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CHAPTEREIGHT
Madelyn
Aknock jolted me out of the zone of concentration I’d gotten into as I typed out the finishing touches to my latest Genetics assignment at my desk. When I glanced toward the door, Keeley did too, popping out her earphones that’d been buzzing the voices of her favorite podcast while she paged through a textbook. I had no idea how she managed to focus with people yammering right in her ears, but she said it actually helped her.
Her desk was a little closer, and she was the one of us much more likely to be receiving visitors anyway. She jumped up and opened the door with a curious expression that told me she hadn’t been expecting anyone.
To my surprise, I caught sight of a familiar face beyond her. Dexter Wright was standing awkwardly in the residence hallway, clutching the strap of a satchel that hung from his shoulder. He blinked at Keeley and then aimed his gaze at me for a second before it darted away from both of us in typical Dexter style.
Keeley tilted her head to the side, twisting one of her curls around a finger. “Hello, there. Can I help you?”
She’d taken on a playfully flirty tone that made me reevaluate the situation—and the guy beyond the door. Keeley obviously thought he was cute. I guessed he was, if I let myself think about it. His dark curls and pale skin made his large green eyes look even more vivid in contrast, and even though he was slim, you could tell he had some lean muscle on him.
The Vigil probably had girls falling over them all across campus. What a group.
Of course, Dexter wasn’t so great with the smooth charm Slade had in abundance. He made a vague motion in my direction. “I’m here to talk to Madelyn,” he said, firmly and evenly.
“Oh, are you?” Keeley cooed, and peeked over her shoulder to waggle her eyebrows at me. I barely restrained myself from rolling my eyes in return, since Dexter would see and might get the wrong idea. This wasn’t some kind of hookup, but I didn’t want him to think I was annoyed that he’d come by. Keeley just had an overactive imagination… and a theory that I really needed to get laid sometime before the end of the semester.
Keeley stepped aside to motion Dexter into the small room and then scooted past him. “I’ll leave you two alone,” she informed us, flashing me another suggestive smile. “I can make myself scarce for a good long time. Total privacy. Have fun!”
Oh, God. My cheeks flared.
Dexter peered after my roommate’s retreating back with a puzzled expression for the moment before the door thumped shut. Then he glanced around the room, his stance tensing as he took in the two somewhat rumpled beds that were the only furniture other than the desk I was already occupying and Keeley’s.
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling as awkward as he looked. “She’s very… exuberant. She’s just trying to be a good friend. Is this about my car?”
Dexter nodded, catching my eyes for half a second before his gaze started traveling around the room again. “I had a few things to talk to you about, and this seemed like the most likely place to find you.”
“You could have just texted me.”
He shrugged. “I needed something you could only do in person. If you hadn’t been here, then I would have texted.”
I guess that made some sort of sense. When he glanced around again, adjusting his weight on his feet, I sprang out of my chair. Of course he’d feel weird sitting on mybed, for fuck’s sake, especially after how Keeley had just been acting.
“Here,” I said. “You can sit at my desk. What exactly did you need to go over? Have you made any progress?” It didn’t seem probable that they’d accomplished much in the ten or so hours since I’d talked to Slade this morning.
I sat down on my bed, tucking my legs up so that Dexter could walk by easily. He seemed to relax a bit as he sank into my desk chair. He turned it toward me and pulled a thin pad of paper and a pencil out of his satchel. His gaze held mine again for only a second before it dropped to more like the vicinity of my mouth.
“We’d like you to draw the box that was in your car—so we’ll be able to describe it accurately if we need to ask around about it.”
Okay, that seemed reasonable enough. I accepted the pad and pencil and sketched out the rough rectangular shape. It wasn’t a work of art, but then, I didn’t think they expected it to be.
“So, I take it you haven’t found the car yet,” I said dryly.
Dexter didn’t seem to pick up on the intended humor in my statement. “No, we haven’t. But as I mentioned last night, we determined that it hasn’t been taken to the largest chop shop in the area. And Logan confirmed this morning that it wasn’t used in any crime that’s been reported.”
I blinked at him. “Used in a crime?” I repeated in confusion.
Dexter nodded, looking more at my shoulder now. “Stolen for a joyride and then abandoned, or reported as a getaway vehicle in a robbery, or anything like that.”
“And how would he have confirmed that?”
Another brief moment of eye contact. “He hacked into the police department’s database.”
My pencil paused where I’d started to draw the Celtic knot on the top of the trinket box from memory. I gaped at Dexter. “He can do that?”
I’d known Logan was good with computers—obviously, since he was a computer science major—but I’d had no idea he’d delved into hacking. And hacking into a network I’d imagine had to be pretty secure, considering it was law enforcement. He had asked his dad for quite the elaborate computer set up back in high school, but I’d assumed he’d wanted the latest tech for gaming.
