Page 45 of Second Chance

An engine revs in the lot, and Tony breathes out in relief. It means Gianna and Lia have taken off for the day. As soon as Daniel gets here, Tony can lock up and start his weekend.

“Your niece is the cutest baby on the eastern seafront,” Blake announces.

Tony squints. “I mean, I know, but didn’t your brother have a baby a month ago?”

“I said what I said. We’re not driving in that, are we?”

“My car is perfectly fine and perfectly roadworthy.”

No one answers.

“Not that any of you have any idea what you’re talking about,” he continues, “because I am the only mechanic in the room. But Daniel’s picking us up.”

“Oh, thank god,” Lisa says much too fast.

Tony shoots her a middle finger over the top of the car.

Lisa blows a raspberry in his direction. “When are we heading out?”

“Whenever he gets here. He had a thing at work today, but he’ll be here any minute.”

“It’s Saturday,” Charlie points out. “He’s a professor, right? What’s he got to do today?”

Tony bites the inside of his cheek until it hurts enough to distract him from his brain. “There was, uh… A thing happened. Um. One of the Lobell professors was found stabbed in her office on Monday. Daniel did extra office hours for all his traumatized students this morning.”

In point of fact, Daniel did extra office hours for one Lily Peterson today, by himself with no one else there.

Tony was violently against this course of action. They spent half of Thursday night debating what to do with the knife taped to the door. Tony pried it off carefully, wearing a pair of work gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. As they talked, it sat on the table between them, a silent fourth participant in the conversation. Daniel and Colette were against calling detective Taylor. She already didn’t trust them and was more likely toarrest them for having the murder weapon than to take them seriously.

When Tony made the mistake of pointing out Lily was markedly absent from the memorial while her boyfriend attended without her, Daniel decided he needed to talk to her. Colette and Tony argued that was dangerously close to investigating the crime, and Daniel argued Lily was, in his opinion, definitely not the killer, just a troubled student.

Unfortunately, Daniel is chronically good at arguing. All that practice he gets doing it with his own brain pays off. He reminded them they didn’t know the knife was the murder weapon, and they didn’t know Lily was the one who left it there. Both were, at most, conjecture, and even if Detective Taylor was inclined to believe they hadn’t planted the knife themselves, they had nothing to offer but guesswork.

The compromise they reached was that Daniel would talk to Lily and try to see whether she was a crazed murderer, and he would check in via text every half hour. So far, he has. The second compromise Daniel and Tony made after Colette went downstairs to bed was to triple-check all the locks and not talk about how long they took to fall asleep.

Tony checks his phone now. Daniel texted fifteen minutes ago. In the wake of his announcement about the newest violent crime to shock the Lobell community, the garage is blissfully silent except for the satisfying tear of plastic backing off the new wiper pads as Tony gets them ready.

“Holy fuck,” Blake says, which confirms that Gianna somehow didn’t find this information noteworthy while they were catching up.

Charlie asks, “Is your sister okay?”

Carefully, Tony aligns the new pad on the wiper and sticks it on, pressing down to make sure it adheres properly. “You heard her; she’s fine.” It’s what she would say. It’s what she’s been saying, but it tastes like a lie on his tongue.

“She can’t catch a break,” Blake says, and Tony emerges from behind the car to see Blake shaking his head. “First, that asshole professor who knocked her up, now this…”

Tony snorts. “Yeah, she was actually taking a class with this one, too, believe it or not.”

“Wow. Is there anything we can do? To, like, help?”

Because he might as well while he’s at it, Tony changes out the pad on the rear wiper. “I’m gonna be honest,” he says, a feat he can only manage with his back turned. “She’s not telling me what she needs right now, so unless you’re down to babysit, I don’t know how. I appreciate the offer though.”

It’s quiet long enough for Tony to sort the wiper.

Tentatively, Lisa asks, “She’s…not talking to you?”

Tony wipes his hands off on a rag. He’s out of things to do with the car and also out of reasons not to look at his friends. “She’s talking to me. She’s not mad or anything. She’s not…she isn’t telling me if anything’s up.”

“Maybe nothing’s up,” Blake suggests.

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