26. Logan
Chapter twenty-six
Logan
I glanced at my phone for the fifth time since I’d arrived at the little off-campus café, but the person I was meeting still had ten minutes before the time we’d agreed to meet.
I considered getting another drink, but the way my leg was bouncing up and down told me it was probably a good idea to cut out any additional caffeine. I’d practically been guzzling it nonstop over the past two days, and I’d be paying for it sooner rather than later. I had no regrets. It was the only way I’d found the energy to keep up with school, football, and my research into Jason Hunn.
Amelia had told Ethan and me about what happened with Jason and, like Ryan, we had assured her that we’d protect her from him. I had no doubt the other guys meant what they said, but they both struggled more with school than I did, and this week had been a busy one. Rather than waiting for them, I’d taken matters into my own hands. They’d probably be pissed when they found out, but if I had something we could use against Jason, they’d forgive me.
And at six thirty this morning, right before practice, I had found something.
One of Jason’s classes last year had been on social media’s impact on modern communication. I’d taken the same thing the semester before him, and I remembered that we were required to maintain a blog where we had to post two opinion pieces a week, one on something political or social and the other on something in pop culture.
I was no computer genius, but I had picked up a thing or two from Darak and it paid off big time when I found the personal blog of a local Fort Collins resident who had three posts that were virtually identical to posts from Jason’s blog. I’d contacted the author right after practice and they had agreed to meet me here.
Just when I was getting ready to check the time again, a stocky guy in his late twenties came into the café, looking around like he was searching for someone. Taking a guess that this was my guy, I raised a hand.
He hurried over, pushing back his unkempt dark hair. “Hey. Whew. I didn’t realize I wouldn’t recognize you right away since I watch all of CSU’s games and follow your career, but context, you know?” He plopped down in the chair across from me and let out a sigh.
“Carl Aames?” I asked. I didn’t want to assume and end up talking with a fan instead of the guy I was here to see.
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” He held out his hand. “Carl Aames.”
I shook his hand and then got down to business. “I need to talk to you about a few of your blog posts. They sounded an awful lot like some posts I saw on another blog, one a guy I know did for school.” I took a beat to watch how Carl reacted to what I said. He shifted in his seat, but didn’t say anything, so I continued, “Do you know Jason Hunn?”
Carl’s face went white, then red. “I don’t know what he told you, but I told him that was a one-time thing. I needed money last year for some personal debts, and I was desperate. I’m sorry if you thought I could—”
“I’m not here to pay you to do work for me,” I cut in. “Jason’s not my friend. He’s made some accusations about a friend of mine, specifically that she’s stolen work from him.”
Carl barked a bitter laugh. “That bastard’s never done a day of honest work in his life.”
And there it was, what I’d suspected since that confrontation with Jason and Megan at the dorm. Not only was Jason lying about Amelia—which I’d never doubted—but he was guilty of academic dishonesty. I didn’t know how much, but I intended to find out. And get the evidence to prove it.
“So he bought a few articles from you?” I needed to hear him say it.
“Four,” Carl said. “And I told him I still planned on polishing them up a bit and using them on my blog. They were ones I’d already written, and he said he didn’t have the time to wait for me to write new ones.”
“What did he say when you told him you were going to post those articles?”
“He didn’t care. Just asked me to wait a couple weeks since his class would be done by then and his professor wouldn’t be checking for plagiarism anymore.”
Jason might not be as smart as he pretended to be, but he wasn’t a complete idiot.
“I’m guessing he paid in cash,” I said.
Carl grinned. “Wire transfer.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”
“Yup.” His grin widened. “And I took screenshots of everything. As soon as I agreed to sell him the articles, he started going on about how if I tried to blackmail him or get him in trouble, he’d deny everything and say I plagiarized from him.”
“That does seem to be his MO,” I muttered. When Carl gave me a questioning look, I shifted the subject. “You wouldn’t happen to know anyone else he did this to, would you?”
“Actually, I do.”
Damn. I’d really hit the jackpot with this guy.
“When he was threatening me if I didn’t keep quiet about ‘helping’ him, he mentioned that he got a girl he dated kicked out of school when she kicked up too much of a fuss. He said they were freshmen. What was her name?” Carl frowned, thinking. “Wen. Chyou Wen.”
I jotted down the name and had Carl send me everything he’d kept from his interaction with Jason. Once we went our separate ways, I started searching for Chyou Wen.
By late afternoon, I’d met with the former CSU student and heard her story. A story I repeated to Ethan and Ryan on our way home from the gym.
“When he showed her the videos of the two of them having sex, she said she’d agree to write a paper for him, but it wasn’t enough.” I pulled into our parking space. “He used those videos for the entire year even though he kept promising to delete them. She ended up dropping out of school and telling him that if he posted those videos, she’d report what he did to CSU. He must’ve figured it’d be better to just move on because he left her alone after that.”
Ethan let out a low whistle.
“I’m going to kill the little bastard.” Ryan sounded like he’d just made a decision to do his laundry.
“Pretty sure that’d ruin your football career,” Ethan said.
“And I’m not sure I’d care.” Ryan ran his hands through his hair. “Please tell me we’re going to tell Amelia tonight. I don’t wanna keep this from her.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more people out there who’ve helped Jason cheat,” I said. “Either for money or because he blackmailed them. I wouldn’t put it past him to use a relationship either.”
“We can keep looking for them, if that’s what Amelia wants,” Ethan said. “But this thing with Amelia is so new. I don’t just hate the idea of lying to her. I think she might be upset if she found out we’d hidden shit from her.”
“This is exactly why I wanted to talk to you guys about this. It has to be a decision we make together,” I said. “And it sounds like none of us want to wait to talk to her about it.”
“If we start digging into more of this, she should be able to do it too,” Ryan said.
“Then let’s get her over here for an early dinner and tell her what I found.”