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Jason chuckles. “No, we’re just thorough about who we spend our time with.”
“That’s weird,” I grumble.
“Is it?” he asks. “Your image is everything. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Can you imagine what your coworkers would think if they found you were sleeping withtwostudents? Or that you’re the one behind Jackie’s blackmailing?”
“I’m notsleepingwith any of you,” I grumble.
Jason’s hum sounds an awful lot like a disagreement while he holds me a little tighter. My hiss causes him to loosen his hold on me again, but still, he doesn’t sit me to the side of him.
Ignoring me, Grant adds, “Who I hang out with determines my own value and worth to society. The same goes with everyone else. There will always besomeonejudging you for the people you keep in your inner circle.”
He sounds so conceited that I want to laugh. Unfortunately, my amusement is swift in its passing.
“So,” Grant presses on. “If you didn’t have a job lined up, did you move here because you were following an ex?”
“I followed a friend.’
“Pianna Gonzalez?”
I sit straight up in surprise. “What? How do you know about her?”
Grant’s exasperated sigh tells me what I need to know. These three have been watching and gathering alotof notes about me for a long time.
“We searched your name through all the different social media platforms and couldn’t find you, except through MySpace, which you forgot to deactivate,” Jason answers for Grant. “We searched through your top eight friends, searched for their more recent handles in the social media world and found pictures of you and Pianna through herveryactive account.”
Grant nods. “That reminds me, why don’t you use your social media accounts anymore? It’s clear you were pretty active at one point, given Pianna’s constant tags. Your accounts might not be around, but your name is plastered all over hers.”
I can’t look at either of them. It’s none of their business. Deactivating my social media accounts was a method to try to erase my life in Cohawk. Between growing up in a miserable foster family situation to hitting a man with my car, there wasn’t a lot to look back fondly on. Texas was supposed to be a fresh start.
“Social media is a waste of brain cells. I got rid of it because I was tired of maintaining it.” There, that’s believable, right?
Grant nods, but it’s clear his thoughts are racing. I don’t know if he doesn’t believe me or doesn’t care enough to push the issue.
“Have you ever blackmailed anyone else before Jackie?” Jason asks after a moment of silence.
I shake my head before staring down into my blanket-covered lap. “No, and I never wanted to do that. It’s just… The opportunity arose, I was desperate, and I knew who she was through a mutual friend and, well, I did something stupid. I wake up feeling guilty about it every single day. What about you?” I demand, trying to pull the attention off me. “Is thisyourfirst time blackmailing someone?” This time I look up to watch their expressions.
“Yes,” Grant says with a tight smile. “And I don’t regret this decision at all.”
Our eyes meet for a brief moment before I drop mine away. Given the darkness in Grant’s, I have no doubt that he feels nothing more than smug satisfaction in tormenting me.
“You don’t have any family, so did you come to Texas because of a boyfriend?” Jason asks, steering the questioning back to my life.
I shake my head instantly. “No.”
“So, other than Pianna, you have no friends in the state, no boyfriend, and no family.” Grant grunts, deep in thought. “Strange, isn’t it? You didn’t even move with Pianna to Houston, so this couldn’t have been all about her. So what made you run here, dollface?”
I’m assuming they pulled the ‘no family’ detail from whatever background check they paid for. I don’t even bother to confirm that theory. Especially if they dug deep into Pianna’s photos on all her platforms. For as close as we were, they would have seen pictures of me with Mrs. Gonzalez but none with my own family.
“People up and move all the time without reason.”
“Not someone like you, who had something good going, a life started, and your career set,” Grant counters quickly.
“I wanted to be a librarian. Where we lived, there was only a single library for over a hundred miles. I had to move.” I roll my eyes, hoping that it’s convincing. “I’d finished my master’s a few years prior and was just sitting on it, hoping for an opportunity to use it. I was afraid of settling, so one day I decided enough was enough and I left.”
Oh man, I’m agoodliar.
“Actually there were four libraries that surrounded Cohawk. One was hiring, you could’ve worked there.” Grant laughs softly at the shock on my face. “Like I said, we like to be thoroughly informed about the people we hang out with.”
