Page 70 of Second Chance

“Is it…anything to do with the man who was killed last year?”

Jesus fucking Christ, Tony thinks and immediately feels guilty. It makes sense for her to make that leap, even if it’s the last thing he wants to think about. If everyone could stop mentioning Mario in conjunction with the current case, it would be great for Tony’s mental health.

“Um, probably not. Another professor was injured on campus last week. It might be connected.”

“Might?” Her voice is climbing in pitch, headed for hysterical, and Tony can’t blame her.

“The police don’t know anything right now. But, uh, they wanted me to get in touch to see if you’ve heard anything.”

“Oh my god,” she says again. “We should be there.”

“I—” Tony starts and then realizes he has nothing to say.

“Aaron’s getting his operation today. How are we going to…oh my god.”

A distant bell rings in the depths of Tony’s mind. It feels like months ago, Daniel mentioning his dad’s hip replacement in passing, but it was only last week.

“Maybe wait on telling him until after the operation?” he says.

“I hate lying to him. And we should be there.”

“Flying with a bad hip, though—”

“Oh, I know. It was already bad in the summer, not that he would admit it to Daniel. What will we do?”

Selfishly, Tony doesn’t want them to fly out. He doesn’t know what he would possibly say to them, how he could bridge the gap of their missing child. They should wait to come. Until Daniel is home, safe and sound. Until they know what’s happened.

“What about Meredith?” he suggests. Daniel’s sister is sensible, almost to the point of being cynical. She’ll talk them out of getting on any hasty flights.

“Meredith!” Daniel’s mom sounds cheered by the mere mention of her name. “I’m sure she can make it out. Benjamin can watch the kids for a change. That would be perfect. Thank you for calling, Tony. I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve figured out travel plans.”

“She doesn’t need to—” Tony starts, but the line has gone dead.

Chapter Eleven

The Lawrence family rents a three-bedroom, one-story house on the outskirts of Germantown. The faculty addresses are all on a mailing list, out in the open on a shared server for any staff member to access. Apparently, the college cares far more about protecting a student’s privacy than a professor’s.

“I’m just saying, I would have thought about changing that when one of your staff murdered another.” Tony feels this point should be obvious, but what does he know? He’s only the driver in this situation, and it’s taking up a larger part of his concentration than it ought to. He never drives to Germantown, and stretches the car isn’t used to are getting harder and harder to manage.

From the passenger seat, Colette makes a disgruntled noise. “Stacy didn’t murder Mario at his home.”

“That is the barest technicality—”

“Take a left here.”

Germantown isn’t big enough to have suburbs, but these sure look like the suburbs. Half of the lots are active construction sites for new single-family homes.

“There,” Colette says. “Right over there.”

Tony parks at the curb in front of an empty lot across the street from the house Colette indicates. They’re far enough away they shouldn’t draw too much attention but close enough they can see into the back yard.

“How do you know your way around here?” Tony asks, irritated by the abruptness of the directions and the shitty parking job. As far as he knows, Colette doesn’t drive, though she has a car. When she has to go anywhere, she takes Amtrak or has someone drive her.

“The Continuum,” Colette says, which means absolutely nothing to Tony. She must see as much on his face because she adds, “The movie theater I used to go to with…you know—”

“All right.” Tony cuts her off before she can continue. The last thing they need is to start talking about Mario. “Did we bring snacks?”

Colette elbows him.

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