Page 16 of Wicked Love
She flashed a smile at me, and I smiled back while tamping down another flare of guilt.
“I try,” I said, grabbing a premade salad from a display to keep up appearances even though I wasn’t really hungry. “I figured getting your advice would help me hone my research.”
I didn’t want to talk about Dad. Ideally I’d like to avoid having him come up again in the entire conversation. If anyone listened in on our chat, they shouldn’t get the slightest impression that this was anything other than an academic endeavor. No investigating happening here.
Please, let Logan find what he was looking for without getting caught.
Rebecca got the pasta, and we sat down at a table in a quiet corner to dig in. In between bites, she mentioned a few different conditions and the illnesses they often coincided with, and I tapped many hasty notes into my phone.
Getting her thoughts really was giving me a lot of ideas about the direction I’d want to take. I just wished I wasn’t pulling one over on her at the same time. Every bite of salad stuck in my throat.
If Logandidget caught, she’d realize I’d been manipulating her. The thought of how she’d look at me then, the way her smile would crumple, sent a jab through my chest. I wrenched my mind back to the comment she was in the middle of making, plastering a renewed smile of my own onto my face.
I was almost finished with my salad and Rebecca was halfway through her pasta when a text alert popped up on my phone. It was Logan, simply saying, “See you soon!” An innocuous message designed to let me know he’d finished the job in a way that no one else would recognize meant more.
My shoulders relaxed, a little of the tension in my gut unwinding. I dismissed the text and gulped down the rest of my salad, not wanting to take up too much more of Rebecca’s time after she’d already given so much.
“Thank you,” I said when she finished her current line of thought. “This has been so helpful. I’m definitely going to incorporate some of your suggestions into the project. I’m excited to get started on it now.”
Rebecca beamed at me. “I’d love to see the finished report when you have it all written up.”
We said our goodbyes, and I headed out, trying not to feel as if I had a mark of shame branded on my back. No one had any idea that I’d come here with nefarious intentions. And they weren’t really nefarious when it was all in the name of finding Dad’s killer, right?
As I hustled through the halls to the side entrance and out into the early afternoon sunlight, my stomach knotted with the thought of another person I hadn’t really done right by—someone who deserved honesty from me way more than even Dad’s former colleague did. Looking around at the streets I’d walked and driven along with my best friend beside me, I couldn’t shake the sense of uneasy resolve that gripped my heart.
Logan was already in the car when I got there, back in the front passenger seat. He rolled the window down a little as I came around beside it. Beckett peered at me from behind the wheel, examining my expression.
“It all went smoothly?” I asked Logan.
“Simple as anything,” he said, sounding a little more at ease than he had when we’d arrived. “I’ve saved the file to a couple of different backup servers and also passed it on to Beckett for his ‘friend’ to look over.”
Despite the slight edge he gave to the word “friend,” the two guys didn’t appear to be in imminent danger of murdering each other. My hand dropped to my phone in my pocket. “Good. There’s one more thing I want to take care of quickly before we leave. Give me a few minutes.”
At their nods, I ambled a little farther down the street. I didn’t want to have this conversation in the car with them listening in, and I knew by the time we got back to campus, I’d end up wrapped up in the mystery again. I couldn’t give Summer the explanation I’d promised her just yet, but I had to at least make sure she knew how careful she had to be.
To my relief, she picked up on the second ring, though her voice was rough. “Maddie. I was wondering how long you’d leave me hanging this time.”
I winced. “Hey. I’m so sorry. There’s just been so much going on—”
“I know, I know. But what kind of stuff? What the hell is going on with you, Madds? This isn’t like you at all. You’ve got to fill me in.”
I swallowed hard. “I want to. I swear it. And I’m going to whenIknow the whole explanation, okay? I’m still working on that.”
My bestie let out a huff. “Is Logan messing with your head again? You can’t cover for him, you know.”
“It’s nothing like that,” I insisted. “I just—I’ve seen some things that’ve made me worried. I want you to be careful, all right?”
“Careful? What are you talking about, Mads?”
“Like—don’t go out with anyone you don’t know, and try not to be on your own when you do go out. Keep an eye on your surroundings, and get out of any situation that feels at all off.”
I could practically hear Summer’s eyebrows arching. “Okay, you’re kind of freaking me out now. What have you seen? You’re not on drugs or something, are you?”
I sputtered a laugh. “No. No drugs. I can’t really get into it. I just—” I scrambled for a reason that would make sense. “I’ve been a little paranoid after my mom’s accident. It was just a freak thing, and I feel like it could happen to anyone, you know? I’ll just feel better if I know you’re being careful.”
“Sure, Maddie. I don’t want to end up in a car accident or anything like that either. You know I’m not exactly a wild child anyway.”
No, but Summer wasn’t a wallflower either. She enjoyed being bold and assertive. Hopefully my warning would sink in enough to make sure she recognized it if there was a moment when running away was the better option.
