Chapter 13
Nick and I made our way at a leisurely pace toward the building that housed the cafeteria.
We paused at a crosswalk, allowing a police car to pass us.
I watched as it rolled slowly toward the exit lane and proceeded to the gate.
I could just make out the night duty officer inside the security booth.
He glanced up from his cell phone as the cruiser approached, pushed a button to open the barrier, and waved the driver through it.
Leaving the training facility seemed simple enough.
“Is it really such a big deal for a student to leave the campus?” I asked.
Nick thought about that as his cane clicked over the crosswalk. “In theory? No. If you did leave, you’d be searched when you got back.”
“So why was Joey so upset about it?”
“Joey didn’t have an issue with you leaving. He had an issue with you leaving with me.”
“Why?”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was jealous.”
I choked on a laugh. “Why would you think that?”
“He’s just a little too interested, you know? He’s been asking a lot of questions about you.”
The hair on my neck stood on end. “What kinds of questions?”
Nick was quiet for a moment, as if he was considering how to answer that. “Mostly questions about you and me. How long I’ve known you. How we met. If we were ever a thing.”
“A thing ?”
“He wanted to know if we’d ever been… intimate.” He risked a sidelong glance at me.
I tried not to sound as curious as that question made me feel. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him it was none of his business.” An awkward silence dragged between us.
Did that kiss we shared in his car three months ago count?
Did I want it to? And, more important, why did Joey care?
“I probably shouldn’t have brought it up,” Nick said, shamefaced.
“I don’t think Joey meant anything by it.
I think he was just trying to… I don’t know…
connect with me about something other than work.
I think he senses that I still haven’t entirely warmed up to him yet. ”
“Why not? I thought you two got along.”
Nick’s head swayed indecisively. “I can’t put my finger on it, Finn,” he said in a voice too low to carry. “Joey’s a stand-up guy and a decent partner. I don’t think he tries to be a dick.”
“It just happens naturally?”
A smile broke over Nick’s face. He didn’t bother to deny it. “Joey can be a little too direct. It rubs people the wrong way sometimes.”
“What’s Charlie’s beef with him?” I asked.
“You caught on to that?”
“It was hard to miss.”
He shrugged as we rounded the corner to the dining hall.
“Charlie’s beef is the same as everyone else’s, I guess.
Joey asks too many questions. They come off as a little intrusive.
I think it’s just his way of trying to fit in.
It’s tough being the new guy. It’s natural to cling to your partner when you don’t have anybody else, and Charlie’s shadow is a long one to walk in.
I don’t think I was off the mark when I said Joey’s probably jealous. ”
“I can see why. Charlie’s pretty great.”
“So are you.” Nick paused under the awning to the dining hall. He turned to me. His lips parted around a thought, then closed again. “Come on,” he said, running his card key through the scanner and holding the door open for me. “You can warm up inside while I find us something to eat.”
I wondered what he’d been about to say, as he led the way to the kitchen.
He flipped on a single wall switch, forgoing the bright overhead fluorescents in favor of a handful of dim spotlights over the counters.
He took my coat and hung it on a hook on the wall beside some aprons.
“Make yourself at home. Can I get you something to drink? Juice box? Milk?” His cane clicked toward a gigantic stainless steel fridge that could probably fit a half dozen bodies.
“Sorry, it’s not as classy as Feliks’s restaurant. ”
I laughed. “I’ll take this over Feliks’s any day. Got any coffee?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
“You planning on staying up?”
“I’ve got a deadline for Sylvia.”
“Check the faculty lounge. There’s probably some left over in the carafes, but I should warn you, it’s not exactly Starbucks.”
“Noted.” I slipped through a set of doors into the darkened cafeteria, following the emergency lighting toward the faculty lounge at the far side. The smell of cooked broccoli lingered in the room, the only clue it had been occupied a little more than an hour ago.
The faculty lounge was unlocked and I flipped on the light switch.
My name caught my attention, printed in red on a dry-erase board on the opposite wall.
A table had been drawn on it. Each team of students had been listed in the leftmost column, followed by a tally of their points.
The next column also contained a number—a ranking, but not the one we’d earned through our scores.
These were odds, and Vero and I seemed to be leading the pack.
Sam hadn’t been kidding. The faculty were literally betting on us. While a few of the instructors had placed bets on other teams, most had gambled on Vero and me. Only one instructor had bet against us—Joey Balafonte had bet we’d lose the whole damn thing.
Unsettled, I searched the cabinets for a mug and helped myself to a cup of coffee.
The dregs in the silver carafe were bitter but still warm.
I sipped as I turned for the door, pausing beside a tray of desserts.
With a quick glance at the door, I pulled aside the plastic wrap and snuck two chocolate chip cookies from the tray, stuffing them into my sweatshirt pockets.
I rearranged a few oatmeal raisins to cover the gaps before turning off the lights.
My phone vibrated with an incoming call. My mother’s name flashed on the screen.
“Mom?” I answered on my way back to the kitchen. “It’s not a good time. Can I call you back?”
“Hi, Mommy.”
I halted in my tracks, checking my screen to be sure I had read it right. How was Delia calling me from my mother’s phone? “Hi, baby. Did Nana come to visit you at Daddy’s?” Why would Steven invite my mother to his house? The two hadn’t stepped foot in the same room since we’d divorced.
“No,” she said. “Daddy, Zach, and I went on a secret mission to our house. Then we came to visit Nana and Pop Pop.”
“A secret mission? That sounds exciting.” A little too exciting. Vero had confiscated Steven’s house key three months ago. “How did Daddy get into the house?”
“That was the most funnest part,” she said, her tongue slipping on her S’ s between her missing front teeth. “We sneaked around the backyard so no one would see us. Then Daddy opened a window with one of his screwdiapers—”
“He used a screwdriver?”
“Yes! But Daddy was too big to fit in the window, so he held it open and I got to be the one who climbed in. Then I ran and unlocked the back door for Daddy and Zach. Zach and I were pretending to be spies so Mrs. Haggerty wouldn’t see us,” she finished in a stage whisper.
“Ooooh, that does sound like fun.” Almost as much fun as murdering my ex-husband with a screwdriver. “Was Daddy spying, too?” I asked sweetly.
“Mostly, he was cussing,” Delia said. “First, he used the D word when he looked under the bushes and his special key was gone.” Because I’d disposed of the one he’d kept hidden there for Theresa after I’d caught him cheating and kicked him out of the house.
“Then, he used the S word when he got stuck in the window. And then,” she said with a dramatic rise of her voice, “he used all the bad words when Zach poured chocolate syrup on the carpet in the playroom while Daddy was upstairs working in the closet.”
“In the closet?” I paused. What could Steven have found in my closet that would have prompted him to take the children to my parents’ house? “Delia, is Daddy there with you now?”
“No. We’re having a sleepover at Nana and Pop Pop’s tonight.”
“Can I talk to Nana?”
“She and Pop Pop are watching the news and Zach and I can’t watch anything fun. Nana said I’m not allowed to use my iPad until I’m thirty. She says computers are full of bad people.”
A sharp laugh burst out of me. “She would know.” I pressed a hand to my temple as I carried the phone a safe distance from the kitchen. “Put Nana on the phone, sweetheart.”
There was a rustling on the other end of the line, then my mother picked up. “Finlay, is that you?”
“Why are the children with you? Where’s Steven?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
Her voice fell to a whisper. “I swear to god, Finlay, he was breathing when he left.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “What was he doing at your house to begin with?”
I heard the swing doors swish closed behind her as she carried the phone into her kitchen and lowered her voice.
“He called me this afternoon and asked if he could come over. He sounded upset. At first, I was worried that he might know about the whole… you know… incident, ” she whispered.
“But then he asked if he could bring the children. He said an emergency came up and he needed someone to take the kids for the night. I told him they could stay with us.”
Damnit, Steven. “Do you have any idea where he went?”
“He wouldn’t say. Only that it was very important.”
I pulled the phone from my ear to check the time.
“I’m sorry Steven dumped the kids on you like this.
I can come get them. I’ll call an Uber and be at your place before their bedtime.
” If I asked Nick, he’d probably even drive me.
Vero could stay here. She’d be safer in the dorms until Javi was able to get the money from stripping the car.