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“Look, I’ve found out almost every secret this town has to tell,” Zoe said quickly. “There’s still a chance that it’s Brad Young, but he’s playing the tease card. I can tell he wants me to keep asking, but I really don’t think it’s him. Honestly, I’m ninety-nine percent sure that Gandalf isn’t at the reunion . But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up. It might be Teresa, and she’s going to be here tonight for the party. I’ll scope her out, okay?” Zoe winced a little. Hopefully Teresa’s high-school crush was a thing of the past.
“Hang on,” Meghan said slowly, her tone taking on the air of someone about to break bad news. Zoe cringed. “Just forget the Gandalf idea, okay? It was crazy to begin with.”
She almost dropped the phone. Fumbling to put it back to her ear, Zoe asked, “Sorry? We must have a bad connection.”
“Zach took the job with Microsoft,” Meghan said baldly.
Guilt beat on Zoe’s shoulders like a hailstorm, pounding home how badly she’d let her brother down. Sure she’d paid lip service to finding Gandalf, but she’d spent most of her time mooning over Dex. Chasing Dex. Doing Dex.
God, she sucked.
“Tell him not to accept yet, please. Give me another day. Or better yet,” she said, the image of her laptop lover flashing through her mind. “I might have someone else. Someone even better.”
“Zoe—”
“No,” she cut her off. “Just wait until I call back, okay? I think I have the perfect person. Give me an hour. Two at the most.”
It could work. She’d ask Dex how he’d found an avatar that looked like her when he’d sent her that cyber-sex program. He’d said he had an inside track with Avigraph. Maybe he could introduce her. The possibility swirled in her head.
Not wanting to waste any time explaining, Zoe muttered a quick goodbye, hung up and tossed her phone in her purse. She needed to find Dex. She headed toward the reception desk to have him paged. Before she’d taken five steps, someone grabbed her shoulder.
She turned, ready to brush off whoever it was and saw Brad’s leering face.
“Zoe, I missed you last night,” he greeted her, pulling her into a tight hug.
She grimaced against his broad chest, then pushed away.
“I was busy,” she said, mentally rolling her eyes at how apropos that statement was. “Look, I’m sorry to do this, but I have to run. There’s someone I need to talk to.”
“Did you hear the news?” he said, his brown eyes sparkling with amusement and something that looked like malice. “They made the big announcement.”
He dropped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her so close his thigh pressed against hers. Weirded out, Zoe tried to duck away without making a big deal of it. She didn’t know why, but Brad was making her feel as though there wasn’t enough air in the room. Smothered, almost.
“Kiss your king, sweetheart,” he said, pulling her into another hug.
Zoe didn’t bother to play nice this time. She shoved her palms against his chest and pushed away. “Congratulations,” she said with a stiff smile. “I’ve got to go, though.”
Apparently he expected more accolades than that. The physical kind. His smile took on a nasty edge. “Don’t you want to hear who’s queen?”
“Not really.” She figured Candice was still in the banquet hall gloating over her crown. Other than feeling bad for Julie, she didn’t care.
“Look, I really have to go,” she said, pulling away again. “There’s someone I need to talk to.”
“I’m the guy you want.” His smile was cheesy, his eyes hard. Zoe realized in that moment that she’d been a complete and total idiot as a teenager.
She shook her head and turned to leave.
“I hear you’ve been asking all over and now that you’ve got me, you’re gonna walk?”
She frowned and glanced at him over her shoulder.
“I’m Gandalf. Keep it to yourself, though,” he said in a jovial, almost political tone. “I hear you’ve been asking questions, trying to find me.”
Zoe turned to face him fully. He was saying the right words, but her lie detector was working overtime. Between her and Julie, they’d talked to everyone and all but ruled Brad out. Not because the evidence didn’t point to him—what little there was did—but because the original game had a strong, kick-ass heroine and the reality was that Brad was a misogynistic pig. That, and while she hadn’t found out what his actual job was, she knew he’d been living in Texas and that his work had something to do with engineering. Not computers. So why would he make it up?
