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“Whoa.” He scooped his hair again, then scooted over to the main controller to switch it manually. He used pause, which suited Eve. But the participants, and the audience who hadn’t seen the badge, went ballistic.
“What the fuck? The fuck? Who did that?” The boy player—who Eve recognized as Darian—whirled around. He looked ready to bash someone with his invisible guitar. “I was about to take Luce down!”
“Bogus.” Luce sniffed, tossing a yard of hair the white-blonde of bleached straw. “I had you. Totally under.”
“Not this eon. Jesus, Coby, what?”
“Got cop,” Coby said and jerked his head toward Eve.
Slouchers and sprawlers came to attention. Darian shifted toward Eve, goggled a little. “Whoa. Seriously?”
“Seriously. Darian Powders?”
“Yeah, um, me!” He raised his hand. “If we’re too loud and like that, so’s everybody.”
Eve saw, out of the corner of her eye, one of the sprawlers butt-scoot toward the door. She stopped him with a single finger point.
“I’m not campus, I’m NYPSD. I have some questions.”
Luce sidestepped to Darian, put her hand in one of his pockets in a way that told Eve they weren’t just game rivals, but involved. “You need a lawyer, Dar.”
“What? Why? Why?”
“When a cop asks questions, you should have a rep.”
“I bet you’re a law student.”
Luce looked at Eve out of eyes such a pale blue they looked like springwater. “Prelaw.”
“Then why don’t you rep him on the first question. It’s an easy one. Darian, can you account for your whereabouts from six p.m. last night to four a.m. this morning?”
“Well yeah. Come on, Luce, that is easy. A bunch of us went down to the Shore yesterday afternoon. What, about two maybe?”
“About.” Luce kept those pale eyes on Eve. “We got back about seven.”
“And we chowed at McGill’s, and hit a party at Gia’s. She’s got an off-campus group. Gia.” He gestured to a tiny brunette.
“Um, I don’t know when he left, exactly, but it was pretty late. Or early, I guess,” Gia offered. “We started the Rock Your Ass tourney, and we were going till close to three. Close anyway.”
“We came back here after and crashed,” Darian told Eve. “Time, I don’t know, exactly, but the log’ll have it below.”
“Okay, see? Easy.” Eve thought of connections, and Jamie’s comment about partying late on Saturday night.
“So . . . I did good?” Darian offered the same blasting smile from his ID shot.
“Yeah. No lawyers necessary,” she said to Luce. “Do you know Jamie Lingstrom?”
“Sure. We’ve had some classes together, hang sometimes. Hey, he was at the party last night for a while. You could ask him. . . Wait. Is he in trouble? He’s not trouble. He wants to be a freaking cop. Sorry, I mean, he’s studying to be an e-cop.”
“He’s not in trouble. It happens I know Jamie, too. You’re not in trouble either, but I still have questions. Everybody else, clear out.”
Bodies lurched up, scrambled. Luce remained glued to Darian’s side, and the boy Coby stayed on the floor.
Eve pointed at Coby, pointed at the door.
“But I live here and all that.”
“Find somewhere else to be. And close the door behind you.”
