Chapter Seven Cammie #2
“I haven’t seen him today,” he answers, “but you might check the library. I’ve spotted the young man there once before.
Back down this hall and to the left.” He gestures the way I came from, down a side hallway I haven’t yet checked.
I turn as quickly as it feels I can without being rude and start walking away.
“Excellent, thank you!” I call over my shoulder with a jaunty wave. Dr. Russo gives a single nod of acknowledgment, his smile dropping slowly. I feel his eyes on me until I’m around another corner and out of his sight.
When I open the door he described on the left, I almost expect to find myself stumbling into a trap, where I must solve Russo’s three riddles before I can find what I seek.
But lo and behold, he’s actually pointed me to a gorgeous library, at the center of which sits an oblivious West Jacobs.
All I see of him is his familiar dark brown bedhead from behind, his face too focused on his computer screen to turn my way.
If all I really wanted was proof of life, I could turn around and waltz back out of here, and West would never even know I’d sought him out. That’s what logic tells me to do. Didn’t I just declare that trying to repair our friendship is unnecessary?
But some deep-down instinct drives me forward. Plus a little nosiness, as his fingers fly across the keys on his laptop with single-minded focus.
I close the door silently behind me, my steps muffled by the thick-pile rug that covers most of the hardwood floor as I step farther into the room. I’m able to walk all the way up behind him without so much as a flinch from him to indicate he’s noticed my presence.
I can see the irony here, that I made up a whole spooky, fictional persona around Gianmarco Russo based on a mildly weird vibe, only to turn around and stalk West like an apex predator in a nature documentary. But I continue tiptoeing closer to my prey, until I’m near enough to see what he’s up to.
West’s fingers continue their furious typing pace.
His screen shows a black background covered in neat, orderly rows of text, numbers and symbols and letters in a rainbow of purple, green, red, yellow, and more.
I recognize it as computer code, though I couldn’t begin to guess what he’s programming.
It’s clear he’s not a novice, as fast as he’s cranking out line after line, not stopping to think or hunt and peck for characters like I still occasionally do.
After a couple minutes of this, he finally pauses, one hand moving to the trackpad and navigating to a website already open in a browser window.
He slowly scrolls down before stopping at a section under the header “Accepted Student Information.” My gaze shifts to the top left corner of the screen, where I find a logo for some university in… Germany?
Then my attention is recaptured by West’s hands.
He lifts them from the laptop while he presumably reads the words on-screen, then laces his fingers together to flex them outward.
His joints snap, crackle, and pop like a bowl of Rice Krispies before he lets out a sigh and falls back against the leather club chair.
On an impulse I don’t think about too hard, I decide this is my best opportunity to pounce.
“Do you think you might have carpal tunnel?”
West nearly sends his computer tumbling to the floor with his full-body convulsion of surprise.
“Jesus, Cam!” he exclaims, slamming the laptop shut and setting it aside before he turns around to lean over the back of the club chair.
He pushes a shaky hand through his disheveled hair, then finger-combs it back down again.
“I’m more concerned about having a heart attack. You scared the shit out of me.”
I shrug, stepping around to take a seat in the club chair opposite him and tucking my legs up underneath me. “Still, those finger joints did not sound okay.”
“My fingers are none of your concern,” West blusters on. “What are you doing here?”
“I had the same question for you,” I say, nodding toward the device he was glued to a moment earlier. “You were pretty consumed with…hacking into a German college’s computer network? Don’t let me stop you.”
“I wasn’t hacking anything,” he grumbles.
“Right,” I say with a slow, disbelieving nod. “If you told me about your mission, you’d have to kill me. I get it.”
“I feel like if either of us is more likely to kill the other, it’s you. Hands down.”
My jaw drops with genuine offense, until I see the smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
I make a show of flipping my hair behind my shoulder, then holding my hand out to inspect my nails—which I forgot were still caked with dirt.
Keeping up the diva act, I reply, “Well, feel free to put in a good word with your employers. Espionage is probably a good fit for a girl without her own personality.”
The words are like an anvil hitting the plush carpet underfoot. We’re silent for a few moments, until West blows out a breath.
“I didn’t mean that, Cammie,” he says, voice thick with regret. “I was just…embarrassed, and angry, and trying to hurt you for hurting me. But it was out of line, and not something I’ve ever thought about you. I’m really sorry.”