How the fuck did I never think to Google these guys? How? After all I’ve been through, how the hell did I not even once get curious?
Because Gage was not lying. I found an article almost immediately, but I didn’t want to leave a search history on his computer, and I don’t have my own computer at Spencer’s, I just use his.
So manic shopping spree through Best Buy at eight forty-five PM was in order.
I do not even know how I got myself back to Spence’s house, but here I am, sitting in the idling truck in the driveway.
The outside light goes on and Spencer peeks out the door. “Hey, comin’ in or what?”
I turn the truck off and grab all my shit and go inside.
“What’s all that?” Spence asks as I struggle with all the bags. I got an extra power cord and a battery and pretty much everything else the salesman said I needed just so I didn’t have to fight with him about it.
“Just a computer, you know I should have my own, right? I’ll need it for class.” I smile and make my way towards the stairs. “Well, I’m beat and we have a big day tomorrow, so I’ll see you in the AM. Night, Spencer!”
“Night, Blackbird,” he calls out softly to me. It’s like he knows. Something’s off with me.
Shit, shit, shit.
But when I get downstairs to my apartment and look back, he’s not following me, so I push through the door and dump all my shit on the new couch and then start tearing into the bags. An hour later my computer’s up and running and connected to the house wireless.
I wonder if they can see my browsing history remotely?
I’m a paranoid freak because of Jon. But I don’t have the patience. And besides, what would they do if I found out? I mean, seriously? They have to know that I’d stumble onto it eventually.
I plug their names into the search bar and I swear my heart skips when I see what the headlines actually say.