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“Yeah,” I say, managing a smile—though I don’t know how. “Like me and Jordan.”
It isn’t her fault. I mean, she doesn’t know she’s just rubbing salt in the wound.
“Well, I better get going,” she says. “I promised Stan I’d snag one of those crab cakes for him….”
“Oh,” I say. “Sure. Bye.”
Rachel glides away on her very own cloud nine. I wonder if the rumor Pete heard, about Rachel getting a big fat promotion, was true. I wouldn’t be surprised. Nobody else on campus had had to feel for two different pulses in as many weeks. What could the college do to show its appreciation, other than promote her? A Pansy Award isn’t enough. After all, Magda said Justine had been nominated for a Pansy once because she’d let a student borrow her phone book.
“Hey, blondie!”
I ignore the voice from behind me, and stare at Cooper instead. He’s still talking to Marian Braithwaite, who’s looking up at him adoringly and laughing every now and then at whatever it is he’s saying. How do they know each other? Maybe Marian had hired him. Maybe she’d suspected her professor husband was cheating on her, and she’d hired Cooper, and he’d proved that she had nothing to worry about, and that’s why she’s so glad to see him, and keeps reaching out to touch his arm—
“Blondie!”
Someone taps my shoulder, and I turn in surprise, expecting to see one of the president’s aides, demanding to see my ticket…
… and find myself staring instead into his son’s laughing gray eyes.
21
Ask me
I know you want to
Ask me
I’m waiting for you
Ask me
I’d never make you guess
Ask me
Baby, I might say yes
“Ask Me”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Roberts/Ryder
From the album Summer
Cartwright Records
“Hey,” Chris says, smilingly. “Remember me?”
I stare at him, so freaked out that I can’t utter a sound.
Christopher Allington. Christopher Allington had sought me out.Chris Allington is holding on to my upper arm and smiling down at me like we’re old friends bumping into one another at the bowling alley or whatever. He’s even offering me a glass of champagne!
Well, it would be rude to say no.
I take the flute from him mutely, my heart hammering hard in my ears. Christopher Allington. Christopher Allington. Oh my God. How can you stand there and talk to me like it’s nothing? You tried to kill me today. Remember?
“I met you outside Fischer Hall last night,” Chris prompts, thinking I can’t place him. As if I’m likely to forget! “That was you, wasn’t it?”
I pretend to suddenly recover my memory.
“Oh,” I say, vaguely—though there’s nothing vague about the tingly awareness I feel all up and down my arm, where he still holds it. “Sure. How are you?”
He lets go of me. His grip hadn’t been unpleasant. Not at all.
But isn’t that weird? I mean,shouldn’t it have been? Seeing as how he’s a killer, and all?
Weird.
“I’m fine,” he says.
He looks fine. His tux is much better-fitting than his father’s. Instead of a bow tie, though, Chris wears a regular tie. Somehow, on him, it looks exactly right.
“Actually, I’m a lot better now that I spotted you,” he goes on. “I really hate these things. Don’t you?”
“Oh,” I say with a shrug. “I don’t know. It isn’t that bad. At least there’s alcohol.”
I down the champagne he’d offered me in a single swallow, despite Cooper’s warning about drinking on the job. After the shock Chris has given me, sneaking up on me like that, I feel like I sort of deserve it.
Chris, watching me, laughs.
“So, who’re are you here with?” he wants to know. “Those tickets aren’t cheap. Are you one of the student reps?”
I shrug again. Detective Canavan had said that in his experience, people who kill are excessively stupid, and I’m beginning to think that in Chris’s case, this might actually be true. The fact that I’m almost ten years older than your average student government representative doesn’t seem to register on him…
… which is fine by me. I mean, seeing as how I’m trying to be all sneaky and undercover to get him to slip up and confess and stuff. Not that I have any idea how I’m going to do this, of course.
And at least Chris, unlike some people, seems to appreciate how I look in my borrowed dress. I see his gaze stray toward my cleavage several times. And not because my zipper is coming apart in the back and everything is hanging loose. I know because I check.
The band starts playing a slow tune. To my surprise, some couples actually wander out onto the library’s main floor and begin to dance… Chris’s mom and dad among them. I see President Allington lead his wife out onto the dance floor with a sweeping bow that has the trustees laughing and applauding.
It’s kind of sweet, actually.
At least until Mrs. Allington trips on her bell-bottoms and almost falls flat on her face. Fortunately President Allington whirls her around and makes it look like it was a fancy step he’d engineered on purpose.
Which is even sweeter. Maybe Chris isn’t as unlucky as I’d originally thought. In his parentage, I mean.
“Hey,” Chris says, surprising me yet again, this time by taking the champagne glass from my hand and setting it down on the tray of a passing waiter. “Wanna dance?”
My head whips around so fast to look at him, a long strand of my hair smacks me in the mouth and sticks to my lip gloss.
“What?” I ask, desperately trying to remove it. The hair, I mean. From my mouth.
“Do you wanna dance?” Chris asks. His grin is slightly mocking, to show me that he knows as well as I do that dancing at the New York College Pansy Ball is kind of… well, goobery. Still, he wants to let me know he’s game…
His grin is infectious. It’s the grin of the high school football captain, the handsomest boy in school, so sure of himself and his good looks that it never even occurs to him that some girl might say No way, Jose to his invitation. Probably because no girl ever has.
And I’m not about to be the first one.
And not just because I want to find out whether or not Chris is the one who killed Elizabeth and Roberta.
So I smile and say, “Sure,” and follow Chris out onto the dance floor.
I’m not the world’s greatest dancer, but it doesn’t matter, because Chris is good. He’s probably been to one of those prep schools where they teach all the guys the box step, or whatever. He’s so good, he can talk while he dances. I have to count inside my head. One-two-three. One-two-three. Step ball change… oh wait, that’s a different dance.
“So,” Chris says, conversationally, as he presses my body to his and swings me expertly around, hardly wincing when I accidentally stomp on his toes. “What’s your major?”
I’m trying to look—surreptitiously—for Cooper. I mean, he’s supposed to be keeping an eye on me, right?
But I don’t see him anywhere. I don’t see Marian, either, for that matter. Have I been ditched for an ex-girlfriend? After that fuss Cooper made about potentially risking my life in my pursuit of the killer of Fischer Hall, has he run out on me?
Well! Nice to know how much he cares!
Although, you know, seeing as how he’s letting me live in his house rent-free—well, virtually—I guess I haven’t got any right to complain. I mean, how many people in Manhattan have such easy access to a washer/dryer?
In answer to Chris’s question about my major, I say, “Um… I’m undeclared.”
Well, that much is true.
“Oh, really?” Chris looks genuinely interested. “That’s good. Keep your options open. I think too many people go into college with their mind already made up about what career they want to pursue when they graduate. They stick to the core curriculum for that major and don’t give themselves the opportunity to try new things. You know, find out what they’re really good at it. It could be something they never thought of. Like jewelry making.”
Wow. I didn’t know you could take jewelry making for college credit. You could actually wear your final. How practical.
“What are you leaning toward?” Chris asks.
I’m going to say pre-med, but changed my mind at the last second.
“Criminal justice,” I lie, to see how he reacts.
But he doesn’t run away to cower in fear, or anything. Instead, he says breezily, “Yeah, fascinating stuff, criminal justice. I’ve been thinking about heading into criminal law myself.”
I bet you have. Aloud I ask, putting on a playful tone, “So what was a great big law student like yourself doing hanging around an undergraduate residence hall?”
At least Chris has the grace to look embarrassed. “Well,” he says, in an aw shucks voice, “my parents do live there.”
“And so do a lot of attractive coeds,” I remind him. Remember? You’ve killed two of them?
He grins. “That, too,” he says. “I don’t know. The girls in my program aren’t exactly—”
Over Chris’s shoulder, I finally catch a glimpse of Cooper. He appears to be exchanging words with Professor Braithwaite. Really. They are having what looks like a heated conversation over by the raw bar. I see Cooper fling a glance at me.
So he hasn’t forgotten. He’s still keeping an eye on me.
Fighting with his ex, too, it appears.
But also keeping an eye on me.
Since I realize he doesn’t know what Chris looks like, he might not know I’m dancing with my lead suspect. So I point to Chris’s back, and mouth,This is Chris to him.
But this doesn’t work out quite the way I expect it to. Oh, Cooper gets the message, and all.
But so does Marian, who, seeing that she no longer has his full attention, follows the direction of Cooper’s gaze, and sees me.
Not knowing what else to do, I wave, lamely. Marian looks away from me coldly.
Whoa. Sorry.
“The girls in law school—”
I swivel my head around and realize that Chris is talking. To me.
“Well, let’s just say they consider sitting in a carrel in the law library studying till midnight every night a good time,” he says, with a wink.
What is he talking about?
Then I remember. Undergrad coeds versus law school students. Oh, right. The murder investigation.
“Ah,” I nod, knowingly. “Law school girls. Not like those fresh-from-the-farm first years in Fischer Hall, huh?”
He laughs outright.
“You’re pretty funny,” he says. “What year are you?”
I just shrug and try to look like it wasn’t, um, let’s see, seven or so years since my first legal drink.
“At least tell me your name,” he urges, in this low voice that I’m sure some former girlfriend had told him was sexy.
“You can just keep calling me Blondie,” I purr. “That way you’ll be able to keep me straight from all your other girlfriends.”
Chris lifts his eyebrows and grins. “What other girlfriends?”
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