“I don't suppose you've heard from him?”
At this, the color rises in her cheeks, her polite veneer cracking. “I’m not sure I like what you're insinuating, Baz.”
“And I’m not sure I like that you're here, Janelle.” I shift in my chair, angling my body toward the flames. Away from her. “If you’re truly concerned about Carly and me, just answer my question. The man hurt a friend of mine, and we’re all on edge over it. Anything you can tell me about him might help us track him down.”
“Headmistress Trello contacted me last night—four days after the attack, mind you, which I was less than thrilled about, as you can imagine. She really should’ve notified me on—”
“The professor,” I press. “What do you know?”
Her lips flatten into a thin line as she shoots me another warning glare. The kid inside me shudders, old warnings echoing through my skull.
Watch your tone, young man. You know I don’t like punishing you…
“After her myriad apologies, she enquired about our family’s connection to Professor Phaines,” Janelle continues. “I’ll tell you exactly what I told her—the Professor had fallen out of contact in recent years. I knew he was working closely with Carly and some of the more gifted students at the Academy, but Carly never shared too much about that. You know how she is—very private, very modest about her gifts. She gets that from me.”
I choke back a snort. Modest? Sure. She and Carly are the very definition of humble.
“So you’re here to what—drag Carly back home?” I ask. “Lock her up in a tower for her own protection?”
“Hardly.” She forces out a low chuckle. “You could imagine how wellthatwould go over.”
When I don’t return her smile, she leans closer, her eyes shiny with some trumped-up emotion I have no interest in analyzing.
“The Academy needs me, Baz. My daughter needs me. And I was hoping,” she says, reaching across the space between us to rest her hand on my knee, “that you might need me too. Like before. Remember how nice it was? When we were all… a family?”
Her red fingernails trace a pattern on my denim-covered knee, and I close my eyes and bite back a wave of nausea.Family. The dreaded f-word. She always did enjoy dangling that out in front of me like a golden carrot. A promise as well as a threat.
The woman was sick back then. Clearly, she's gotten worse.
“There was nothing nice about that and you know it,” I mutter, forcing myself to open my eyes and look at her.
Janelle narrows her gaze, the warning behind it intensifying. I force myself not to fidget. As scared as I may feel, that little kid inside me is long gone now, leaving a man in his wake. A broken man, imperfect as hell, but still a man. She can’t hurt me anymore. I know that.
Doesn’t mean those claws won’t take a few swipes at me anyway.
“Oh, now you're just being a poor sport.” She purses her lips into an exaggerated pout, then glances around the room, taking it all in for the first time. She didn't come for Carly's orientation this summer and showed no interest when her daughter officially moved onto campus. I would know—I’m the one who got stuck lugging all Carly's shit into the dorm, trying to help her unpack while she cried about her mother’s complete lack of interest in her life.
Lack of interest? Yeah. It was all I could do not to grab her by the shoulders and tell her how lucky she was.
But apparently, Carly’s lucky streak has run out.
“What did Carly have to say about this unexpected visit?” I ask.
“Carly and I have our… challenges,” she says. “I think she was more surprised than anything else. She just… she needs some time to adjust to the idea, that’s all.”
“The idea ofwhat, exactly?” Why is this woman here? Carly’s safety? Hardly. Janelle is always working some scheme, and this is no different.
“Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?” she asks, dodging the question once again.
“It’s, what, eight in the morning?”
“I’m still on Boston time.”
“Pretty sure it’s morning there, too.”
When I don’t move from my chair, she huffs at me, then stands and slithers over to the kitchen area in search of something strong to drink. A few ransacked cupboards later, she hits the jackpot with a half-empty bottle of vodka undoubtedly leftover from All Hallow’s Eve.
The sound of ice cubes clinking into a glass followed by a long, wet pour is just as familiar as her high heels on the floor, and I keep my face turned away, hoping she can't see the sweat beading across my forehead.
