Page 52 of Second Chance

Daniel gives him a look. “Have you met Lobell students?”

“Christ, they’ll go on the barricades to avoid the cops finding all their drugs and alcohol.” Thinking of Lily, Tony’s not sure. If she did put the knife on Daniel’s door, she has nothing to hide. If she didn’t, well, she was still worried about being a suspect. A room search would prove her innocence.

Then, he thinks of Sean and wonders if he would care or if he’d want this whole situation over and done with as soon as possible.

“Yup. Can’t say I would have been different. At least it wasn’t only me. The administration vote was about seventy–thirty against. Which doesn’t mean anything if Taylor has a warrant. I don’t know why she even asked us.” Daniel leans back in his chair, exhaling in a long huff. He scrubs a hand over his face, and Tony decides not to present his theory that Detective Taylor is trying her best not to alienate the college completely. “I guess she’s on me because she thinks I’ll try to solve the case myself. Christ, I’m ready for pizza and beer.”

“Great. I’m starving.”

As they walk out the door, Tony adds, “Just checking—aren’t you trying to solve the case yourself?”

Daniel draws to a halt and studies him seriously. “I’m taking my responsibility to the student body seriously by providing counsel and protecting them from unfounded police searches. There isn’t any real evidence pointing to a student. We don’t know anything about the knife. And Taylor wouldn’t believe me either way.”

So, they’re sticking with keeping the murder weapon in the kitchen. Tony sighs and nods. It’s not worth fighting about.

In retrospect, they should have chosen a place farther from campus. But Daniel’s been craving the weirdly specific Cajun chicken pizza they do at the chain that opened right on the 9W across from campus. They also have an obnoxiously fruity IPA on tap, which is right up Daniel’s alley. Tony orders the plainest pizza he can find on the menu and a side order of garlic knots along with an apology to his Italian ancestors.

Their order has barely arrived when Gianna and her friends get there.

“Shit,” Daniel mutters and sinks low in his seat.

“Huh?” Tony looks over his shoulder to follow Daniel’s line of sight, and when he sees Gianna’s dark flannel shirt and bangs out of the corner of his eye, his stomach clenches. It’s probably hunger.

“Do you think they saw us?” Daniel asks.

Instead of answering, Tony stuffs a garlic knot in his mouth.

Gianna and her friends are seated kitty-corner to him and Daniel, which gives Tony a clear view of Sean’s caterpillar of a hipster mustache and the way Lily’s knee keeps bouncing incessantly through the entirety of his and Daniel’s meal.

“Should’ve known there would be too many students here.” Even under the restaurant’s dim lighting, Daniel looks a little pale, exhausted by the last few days. “I should probably say hi.”

Tony shakes his head. “Eat your dinner, baby. If they see you, fine, but you need a break.”

It gets them through maybe half of the meal, both keeping quiet.

Unfortunately, with no conversation distracting him, Tony can hear every inane college kid conversation happening around them.

“I swear,” one girl at the bar says loudly. “Birkenstocks! With socks!”

Two tables over, someone else explains what a rip-off the campus bookstore is.

Most immediately, diagonally across from him, Sean, who seems the type to always be complaining, complains. “Room searches,” he says seriously. “Are they fucking kidding? Room searches? That’s, like, unconstitutional.”

Daniel winces and bends over his pizza-shaped monstrosity. “They must have already sent out an email about it.”

There’s a high, nervous laugh from Gianna’s table as Lily Peterson wraps her arms tightly around her middle. She sips at an iced water on the table in front of her. Tony didn’t hear her order food. “They’re seriously…they won’t actuallysearchourrooms,will they?”

Their other friend, the tall, skinny guy with the less obnoxious facial hair—the one whose name is the same as someone else Tony can’t remember, Fred or maybe Frank—shrugs. “They sure said they would. And you know the Dutchess County police are gonna blame this on a Black kid who stole a knife from the dining hall or some shit.”

Daniel closes his eyes with a pained expression, likely imagining that particular scenario.

“Ugh.” Sean groans. “It’s basically fascism in action. We should stage a protest or a walkout or something.”

“You just don’t wanna go to class.”

Tony’s proud Gianna isn’t letting herself get dragged into this. The last thing she needs is more police attention.

“That’s not the point. It’s aboutdemocracyand freedom and shit.”

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