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“I was just thinking that I’m happy. And I was admiring my ring. It looks good on me.”
“You know what else looks good on you?” he asked.
My grin was wide and foolish in answer to the laughter in his eyes. “What?”
“Me.” He leaned in to kiss me, this time soft and slow and without the frantic need that had consumed us before. But the heat still simmered between us. “I’m going to attempt to get us both to the bed, but you have to swear to not laugh if my legs give out.”
“We could just sleep here,” I suggested. I gasped and arched as he moved against me, thick and hard once more.
“I’ve got more than sleeping on my mind at the moment.”
“I can feel that. But you’ve got to do all the work this time. I’m exhausted.”
I watched in pure female admiration as he wrapped his arm beneath my back and lifted me, the muscles in his arms and shoulders bulging beneath my fingertips.
“Maybe you’ll get your second wind soon.”
My back hit the cool comforter on the bed and I cried out as he sent me over the edge. “I could probably be talked into it,” I panted.
“You know how I love a challenge.” He moved again and I was lost.
***
A couple of hours later my mind and body were refreshed and I wanted to work. The hotel room was making me go stir crazy.
“We need to get back home,” I said. “I need to look at the autopsy reports again. There’s something there that I’ve missed and it’s bothering me.”
Jack had pulled on a pair of lounge pants and sat propped up in the bed with his laptop, going over some new information Carver had sent over.
“We’ll be back home in a few hours,” he said absentmindedly. “Carver sent me the file on ParisSpencer. It looks like the Lieber boys weren’t the only ones who were smarter than their own good. Spencer attended the same boarding school in England as the Liebers, Parker and Anderson. They formed their circle early on in their childhood and according to the file, they didn’t allow anyone new to intrude on their friendship. It was a closed circle, but it was also extremely competitive.”
“They stayed within fractions of points of each other on their academics, and according to the file their competitiveness extended to outside of the classroom as well. Their junior year of high school, there were a series of explosions across campus.”
“You said there was an explosives expert when we first talked to Greer.”
“I’m getting to that. The explosions started off small. The first in the boys’ bathroom. No injuries, and it got classes cancelled for the week while there was an investigation. The surveillance cameras had been messed with so no suspects.”
“The next was a little larger in scale and happened about six months later, still in the middle of junior year. The advanced chemistry lab was leveled two days before exams. And this time there was a casualty. The professor went up with it, and most of his body parts were found.His name was Thomas Atkins.”
“Nice,” I said, grimacing as I looked over Jack’s shoulder at the crime scene photos.
“The investigators found traces of unstable compounds and it was decided that the professor must have made a mistake in an experiment he was working on. There was nothing else found in the rubble that would suggest it was a device of any kind.”
“But when we dug a little further we found that Jordan Parker and Eric Lieber were on probation for cheating. They were to go before an advisory board and Dr. Atkins was going to present his evidence against them and push for expulsion as well as failing his class, which would make them have to retake it the next year.”
“Handy. Get rid of the teacher and he can’t testify against you.”
“Exactly. But nothing could be proven. Only suspicion. Next we’ve got another explosion only two months later. Classes were dismissed for a study break for four days, and most students went home. Because of distance the group converged on Peter Anderson’s home since he had a home closest to the school.
“This is where things start to click,” Jack said. “While on holiday some friend of a friend had a party. Adam Boxer was an American soldier on leave for three weeks, and he winds up at this party that was a friend of a friend of Anderson’s.”
I raised my brows as theAhhmoment hit. “And Boxer and Paris Spencer hit it off.”
“That’s the polite way of saying it. Friends say they started off hot and heavy from the moment they met. In fact, witnesses say they hooked up in one of the guest rooms about half an hour after they met. ParisSpencer went back to Boxer’s place shortly after that, and when the holiday was over and everyone returned back to school, she was a no show.”
“The school called her parents, but they couldn’t be reached for several days.Spencer spent the remaining time of Boxer’s leave with him until the police showed up almost two weeks later to escort her back to campus on her parents’ orders. She didn’t go willingly, and because she missed so much class and several key exams she ended up flunking that quarter.”
“Three days afterSpencer was escorted back to class the lead officer who came and took her away from Boxer was killed in an explosion in his home along with his wife and three children. The cops looked at Boxer hard, but he was alibied tight for the time in question, and he eventually went back to active duty.”
