aterovis_bm_reapthewhirlwind.p65

aterovis_bm_reapthewhirlwind.p65 Page 21

by Arlene Chance

  Aidan held out the phone, interrupting my thoughts.

  I hadn’t been paying attention to his side of the conversation, so I really had no idea who he was talking to or why they had called. Aidan read the confusion on my face.

  “It’s Laura,” he said. “She wants to go talk to Blake.”

  I took the phone. “Hello?”

  “Will?” Laura said. “What’s going on? I didn’t think you were ever going to answer. I called the gallery and Nikki said you had the day off. You weren’t still asleep were you?”

  “No, we weren’t asleep,” I said carefully.

  “Well anyway, I was going to see if you wanted to talk to Blake after work, but since you’re off how about going now?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, as in right now.”

  “I can’t go now.”

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  “Why not? You have the day off, what do you have to do that’s so important?”

  “Nothing, it’s just—”

  “Great, then we can go.”

  “Now isn’t a good time.”

  “Then when?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “For God’s sake, Will! Do you want to do this or not?

  I thought you wanted to find Joey’s killer.”

  “I do!”

  “Then act like it. You know we need to talk to Blake.

  Killian even said it could be really important.”

  “You should go,” Aidan said softly into my ear. He’d been lying next to me the whole time, lazily trailing his fingers across my chest.

  I covered the mouthpiece of the phone with my hand.

  “What about us?”

  “We’re great, don’t you think?” he said with a grin.

  “Besides, I’ll go with you. I’m free; I slept through the only class I had today. I’ll follow wherever you go, oh fearless leader.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him and sighed. It was obvious the water was moving too fast for me to swim up-stream; I might as well go with the flow. If Aidan was offering to go with me, there was no point in arguing. I spoke back into the phone, “Okay, let’s do it.”

  “Great! How soon can you meet me at the dorms?”

  “I don’t even know where the dorms are.”

  “I do,” said Aidan.

  “Give us a couple hours,” I said.

  “Great.” I could hear the triumph in her voice. “I’ll see you then. Oh, and Will, are you and Aidan ?”

  She left the question unasked but I knew what she 239

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  was after. With a malicious smile playing on my lips I said, “Bye Laura,” and hit the end button disconnecting the line. Revenge was sweet and I knew the best torture for Laura was unsatisfied curiosity.

  I dropped the phone off the side of the bed and turned toward Aidan. His arms wrapped around me.

  “A couple hours, huh? That should be enough time.

  Shall we pick up where we left off?”

  He didn’t have to ask twice.

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  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  We were late meeting Laura. She was sitting on the curb waiting for us when we got there. She eyed Aidan with suspicion as we approached.

  “He came along to help,” I said before she could ask.

  “At least you’re here,” she said grumpily. “What took you so long?”

  “We were, uh—in the middle of something when you called,” Aidan said with a wide grin. I couldn’t hold back one of my own even as I felt my face flush. Laura looked back and forth between us for a second, then her eyes slowly grew wide.

  “Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “You two are together, aren’t you?”

  I blushed even harder and Aidan just nodded happily.

  “When did this happen?”

  “This morning,” I mumbled.

  “And again this afternoon,” Aidan added with a snicker. My face became even hotter and I briefly feared it might burst into flame.

  “Oh God! I did not need to know that,” Laura said with a slightly stunned expression on her face. For a moment, I wondered if Aidan had gone too far, but sud-241

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  denly she grabbed us both in a ferocious hug that removed all doubt. “I’m so happy for you guys.” Her voice left no doubt that she meant what she was saying.

  I got a little misty eyed for a second as she pulled back. Aidan just kept on grinning.

  “Okay, enough mush,” Laura said briskly. “Wipe that grin off your face, Aidan. As long as you’re here we might as well get to work.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Aidan said, snapping to attention.

  I giggled and Laura rewarded me with a scathing glare. The emotional moment was over. I made an effort to become more serious. “So what’s the plan?” I asked, trying to redeem myself.

  “Why do we need a plan? We’re just going to talk to Blake.”

  “All three of us?”

  “Well I didn’t know Aidan was coming, did I?”

  “If we all show up she might feel as if we’re ganging up on her.”

  “Good point.”

  “And do we know for a fact that she’s in her room?”

  “No,” Laura admitted reluctantly.

  “I think we need a plan,” Aidan said, earning him a glare of his very own.

  “Then come up with one,” she growled.

  “Okay, well first we need to know if she’s in her room.

  Why don’t you call up and see?”

  I could tell Laura resented Aidan taking over as the unspoken leader of the group, but the logic of Aidan’s suggestion was obvious, so without a word she stalked over to the call box. She found Blake’s room code and dialed it in. A female voice quickly answered.

  “Is Blake there?” Laura asked.

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  “No, she’s in class,” the girl responded.

  Laura looked at us questioningly. I shrugged.

  “Um, okay, thanks,” Laura said awkwardly.

  “You want to leave a message?” Blake’s roommate asked.

  “No, that’s okay. Thanks anyway.”

  “No problem.”

  “Okay, now what?” Laura said after she had disconnected.

  We stood for a minute, staring at each other in silence.

  “I’m fresh out of ideas,” Aidan admitted at last.

  “We could search her room,” I suggested.

  They both stared at me as if I’d just grown a second head.

  “Search her room?” Laura repeated.

  “Yeah, to see if—”

  “If what? To see if she spray-painted a confession on the wall?”

  “Maybe we should search her room,” Aidan said, coming to my rescue. “It can’t hurt. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “What would we even be looking for?” Laura continued to argue.

  “Well, like when we searched Joey’s room, you said to look for anything out of the ordinary.”

  “How do I know what’s ordinary for this girl? I hardly even know her. At least I knew Joey.”

  She had a point.

  “Maybe her roommate can help,” Aidan suggested.

  “She sounded nice.”

  “We could talk to her,” Laura conceded. “Blake might have confided in her.”

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  “So do we just march up and knock on the door?” I asked.

  “We need a plan,” Aidan said with spirit.

  “Here’s a plan, you dork,” Laura said. “You distract the roommate with questions and Will and I’ll look around discreetly.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to search the room,” he pointed out.

  “Will you quit making everything so difficult?” she snapped.

  “Why am I distracting her? Why can’t Will?”

  “Because I said so and that’s the plan.”

  “How am I supposed to distract her?”

  “You’re a cute guy, she’s a female—you’ll think of something. Improvise.”

  “I’m not exactly an expert on guy/girl dynamics.”

  “
Wing it, Romeo.”

  “If he’s Romeo does that make me Juliet?” I asked. “I want to be Romeo.”

  “You’re the one with a thing for balconies.”

  “Ouch,” I swung my cast at her head and she ducked.

  “So I’m the distraction while you two get to do the fun part. What would you have done if I hadn’t come?

  After all I wasn’t even invited to this party to begin with.”

  “I would have made do with what we had. A good leader makes use of the resources available to her.”

  “Okay, that’s what a good leader does, but what do you do?”

  “Ha-ha. Are we going to stand here trading snappy one-liners or are we going to do what we came here to do? Now come on, we don’t have all day.”

  We took the stairs up to the floor Blake lived on and 244

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  found her room number.

  “Okay,” Laura whispered, once again taking charge.

  “Aidan, you knock on the door, we’ll be around the corner.”

  “Why will you be around the corner?” he hissed. I was beginning to think that Laura was making stuff up just to be bossy.

  “We just will. Stop arguing.”

  “I’m not arguing—”

  Laura cut him off by knocking on the door and quickly dragging me off by the wrist. Aidan took a few steps after us as the door swung open. From my vantage point of just at the edge of the corner, I could see Aidan but not the person who had answered the door. I watched as Aidan straightened suddenly to face Blake’s roommate, looking like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  “I- uh—hi—” Aidan stammered. I stifled a giggle.

  “Hey Aidan,” the roommate said. “What’s up?”

  “Keisha! Hi!” Relief flooded his voice. Obviously, Aidan knew Blake’s roommate.

  No one said anything for a second, so Keisha tried again, “So, what are you doing here? Did you miss an assignment in class?”

  “Assignment? Oh, no. I, uh—”

  “Aidan, boy, I know you’re not trying to hit on me!”

  Her voice was filled with laughter.

  “What? No! I mean, yes?” Poor Aidan sounded so flustered I couldn’t stand it anymore. I let loose with a loud snort of pure amusement.

  Laura jabbed with an elbow to my side and Aidan looked aghast.

  “Is someone with you?” Keisha asked, suddenly 245

  JOSH ATEROVIS

  sounding suspicious.

  “Um, yes?”

  With a sigh, Laura pushed past me and went to stand next to Aidan. I followed still trying to keep from laughing. This was not going as planned.

  “Hi, I’m Laura,” she said introducing herself to the young black woman standing in the doorway.

  “I’m Will,” I volunteered.

  “What’s going on?” Keisha asked. She had a wary expression now, as if she thought we were trying to pull something over on her. She was tall and a little on the heavy side, but not in an unattractive way. She wore the extra pounds well, as most African-American women seem to do. She had huge dark brown eyes and a short afro.

  “We were friends of Joey Taylor,” Laura said. Keisha gave her a blank stare and she went on. “The guy who died at the party about a month ago?”

  “Oh yeah,” Keisha said, still looking confused. “So why are you here?”

  “Well, Blake is the one who found him.”

  “Yeah? Oh, you’re here to see Blake. She’s at class.”

  “I know. We’re the ones who called up. We were hoping she might have said something to you about what happened that night. None of us was there and we were just trying to figure out what happened. You know, so we can move on.”

  “Sure, I know what you mean. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Blake and I aren’t exactly bosom buddies.

  She doesn’t tell me much and I don’t tell her anything.

  To be honest, I can’t stand her. The girl’s like the fucking energizer bunny. You know how bunnies mate? They got nothing on Blake. She just keeps going and going 246

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  and going. Guys in here all hours of the day and night.

  I hafta do all my studying either in my girlfriend’s room or in the library.”

  I was the first to grasp the possibilities here.

  “You and Blake don’t get along?” I asked to clarify.

  “Nope. Oil and vinegar.”

  “Would you care if we looked around her stuff real quick?”

  “Help yourself; it’s no skin off my nose. I don’t know what you’re looking for, but as far as I’m concerned, you can take whatever you want. The less of her shit in here the better. She’d probably not even notice it was missing. Not that she has anything worth taking unless you want a lifetime supply of condoms.”

  “We’re not going to take anything—” I started, but Keisha waved me off as she turned back into the room, disappearing briefly from view. I didn’t know whether I was supposed to follow her or not.

  “I don’t care what you do, baby,” she said as she quickly reappeared carrying a canvas backpack. “I’m off to class. The room is all yours. Just leave my stuff alone and nobody will get hurt.”

  She slipped past me and sashayed off down the hall to the elevator. We watched her go with slack jaws until the elevator door closed after her.

  “We have a class together,” Aidan said unnecessarily.“You are such an imbecile,” Laura growled.

  “What? I got us in, didn’t I?”

  “No, Will and I got us in. You almost got a date.”

  “We can stand out here and argue, or we can take a look inside,” I said as I started into the room. Laura and Aidan followed. It was immediately obvious which side 247

  JOSH ATEROVIS

  of the room was whose. You didn’t even have to be a detective to figure it out. Keisha’s side was meticulously neat with everything in its designated place and a few pictures of what must have been her family set up on the desk. In contrast, Blake’s side looked like a dump truck had backed up and dumped a load of trash on it.

  Wadded balls of fast-food wrappers were tossed haphazardly about the floor and almost every surface was covered with discarded clothing, make-up products, and papers.

  “Dear Lord in heaven,” Laura breathed. She nudged the closest pile cautiously with her foot, as if afraid that something alive might be hiding in it.

  “Where do we start?” I asked.

  “With a shovel?” Aidan suggested.

  “We’ll never find anything, even if we did know what we were looking for,” Laura lamented.

  I picked up a pile of papers and flipped through them.

  They were all school assignments. I dropped them back in their place and picked up another pile which turned out to be the same thing. With a matching pair of sighs, Laura and Aidan started pawing through piles of their own. We worked for a few minutes, trying to keep things pretty much where they were just in case Blake did have some sort of order to the chaos.

  “Hey,” Aidan called just as we heard someone at the door. We all jumped guiltily to our feet and clumped together in the center of the room. The door swung open to reveal a rather startled-looking girl with shoulder length dirty-blonde hair. She had on just a little too much make-up and was wearing skin-tight jeans and an equally tight shirt that made the most of her considerable assets.

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  “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my room?”

  “Hi, Blake. Keisha let us in,” Laura said quickly. “I’m in one of your classes. Laura Duvier?”

  “Yeah, okay,” Blake said looking confused. “So what are you doing in my room? And who are they?” She gestured toward Aidan and me.

  “These are my friends, Will and Aidan. We came to talk to you.”

  At our names, Blake’s eyes flickered over us uncertainly, but then came back to rest on Laura. “Why do you want to talk to me?”

  “You’re the one who found Joey Taylor at David Kemp’s party, right?”

  Her eyes slid back toward Aidan and me. “Yeah,”

&nb
sp; she said cagily. “So?”

  “We were friends of Joey. We wanted to ask you some questions.”

  “What did you say your names were?”

  “I’m Laura Duvier and this is Aidan Scott and Will Keegan.”

  Something was definitely going on inside Blake’s head, but what it was I couldn’t begin to guess. She seemed to become agitated at the mention of our names.

  “Look, I have a lot of stuff to do,” Blake said, edging past us into the room. “This isn’t a good time to talk.”

  “It’ll only take a second,” Laura tried.

  “I can’t help you.” She clutched her books close to her chest, as if they were a shield she had to keep between her and us.

  “But you don’t even know what we want to ask.”

  “I only found him.”

  “Blake, please. At least listen to us.”

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  JOSH ATEROVIS

  “Fine. You have one minute.”

  “How’d you find him?”

  “I, uh, I needed air so I stepped outside and there he was, floating face down in the pool, just under the surface. It was horrible. I—I screamed.” Her eyes had become unfocused, as if she were seeing that night again.

  “Was anyone with you?” Laura asked gently.

  She snapped back into focus. “What? No! Why would you ask that?”

  “So you were alone?”

  “That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”

  “Did you see anyone before you went out there?” I asked. “There was nobody in the back yard when I was inside.”

  “You were there?” Blake asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “For a little while.”

  She thought for a moment, as if deciding how much she wanted to say. “There was nobody else around when I found him. The back yard was empty.”

  It looked like things were going to be over before they even got started. I turned to leave but then I noticed the expression on Laura’s face. I’d seen it before. It usually meant she thought I wasn’t telling her the whole story and she wasn’t about to give up before she got it.

 

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