Page 83 of Devil in Disguise
Two and a half weeks later,Dyma wasn’t in the library. She was in her dorm room, the one she actually shared with Pavani now. At her desk, with headphones on and her music playing, a calculator in her hand, studying her little heart out. It was Monday of finals week, and tomorrow was her first one.
In what? In Thermodynamics, because of course that had to be the first one with the least amount of study time. She had to bring her grade up to at least a B minus to have any hope at the 3.2 GPA she needed to keep her scholarship, which meant an A minus at the very worst on the final. A’s weren’t quite as easy to come by in college, it turned out. Owen had been right. She wasn’t always the smartest person in the room anymore, and, man, did that suck.
On the plus side, she’d get her hardest exam out of the way early. On the minus side … well, there was a whole lot of minus side. She wasn’t going to think about the minus side.
Pavani came in, but Dyma didn’t even look up until her roommate actually touched her shoulder. Then, she jumped, pulled out her earbud, and said, “What?”
Wait. Was it four o’clock already? Had she missed the start of her dinner shift? Another lurch of panic. She was working from four to eight, her final was at eight tomorrow morning, and she had so much to nail down before then. She needed to sleep, too, because there was no way she could think clearly enough for this test without sleep.
She wished she could call Owen, but he was three hours of time zone ahead of her, staying at a luxury resort in Georgia. Not having fun, but preparing to play the second-to-last game of the season in New Orleans, after yesterday’s game against the Jaguars. Even if he wasn’t in the midst of dinner or whatever, she couldn’t call him and whine about pressure that had been her own stupid fault, not when he was buckling down and doing his own preparation with the world’s biggest supply of disciplined calm.
Why did every single frigging person in herlifehave to work so much harder than her? How did you find an excuse for anything?
Pavani said, “There’s somebody downstairs asking for you.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. A couple of people were asking which room was yours, that’s all. I didn’t tell them, because I wasn’t sure who they were. Not students. A man and a woman.”
“Was it …” Another lurch of stupid panic. It was being on edge from the whole finals-and-grades thing, that was all, like a sword hanging over her head. “Was it cops?” she finally asked, because that was where her mind had gone.
“Cops? Why would it be cops? Did you do something I don’t know about? Please don’t tell my parents if you did. I don’t want to live alone again. Also, I’d have said if it was cops. I’d have said, ‘There are two cops downstairs asking for you.’ That’s not something I’d miss.”
“Oh.” For a moment, Dyma felt only relief. She’d had a flash of her mom, driving in the heavy storm that had smacked into both Portland and Seattle today and was still going strong. Her mom, with Nick fastened into his complicated car seat in the back, going to the store. A flooded underpass …
Stop it,she told herself.You are ridiculous. When did you become a worrier?Something to do with Nick’s sweet little face, she guessed, and the way he kind of burrowed his head into your neck when you held him. The smell of him, too. They should sell that new-baby smell in a candle. Talk about endorphins.
“Somebody from the university, maybe?” she asked Pavani as she got up, contemplated shoving her feet into shoes, and decided to skip it. She was wearing slipper-socks. Close enough.
“I don’t know,” Pavani said. “But you’re failing at logic. If they were from the university, they’d know which room you’re in. Why are you so worried? Why aren’t you assuming that you won the lottery, and they’re here to deliver your enormous check? What did youdo?Take Thelma-and-Louise revenge on that guy Logan? Hack into Washington Federal in your nonexistent spare time and wire yourself funds? That’d be a pretty weird hobby for somebody with a rich family, but who knows? Maybe you’re a sociopath. Maybe they’re going to be interviewing me on the news tomorrow, and I’m going to say, ‘She was always so quiet and polite,’ like every neighbor of every serial killer ever.”
“Ha,” Dyma said, feeling a little better. She pulled a holey cardigan over her Devils T-shirt, left the room, and took the stairs.
When she shoved the fire door open at the bottom and came out into the lounge, she saw them right away. A scruffy, middle-aged man, carrying some kind of equipment, and a good-looking, well-dressed younger woman. Her first thought was, sure enough,Cops,because that was a buddy movie right there. Two detectives, the grizzled veteran and the polished rookie. Her heart started to thud, and she got a prickling down her arms.
Oh, no. Her mom. Nick. Next of kin.
The guy saw her first. The veteran. He said something to the woman and set the thing up fast.
A video camera. On a tripod.
Ah. Not cops. But still a threat.
She was already turning away in a panic, thinking mainly, for some stupid reason,I can’t get my picture taken. I look horrible,when the woman got over to her. “Dyma!” she said, like she was her best buddy. “Hi! I’ve been trying to reach you for days now! Glad to have found you at last. Caroline Fogarty.”
“Uh …” Dyma said. People were staring. Was this about Harlan? Nick? “Who?”
“I’m a reporter withBuzz,”the woman—Caroline—said. “I’d just like to talk to you for a minute. How’s your new baby brother doing? Nicholas?”
“Uh … fine. Still in his cast for another few weeks, but, yeah. Fine.” It was all she could think of to say. Everybody was watching now. Well, this was awkward. Also, why would anybody want to do a story on this? So Harlan had a baby. Why should anybody care, and what did she have to do with it?
“He’s in a cast?” Caroline asked, and Dyma thought,Oh, shit.
“Yes,” she said, because what else could she say? “He was born with clubfoot. They’re correcting it. He’s going to be fine.”
“I’m so glad to hear it,” Caroline said, and Dyma thought,Can I go now?
Apparently not, because what Caroline said next was, “I understand that you and your mom met Harlan together earlier this year. In Yellowstone. And that there’s quite a story around that. What an interesting timethatmust have been.”
