Chapter 26
26
H eath hadn’t been exaggerating when he said his cooking was better than cafeteria food. He made us chicken and basil pesto penne with fresh asparagus and zucchini, topped with freshly grated parmesan and poured us both a big glass of Riesling to accompany the meal.
It was quite possibly the best pasta of my life, and I insisted on doing the dishes when we were done, already having mentally blown off my afternoon classes. I made a promise to myself that I’d catch up from tomorrow and not skip any more lectures, but for right now I couldn’t seem to make myself leave.
Doing the dishes, though, somehow turned into a make out session with my bum parked on the counter and Heath’s hands gripping my thighs like a lifeline.
“Well shit, I didn’t expect to find this in the middle of a school day,” Royce drawled, the door slamming behind him as I scrambled out of Heath’s embrace. “I thought you were in Rome with Bass, Squirrel.”
“Paris,” I corrected, swiping a hand over my puffy lips, “and we got back last night. How’s Paige?”
Royce’s eyes narrowed. “I think you’ve mixed me up with your stepbrother.”
I glared back at him, unflinching. “Have I? Hmm, how silly of me.”
He held my gaze, giving a small shake of his head. “So I guess there’s no hard feelings between you two about the whole Jade situation, then?”
That was twice I’ve had the feeling more went on than just the duck challenge. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask, but that’d be playing into Royce’s game…whatever the fuck that was. It’d sobered me up from the lust-drunk haze I’d fallen into, though, so I grabbed my bag from where I’d left it and slung it over my shoulder.
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” I told them with a tight smile. “Thanks for lunch, Heath.”
Heath scowled at Royce, then grabbed his motorcycle keys. “I’ll drive you,” he offered.
“Thanks,” I said with a shake of my head, “but I’d rather take a cab.”
I exited the apartment before it could turn into a whole thing, and heard Heath cursing out Royce as I stabbed the elevator call button. It was right there, having just delivered Royce, so by the time Heath came running after me the doors were already closing.
“Ash, please let me—” he tried to say, but the doors slid shut and I did nothing to stop it.
My spirits sank faster than the elevator car and by the time I reached the street, I was back in that uncomfortable funk of anxiety and disappointment as I’d existed in all morning.
What the fuck had I been thinking, falling into Heath like that? Was I really so naive?
Apparently yes.
With a stroke of luck, I hailed a taxi and slid inside right as the sky opened up and rain began pouring. How utterly fitting for the way my mood had just plummeted.
Fucking Jade. Then again, it wasn’t entirely her fault. Heath was the one who’d invited her to the gala and if he was supposedly so into me as more than a fake-girlfriend, why hadn’t he invited me? That way we actually could have had a chance to do Paris together.
Also…why the hell had Carter kept the dog? He’d been taking care of her too. She was clean and brushed, and all the fleas were gone. Not to mention the abundance of plush dog beds and toys in their apartment. Heath had mentioned that Carter took her for walks twice a day, and set her up with a synthetic grass toileting area on the balcony. It was a lot, especially for a stray that I sent to the apartment as a joke.
My phone pinged in my bag several times during the short trip back to campus, but I ignored it. I already knew it’d be Heath apologizing for Royce when in actual fact he needed to explain what the hell was going on with Jade.
I’d already missed one of my afternoon lectures, so rather than race to my second, I headed for the library instead. At least I could get some course reading done in silence.
Rather than my usual study table—where Heath often met me—I ventured up to the mezzanine level and located a cozy little study nook buried between Late Baroque Composers and early medieval poetry. No way would anyone come looking for me there.
I settled in and pulled out my laptop from my bag, then glanced at my phone. Sure enough, there were several new messages from Heath, but I swiped them off my screen and opened the message thread from an unsaved number.
Part of me assumed it was Carter. We hadn’t exchanged numbers somehow, but maybe he was apologizing for being such a colossal fuckwit .
It quickly became apparent that was not the case.
Unknown: Don’t trust anyone. Paris was all part of their plan.—AM
My mouth went dry and I read the message several times as though I thought the words would change before my eyes. Heart racing, I typed a reply.
Ashley: who is this?
I sat there for several minutes, just staring at the phone in my hand and waiting for a reply yet when it finally came through, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Unknown: They’re playing with you. Don’t be an idiot and believe the DB’s lies. Get out while you still can.—AM
Scared and confused, I started to reply that I wasn’t in the mood for cryptic games, but the unknown number sent a follow-up message. This time it was a link to a news article on a French website.
I pulled the website up on my laptop so I could run it through translate and read it with an open mouth.
…badly beaten corpse of an unidentified man found stuffed into a dumpster…
It had to be a coincidence. Carter said that guy was fine .
…inquiries are ongoing but with no solid leads. The victim has not been formally identified, but an anonymous tip to this news channel claims it’s the body of wanted serial rapist Antoine Boucher.
Frantic, I scanned the article that my computer had badly translated, desperate for some kind of connection to confirm what the unknown number was implying. There was no conclusive time of death, though, and the body had been found at a location miles from where I was attacked.
It was just a coincidence.
Inhaling deeply, I tried to control the tremor in my hands as I reached for my phone once more.
Ashley: Who is this?
There was no use trying to plead innocent to what they’d implied. There was no connection to Carter and I, but they were telling me that they knew what’d happened. Right? They were using a totally unconnected murder in Paris—and there must have been plenty to choose from—just to prove they knew what’d happened.
But only Carter and I knew. Did he tell someone?
Before any reply came through, my phone was abruptly snatched from my hand and I startled so hard I almost fell off my chair.
“Who are you texting, Layne?” Nate asked, blatantly reading the message thread then frowning. “Who the fuck is this?”
“Give it back!” I snarled, reaching for it but he just leaned out of my reach, still scowling at my phone.
Under his breath, he started muttering and it took me a hot second to work out he was reading the news article in French.
“What the fuck is this about, Layne? What does this dead guy have to do with the society?” His tone was accusing now, and I stood up to try and grab my phone back.
Once again, he held it out of my reach. The stubborn look on his face made it abundantly clear he wasn’t letting it go without an answer.
“I don’t know, okay? You can clearly see that by the fact I replied with who is this twice,” I snapped. “Now can I have my phone back?”
His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You want me to believe some random stranger texts you out of the blue with an ominous warning and then an article about a dead guy in Paris—where you just were—and you have no idea what the connection is? Bullshit. What happened in Paris, Layne?”
Gritting my teeth, I refrained from trying to jump to reach my phone like a little kid. Nate was nearly a foot taller than me and had extended his arm way out of reach.
“What happened in Paris?” I was so damn tempted to tell him I’d fucked Carter just to piss him off. But that, I now realized, was simply playing into the Ashley is a whore ideology he was subscribing to. “None of your fucking business, Essex. Maybe if you were so desperate to go to Paris you should have tried harder in the duck challenge.”
Irritation flickered across his face and his jaw tightened. “That’s how you want to play it? Fine. I won’t tell you who is sending these messages.”
Wait, what?
“You know who it is?”
He shook his head, his whiskey brown eyes softening ever so slightly. “No. But I could find out in about three minutes if you wanted to know.”
I did want to know. Really fucking badly, because I was thoroughly freaked out about who could have witnessed what happened that night. Or who Carter might have told. He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy to share potentially damning information like that though.
Then again, what the fuck did I know about him really? That he has a big dick and knows how to make me orgasm in under a minute? That wasn’t exactly a glowing character reference.
“Please can you tell me who is texting?” I asked, attempting to school my tone into some semblance of polite.
“I can ,” he confirmed, nodding.
Anger burned through my chest and I gritted my teeth. “ Will you , please, tell me who is texting?”
He pursed his lips, acting like he was thinking about my request while I became increasingly irate.
I sighed heavily. “Fine. What do you want in exchange? You and I both know I can’t afford to pay anything.”
He arched a brow. “Oh? Turning tricks doesn’t pay what it used to, hmm? Well, I think we can come up with another arrangement.” His gaze shifted from my face, quickly dipping to my chest where I’d failed to re-button my blouse properly after making out with Heath.
Disgusted, I took a step backward. “Ew. No. I’m not that desperate to know who it is.”
Nate sneered back at me. “As if, Layne. I’d rather stick my dick in a nest of fire ants. Just fail the next society challenge.”
I folded my arms under my breasts and could have sworn I caught him checking out my cleavage again. It was quick, though, I couldn’t be sure. “That’s it? Promise to fail the next duck challenge—or whatever other dumb shit you do—and you’ll trace this phone number? That sounds too easy.”
“Like I said, it’s a three-minute hack at best.” He lowered his arm but didn’t offer the phone back. “Deal?”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Deal.” Because I knew no one else with the skills to hack anything and his offer seemed harmless.
Nate dipped his head. “Great. You don’t mind if I use this, do you?” Without waiting for my answer, he slid into my seat and pulled my laptop closer.
I bit back the need to curse him out, and settled for anxiously drumming my fingernails on the bookshelf beside me while he typed in what could only be called a foreign language. All zeros and ones and symbols and commands…it briefly occurred to me that he could be installing viruses on my laptop just to be an asshole, but it was also too late to stop him if that were the case.
“Huh,” he eventually said out loud. “That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?” I demanded. “Who is it?”
Instead of answering me, he grabbed my phone once more from the desktop where he’d placed it and handed it to me. “Call the number.”
I blinked a couple times. “Sorry?”
“Call the number back,” he instructed.
I let out a frustrated sigh. “Okay, hacker genius, this nullifies our agreement. I could have?—”
“Just do it, Ashley,” he snapped, seeming on edge for some reason.
And he called me Ashley . Nate never used my first name.
Unnerved, I unlocked my screen and pulled up the message thread. Then I pressed call .
“Speaker,” Nate ordered, his intense gaze on the phone not on me.
I pressed the speaker icon right as the call failed to connect.
“The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please try again.”
“I don’t get it,” I admitted. “They just canceled the phone number right after sending me those messages?”
Nate looked genuinely concerned, gesturing for me to hand him the phone. I did, because now I was even more freaked out than before.
He typed out a message quickly, just a simple hello?
It sent and delivered.
“What the fuck?” I asked, confused as to how messages were delivered if the number wasn’t in service. “Nate…what’s going on?”
He licked his lips, his complexion somewhat ashen. “I wish I knew. Um…the number belonged to someone who went to school here, but the contract was canceled two years ago. When she died. This doesn’t make any sense.”
My blood chilled. The messages were all signed AM as in…“Abigail Monstera?”
Nate’s brows shot up. “Yeah. How did you know?”
It was a good fucking question.