“I am, but not for you.” I can’t stop the flush of warmth that moves through me. He thinks I smell good? I wipe the smile off my face. I’ve been spending too much time with Adrienne, and she’s turning me into a sap. “Let’s just do homework, okay? Help me practice my conversational French for the test on Friday.”
“No problem, mon coeur.”
I shoot him a disapproving look, which he totally ignores.
Taking a large, fluffy pillow off my bed, he tosses it on the floor and stretches out on his back with his hands behind his head. “Ahh, that’s better. Now, what’s on the test on Friday?”
I goggle at him. “You don’t know? You’re in that class.”
He laughs. “I’m already fluent. I took it because it’s a bird course for me.”
“Yeah, yeah, well you may fly right through it, but I have to study.” I slide into the floor and arrange myself on one of my velvety floor poufs.
We go back and forth, reading passages to each other from our e-books and quizzing each other on word meanings and verb conjugations. I’ll never tell, but I’m actually enjoying speaking French with Ricardo. He’s good at it, like Genevieve, so we fall into an easy rhythm. It’s kind of nice having a peer to study with, even if he is exasperating half the time.
Outside my window, a car pulls into the parking lot. Grady gets out and circles around the hood to open the passenger door for Gul. Pressing her against the car, he kisses her breathless before taking her hand and walking her inside, where I can’t see.
A sharp pain in my chest grabs my focus. Not too long ago, he was doing the same thing, only with Rhiannon instead. If only she hadn’t gone to Professor Rook that first time. If only I had kept my mouth shut.
“Char? Hello?” Ricardo says, waving a hand in front of my face.
I start to shove him away, but my mind is already whirling. “What if the hit and run wasn’t an accident? What if someone had it out for Professor Rook, waited outside, and killed him?”
“What makes you say that?”
I chew my lip, not sure I want to divulge what I’m thinking. He might think I’m off my rocker. Actually, who cares what he thinks? I don’t. “I saw Grady and Gul outside, and it got me thinking. Professor Rook had to have made enemies. Hell, I wasn’t a fan of his, and I bought from him a few times. Someone like Grady, he might be pretty mad at Rook, especially after Rhiannon’s death. What if he, or someone else, decided to take matters into their own hands?”
Ricardo nods slowly, taking in everything I’ve said. “Okay, so who else might have it out for Rook? You, Grady…”
“Anyone who bought from him, maybe. Any parents, if they found out. I don’t know who else.” My eyes are pulled toward the window, where Grady’s car is parked under one of the wrought-iron lamps in the lot.
“Wait,” Ricardo says, bumping my shoulder with his. “It couldn’t have been Grady. He didn’t even get back to school until the afternoon after the accident. They had that snowstorm in Austin, remember?”
My eyes narrow. “That’s what he said…” Typing on my tablet with rapid fingers, I pull up the news for Austin. Sure enough, they had a giant snow storm the first week of January that downed all of the planes near there for three days, just like Grady said. There’s no way he could have caught a flight out of Austin in time.
Down the hall, a door slams.
A tingle of awareness runs up my spine. A warning. I go still, listening.
Ricardo opens his mouth to speak, but I put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
There’s a faint shuffling in the hallway. Is someone listening in on our conversation?
Patting Ricardo’s shoulder again, I gesture toward my door. Creeping across the floor, I fling it open, making the knob smack against the wall. The hallway is empty.
I could have sworn I sensed someone out here, eavesdropping on me and Ricardo talking, but the hallway is deserted. Some of the doors along the girls’ hallway are open, so someone in one of the nearby rooms could have been the one doing it, but I’m not sure why they would. Unless someone was just being nosy.
Stepping up to the bannister, I peer over the edge into the foyer. Other than the security guard at the front door, there’s no one there.
But as I return to my room, I can’t shake the feeling that someone overheard Ricardo and me talking.
Adrienne’s door opens. “What’s going on out here?” she asks, looking past me down the hall. “Who’s slamming doors?”
“I don’t know. I thought—”
A blood-chilling scream interrupts me.
17
Trepidation thickens the air. Where did that scream come from?
Adrienne steps out of her room, eyes wide in horror. Her gaze rises to Mikhail, who tucks her into his side protectively.
I’m peering down the hallway as more girls peek out of their rooms. Girls spill out into the corridor, looking around for the person who let loose that shriek. A couple of guys follow their girlfriends out of their rooms too. “Where’s the fire?” someone calls from somewhere behind me.
My mind is crystal clear and focused as I wait for another scream to slice through the growing buzz in the dormitory. Guys are clomping down the stairs toward our floor, calling out questions to those below.
No one seems to know what’s happening, or who screamed.
A single question keeps revolving in my head. What if someone is being attacked, just like Professor Rook was? I make a split-second decision.
Mikhail throws out an arm to stop me, but I dodge past him and bolt down the hallway.
“Char!” Adrienne calls as Mikhail takes off after me.
Feet pound at my heels, making me shoot a glance over my shoulder. Despite my smaller, more fluid frame, the bodyguard is gaining on me.
I scan the faces peeking out of each door I pass, rounding the corner.
Instead of tackling me, Mikhail passes on the inside and keeps an easy jogging pace a stride ahead of me. He’s scanning the dormitory too, looking every bit the muscle in his gray tee and black athletic pants.
Adrienne and Ricardo come up on either side of me, looking as stricken as I feel.
That scream. It sounded primal. Afraid.
I’ve never heard such a terrified, excruciating cry, and the mental images it calls up make my heart skitter in my ribcage. Dali with tears streaming down her cheeks. Adrienne unconscious as Mikhail pried her attacker off her neck.
I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m going to find out. Nobody else is going to be hurt on my watch, if I can help it.
The sound of sobbing gets louder as the four of us jog along the hall, doing a quick visual check of each room as we pass.
Ms. Poppin comes running up the stairs, out of breath. “I was in the kitchen. What’s going on? Do you know who that was?” she asks between pants.
I shake my head.
It’s only been a few seconds, but there’s a crowd of people behind me, each of them wondering what’s going on. If something else has happened. If someone else has been killed.
We reach the end of the hall, and stop. The scream I heard brought everyone within hearing distance out of their rooms.
And yet, I’m staring at a closed door. This door is the only one on our hall that hasn’t been flung open in the past minute, which captures my attention. The person behind this door has somehow managed to ignore the agonizing screech. Or she’s the victim. It’s Gul’s door.