by Diane Kelly
She looked back at her phone and smiled. “They are, aren’t they?”
As we ate our lunch, the conversation turned to standard getting-to-know-you topics. I kept my answers short and simple, always turning the conversation back to the two of them. Halfway through my sandwich—Brigit had already wolfed hers down—I managed to lead the discussion in the direction of Miranda Hernandez.
I took a sip of my drink. “My roommate said that the girl who used to live with her had some type of drug problem and that her parents forced her to withdraw. I think she said the girl’s name was Miranda something? Hernandez, maybe?” Of course my roommate had said nothing of the sort. Heck, she’d hardly said two words to me, and the words had been snide and insulting. But these girls didn’t need to know that my information had actually come from the Fort Worth Police Department files.
April said, “I heard she committed suicide.”
I faked a gasp. “Really? That’s awful.”
Jasmine dipped a French fry in ketchup. “That’s what I heard, too. She overdosed on heroin, I think.”
Blurgh. I’d hoped these girls might be able to give me some information, but so far all they had was misinformation. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. That’s how the rumor mill worked, after all. Things got misinterpreted or blown out of proportion or misstated as it moved along. Still, maybe there was a chance I could steer them back on track.
I toyed with my straw. “I thought it had something to do with Molly.”
Jasmine tossed the fry into her mouth. “Molly who?”
Clearly, I was barking up the wrong tree here.
Jasmine’s phone chimed and she tapped the screen to turn off the alarm. “That’s my reminder to get my ass to class.” She stood. “See y’all later.”
As Jasmine left the table, April finished the last of her burger and stood, too. “Nice meeting you, Morgan. See you around.”
“Bye.” Alone with Brigit now, I polished off my sandwich, tossed my trash in the garbage can, and the two of us went in search of Scharbauer Hall.
FIFTEEN
CANINE COED
Brigit
Brigit’s day was going great!
First Megan gave her a new comfy bed to sleep on, then she took her on long walks back and forth across the campus and let her sniff everything in sight, then she fed her a sandwich loaded with dead animal. And she’d been petted, stroked, scratched, and rubbed by packs and packs of people.
Brigit loved college!
Now they were in a room with a lot of seats facing the same direction, and most of those seats were filled with people in their sexual prime. The hormone levels nearly overpowered the poor dog’s nose.
A woman standing at the front of the room continued to speak. She’d been talking for quite a while now, but had said none of the words Brigit liked. She hadn’t said “walk” even once, let alone “treat” or “play.” It was all blah-blah-blah. She was like a high-strung Chihuahua, yip-yip-yipping but saying nothing of importance.
Might as well take a nap. Brigit lowered her head to her paws and closed her eyes. Yep, college is awesome.
SIXTEEN
NEGOTIATIONS
The Dealer
“We buy a lot of your products,” the Dealer said, his grip tight on his phone as if he could force the man on the other end to comply with his demands. “It’s time for you to buy some of ours.”
The man had the nerve to laugh. Bastard.
“Show me something you make better and cheaper than ourselves,” the man replied in imperfect English, “maybe then we buy from you.”
SEVENTEEN
SNIFFING FOR SUSPECTS
Megan
Back at the dorm that afternoon, I heard the sink running in the bathroom. Given that my roommate remained seated at her desk studying with her earbuds firmly in her ears, totally ignoring me, it had to be one of my suitemates.
I walked to the door that led to the sink area and stepped inside, closing the door behind me.
The girl’s dark hair was cut in a short, choppy style that looked ridiculously cute on her. She was petite, with delicate features and long eyelashes. Her gaze met mine in the mirror. “Hey, there,” she said. “You the new suitemate?”
“That’s me,” I said. “My name’s Morgan.”
She turned to dry her hands on a towel. “I’m Paige McQuaid.”
“It’s great to meet you. I just moved to Fort Worth and I don’t know many people here yet.”
Her lips curved in a self-assured smile. “Well, you’ve met the right person. I know everybody around here.”
I returned the smile. “Good to know.” Already, I could peg Paige as the queen bee type, an alpha female, the kind of confident, powerful girl who could be your best friend or your worst enemy, or sometimes even both at the same time.
My roommate’s voice cried out from our room. “Don’t leave me alone with this dog!”
I rolled my eyes.
Paige tilted her head. “You’ve got a dog in there?”
“Yeah.” I waved a hand. “Want to meet her?”
“Definitely!”
Paige followed me into my room and I motioned for Brigit to come over. She hopped down from the bed and stretched on the rug.
“Her name’s Britney,” I said.
Paige dropped to her knees and put her hands on either side of Brigit’s neck. “Hello, Britney! You look like a sweetie pie.”
A dog lover? Paige and I were going to get along just fine. One look at the bliss on Brigit’s face as Paige scratched and petted her and it was clear my partner felt the same way.
Paige looked up at me. “How’d you get permission to have a dog?”
“I have epilepsy,” I said, the lie rolling off my tongue more easily with each iteration. “She gives me a warning when I’m about to have a seizure.”
“She can tell that?”
I nodded. “Apparently I give off signals that even I don’t notice. But she can.”
“Cool.” She released Brigit and stood. “My roommate and I were about to go to dinner. Wanna come with?”
“That would be great.” I motioned to the back of my roommate, who had yet to turn around. She had yet to tell me her name, too. “Should we invite her?” I whispered.
Paige’s face contorted in a grimace. She stuck out her tongue and shook her head.
I formed an “okay” sign with my thumb and index finger. Message received. I grabbed my ID card and Brigit’s leash and we headed back through the bathroom to Paige’s room on the other side.
Lounging on one of the twin beds was a girl with mocha skin and bronze hair cut in a sleek, angular style. Paige pointed to her roommate and me in turn. “Morgan, Alexa. Alexa, Morgan.” She then pointed down to Brigit. “That’s Britney.”
Alexa sat bolt upright, a broad smile jumping to her lips. “A dog?” She tossed her history book aside, rolled off the bed, and came over. “It’s okay if I pet her, right?”
“She’d love it.”
She reached out a hand to let Brigit sniff her and, when Brigit looked up at her in approval, ran her hand over the dog’s head and neck. “She’s so soft and shiny!”
“It’s her shampoo,” I said. Of course I left out the additional fact that I, too, used the peach-scented flea shampoo on my own hair to keep it just as soft and shiny. In fact, I’d scrounged one of Frankie’s empty shampoo bottles out of the recycle bin and filled it with the flea shampoo to bring here. Couldn’t have these girls figuring out my secret. It would be too embarrassing.
Paige stepped to the door. “Morgan’s going down to dinner with us. C’mon, Alexa.”
Something flickered across Alexa’s face, something that told me she didn’t much appreciate her roommate speaking to her in the same way I spoke to my dog. That could be the problem with queen bee types. They were great leaders, but they tended to talk down to their subjects. A split second later, though, the smile was back on Alexa’s face and we were out the door.
Paige eyed my meal as she set her plate down on the table, her cell phone next to it. “You some kind of health nut?”
“I guess you could say that,” I replied.
“Not me,” she said. “I run on pizza and truffle fries.”
“They serve truffle fries here in the dining hall?” I asked.
Paige scoffed. “I wish.”
Zzzzt. Paige’s phone sounded with an incoming text, the screen indicating someone identified as Chaoxiang had sent her a message. She picked up her phone, smiling softly as her gaze ran over the words on the screen. She used her thumbs to type in a quick reply, pushed the button to turn her phone off, and returned it to the table, taking a bite of her pizza.
As we dug into our dinner, I asked the two what they were studying.
“Political science,” Paige said.
“Me, too!” I said. “Were you planning on going to Essie Espinoza’s rally Wednesday night?”
“Only to check out the competition.”
Competition? “What do you mean?”
“I intern at Senator Sutton’s local office.”
Impressive. Also, cause for concern. If she’d been with his entourage at the Fourth of July event, she might have seen me there and eventually recognize me and Brigit as the K-9 team who’d been up on the stage.
“Wow,” I said. “How’d you get a job in a senator’s office?”
Alexa chimed in now. “Is it called a job if it’s unpaid? Or is it called volunteering?”
Paige cut a raw look at her roommate. “Hardly any internships pay anymore. Students do them for the experience, not the money.” She turned back to me now. “I got the job,” she said, emphasizing the word, “because my grades are really good. I’ve made the dean’s list every semester so far.”
I broached the subject in what I hoped was a subtle manner. “Senator Sutton’s the politician who spoke at Panther Pavilion last week, right? At the Fourth of July event?”
“That’s him,” she replied. “My parents know him from the club.”
“The club?”
“Timarron Country Club,” she said, “in Southlake.”
Southlake was one of the most exclusive Fort Worth suburbs, sitting about twenty miles northeast of the city. The average home price hovered just under nine hundred thousand dollars. In Texas, where houses were relatively inexpensive compared to the rest of the country, that kind of money got you an awful lot in the way of square footage and custom upgrades and gates to keep out the riffraff.
“Is that where you’re from?” I asked. “Southlake.”
Paige’s mouth full of pizza now, she merely nodded in return.
“Did you go to Panther Pavilion on the Fourth to hear Senator Sutton speak?” I mentally crossed my fingers that she’d tell me she hadn’t been there.
“No,” she said. “I have better things to do on my day off than hang around with my coworkers. They’re all like forty or fifty years old and the only thing they want to talk about is their kids or their lawns or their arthritis.”
Relief relaxed me and I felt my shoulders loosen of their own accord. “Interning for a senator must still be exciting, though, getting to work on big issues and meet important people.”
“Meh,” she replied. “I had way more fun working the purse counter at Macy’s last summer. All of the exciting stuff happens in his Washington, D.C., office. His local office handles all the routine work. They’ve got me responding to his e-mails. People only write in to bitch about things.” She mimicked his constituents. “Social Security doesn’t pay enough for me to live on. All these wars cost too much. China’s taken all of our manufacturing jobs, do something about it.” She rolled her eyes. “Get a life, people.”
With that kind of attitude, she might have been better off majoring in something other than political science. In fact, I wondered how she’d chosen her major and asked as much. “So you’re majoring in poli sci why, then?”
“That’s a good question.” She plucked a pepperoni off her pizza. “I couldn’t make up my mind when I started college so I took one of those aptitude tests. It told me I’m a people person and suggested I go into public service, nursing, or sales. Blood makes me squeamish, so nursing is definitely out, but sometimes I think maybe I should change my major to marketing. There’s so many restrictions in politics. You can’t say this, you can’t do that.” Another eye roll. “Ugh!”
Her rant complete, she stuck out her tongue and dropped the pepperoni on it as if it were a communion wafer. I was tempted to give her an “amen.” Instead, I steered the conversation onto a more relevant topic, for me, anyway. “My roommate said something about the girl who lived there before me doing drugs?”
Alexa cringed. “Yeah. She took some bad Molly.”
Paige plucked another pepperoni off her pizza. “I don’t think the Molly was bad. I think she just didn’t know how to prepare for using it.”
Aha! So this girl knew something about the drug. “Prepare for it?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”
She waved the pepperoni around. “You know. Like making sure she was hydrated and all that.”
“Does that help? Drinking water?”
“Supposedly,” she said. “I mean, I don’t do that kind of thing, so I can’t personally say. But you hear stuff.”
What do you hear? I wanted to ask. And from who? But I knew I had to be subtle or risk giving myself away. “Do a lot of people here do Molly?”
Paige shrugged. “As much as any other college, I guess. Most people just drink if they’re looking to party.”
“Do you drink?” I asked.
Paige and Alexa exchanged glances before Paige answered for them. “We’re only nineteen. We’re not old enough to drink.” She punctuated her words with a snort. “So of course we do it!” She laughed out loud now.
Alexa joined her. “What’s the harm in a beer or two?”
“Or ten,” Paige replied, which led to more laughter.
“Where do you get it?” I asked.
“Parties, mostly,” Paige said.
“Do you go to a lot of parties?” I asked.
“Pretty much every weekend,” Paige said, slightly smug with pride at her popularity.
“Take me with you sometime?” I pleaded. “I’d love to have some fun and meet people.”
She cocked her head. “Guys, maybe?”
“Sure,” I said. “If you know any cute ones.” A twinge of guilt puckered my gut. If I went to any parties with these girls, I’d be sure to wear the granny panties Seth had foisted on me.
“Speaking of guys,” Paige said, her gaze shifting to somewhere behind me and narrowing, “there’s Logan.”
I turned to see a ginger-haired boy heading our way, a smile on his face. With his chiseled features, nice build, and preppy dress, he looked like he’d stepped out of a J. Crew ad.
“Not bad,” I said, wagging my brows.
Paige’s lip curled back in disgust. “Before you take off your panties, you should know he spent spring break with hookers in Vegas. He brought home crabs and herpes as a souvenir.”
I gagged on my drink and was still coughing when Logan stepped up to the table.
“Hi, ladies,” he said, his voice oozing sex as he shamelessly looked me up and down. “Who’s your new friend with the dog?”
“Morgan,” Paige snapped before I could respond. “And she doesn’t date diseased losers like you, so fuck off.”
Despite the harsh language, Logan remained unfazed, even chuckling. “Such dirty talk for such a pretty girl. You give Senator Sutton blow jobs with that mouth?”
“Ew!” If I’d had my police baton with me, I probably would’ve hit the guy on reflex.
Logan eyed Paige inte
ntly. “You know you want me, Paige. When will you just admit it?”
She scoffed. “What part of ‘fuck off’ did you not understand?”
He chuckled again, taking us all in with his sweeping gaze. “Later, ladies.”
Once he’d stepped away, Paige let out a groan. “I can’t believe I ever had a crush on that loser.”
I cast a glance his way as he aimed for the pizza counter. “You did?”
“Beginning of freshman year,” she admitted. “Before I realized what a man-whore he is.”
As we continued eating, I glanced around the room, noting a girl with wavy red hair. Could she be Ruby Ruthswohl, the girl I suspected had been with Miranda Hernandez at Panther Pavilion? It was possible. She was about the same size as the girl I’d seen and looked similar to the photos of Ruby I’d seen on Facebook. She was dressed casually in jeans, a tank top, and flip-flops, with a trendy and expensive Kate Spade backpack-style purse on her back.
“Do either of you know the redhead by the soda machine?” I asked. If they did, I could ask whether they’d ever seen her with Miranda.
They both glanced toward the girl.
Alexa shook her head in response.
Paige said, “No, I don’t know her. Why?”
Yeah, Morgan. Why? “She looks sort of familiar. I thought maybe I knew her from somewhere. She might be in one of my classes.” I changed the subject again. “Are y’all staying in the dorm this fall, too?”
“I am,” Alexa said.
“Not me,” Paige replied. “No offense, but I’m tired of sharing a room and bathroom. I’m going to start looking for apartments soon.”
Honestly, I couldn’t blame her. I knew from experience that dorm life could get old pretty quickly. You had no control over your space, little privacy, and all manner of roommate issues ranging from dirty panties on the floor to theft of laundry money. Plus, having lived in Southlake, she’d likely had a large bedroom and bath all to herself growing up.
We chatted amiably for the rest of the meal before Paige begged off to go meet a study group and Alexa excused herself to do some reading for her literature class. I decided to take Brigit on a sniffing tour of the dorm and identify rooms on which she alerted to drugs. The campus police could give me the names of the students in the rooms, enabling me to narrow down my search for the Molly dealer. Of course Brigit and I would have to be careful that it wasn’t obvious we were doing a drug sweep.