“I don’t see anything in here,” Peter said, riffling through some pens and a – was that a set of stamps?
I agreed. Most of this stuff was typical in a college student’s book bag. Besides a bunch of papers, a book and a few notebooks, there wasn’t much here.
“Can I go now?” Demetri asked.
“No,” Peter and I said in unison.
“Come on. I proved that I wasn’t lying.”
“All you’ve proved is that some kid left his book bag here.” I lifted said bag and felt along the seams. Maybe there was a secret pouch. Unlikely, but so were all of the things that go bump in the night.
Again, nothing.
I threw the bag on the table in frustration.
“What are you guys doing here?”
I jumped and spun around to find Caroline watching us with her arms folded over her chest. She was not far away. I’d miss her approach because I was so absorbed in questioning the sphinx and searching the book bag. I really needed to work on my situational awareness.
“Caroline, you’re here,” was my surprised response. Yeah, that wasn’t suspicious or anything. “Actually, what are you doing here?”
“I called you, remember.”
Yes. I remembered. It’s why I was panicking because I thought something had happened to her. Judging by the slightly irritated look on her face I was going to say she was safe and unharmed and possibly pissed, though I didn’t know why.
I handed the bag to Demetri. “You can go now.”
“Demetri.” Caroline’s forehead furrowed. “What are you still doing here? Your classes ended hours ago. Did you have student questions to take care of?”
I gave the sphinx a sideways glance. So he was a professor. My initial assessment of him wasn’t far off.
Demetri’s wide eyed gaze went from me to the sorcerer to Caroline.
“Uh, yes.” His voice rose, making the yes almost a question.
Judging by the suspicion on Caroline’s face she heard the question in his voice too.
“Really. You took questions in the library rather than your office?”
Demetri shot me another panicked glance as if he didn’t know how to respond. Considering all the trouble he gave Peter and me, I was having a hard time believing his panic. On the other hand, this was Caroline, queen of making you second guess yourself and stutter like you were giving a presentation to the president. Hell, she’d even put me off balance a time or two.
Taking pity, because I’d been in the same situation more than once and I needed to get to the bottom of why she called me here, I interjected, “Demetri was good enough to show Peter and me up here when we got a little lost. When we couldn’t find you, he offered to help us look.”
Caroline arched an eyebrow, “You got lost? Really.”
I shrugged. “It happens. Let’s move on.”
“You had no trouble finding this place last time.”
Ah, I’d forgotten about that when making up my lie. I decided to insert a little of the truth into my story. “You sounded like you were in trouble. I got a little turned around in my haste.”
She had sounded like she was in trouble, but even worried I wouldn’t have lost my way. I had an almost perfect sense of direction and remembered how to get to the places I’ve visited even years later. It’s what made me a good courier.
I was hoping she didn’t remember all of that. Or at least that she didn’t push me on it.
“Uh huh.” Her tone said she didn’t quite believe me but couldn’t think of an alternate excuse.
I released an internal sigh of relief. Caroline had never been easy to fool. I was rusty.
