churn. No wonder the detective was doubly smug with her today. He didn’t just think she
was stupid. He thought she was unhinged. Even better.
“What’s the big deal?” Alex said.
Turner’s fingers flexed on the immaculately pressed legs of his suit. “The big deal? I can’t just sneak you in there. All visitors to a jail are logged. I have to have a good official reason to bring you there. His attorneys have to be there. The whole thing will have to be
recorded.”
“You’re telling me cops always follow the rules?”
“Police. And if I bent the rules and the defense found out, Lance Gressang would get
away with murder and I’d lose my job.”
“Look, when I went up to Tara’s place—”
Turner’s gaze snapped to her, eyes blazing, all pretense of diplomacy gone. “You went
to her house? If you crossed that tape—”
“I needed to know if—”
He shot to his feet. This was the real Turner: young, ambitious, forced to dance to make
his way in the world and sick of it. He paced back and forth in front of the bench, then
pointed a finger at her. “Stay the fuck away from my case.”
“Turner—”
“Detective Turner. You are not going to mess with my case. I see you anywhere near
Woodland, I will fuck your life so hard, you’ll never walk straight again.”
“Why are you being such a hard-ass?” she whined, cribbing a line from Tripp.
“This isn’t a game for you to play. You need to understand how easy it would be for me to take your life apart, to find a little stash of weed or pills on you or in your dorm room.
Get that.”
“You can’t just—” Alex began, eyes wide, lip wobbling.
“I’ll do whatever I have to do. Now get out of here. You have no idea the line you’re
walking, so do not press me.”
“I get it, okay?” Alex said meekly. “I’m sorry.”
“Who did Tripp say he saw with Tara?”
Alex didn’t mind sharing the names. She’d meant to from the start. Turner needed to know that Tara had been dealing to students who weren’t in her phone logs, using a burner
or a phone Lance had hidden or destroyed. She looked down at her gloved hands and said
quietly, “Kate Masters and Colin Khatri.”
Kate was in Manuscript but Alex barely knew her. The last time she’d spoken to her had been the night of the Halloween party, when she and Mike Awolowo had begged her
not to tattle to Lethe about drugging Darlington. She’d been dressed as Poison Ivy. But Colin she knew. Colin worked for Belbalm and he was in Scroll and Key. He was cute, tidy, as preppy as they came. She could imagine him relaxing with an outrageously expensive bottle of wine, not hotboxing with town goods. But she knew from her time at
Ground Zero, appearances could be deceiving.
Turner smoothed his lapels, his cuffs, ran his hands over the clean sides of his head.
She watched him put himself back together, and when he smiled and winked it was as if
the angry, hungry Turner had never been there. “Glad we had this chat, Alex. You let me
know if there’s anything at all I can do to help you out in the future.”
He turned and marched back toward the hulking form of the police station. She hadn’t
liked whimpering in front of Turner. She hadn’t liked being called crazy. But now she knew what street Tara had lived on, and the rest would be easy.
Alex was tempted to go directly to Woodland and find Tara’s apartment, but she didn’t
want to try to do her snooping on a Sunday, when people would be home from work. It would have to wait until tomorrow. She hoped that whoever had sent the gluma after her thought she was still laid up at the Hutch—or dead. But if they were watching her, she hoped they’d seen her talking to Turner. Then they’d think the police knew what she knew, and there’d be no point to shutting her up. Unless somehow Turner is in on all of it.
Alex shook the thought from her mind as she pedaled back toward the Hopper gates.
Cautious was helpful; paranoid was just another word for distracted.