Delaney was not going to pass her calculus exam on Monday. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the correct order of operations, though her notes were mostly riddled in butterflies. It wasn’t that she hadn’t taken the time to study, though the table in front of her was currently littered with newspaper clippings.
It was, instead, that Adya was becoming increasingly certain she’d witnessed a murder.
“What exactly did you mean,” Mackenzie asked, tipping back in her chair on the far side of the table, “by ‘ripped apart’?”
Next to her, Adya took an audible sip of her chai and didn’t respond. All around them, the campus coffee shop was packed full of students. A silver September rain drilled sideways against the windows. Delaney chewed on the cap of her pen and did her best to follow the broken flow of conversation.
Undeterred by Adya’s silence, Mackenzie pressed on. “Would you say he’d been boned like a fish? Or was it more of a light flaying?”
Adya slammed her mug down on the table. “Mackenzie, if you keep talking about this, I’m going to throw up. Speaking of nauseating, what is on your head?”
Mackenzie readjusted the bill of her deerstalker cap. “It’s a detective’s hat.”
“You look ridiculous. Where did you even find it?”
“The theater department. Focus, you’re getting us off track.”
“Nate said there’s some students who haven’t shown up this semester,” Delaney volunteered, when there was enough of a lull for her to feel comfortable interjecting. The café was flooded with alternative rock, the rumble of the espresso machine, the clatter of silverware. All of it melded into an indistinguishable fuzz that swallowed up the voices of her companions.
“Let’s circle back to that.” Mackenzie flipped her chair around so that she was perched backward, arms slung over the spine. “Your antisocial friend—”
“Nate,” Delaney interjected.
“—said the wall of names was a mark of impending death. That could be relevant. Did you recognize anyone on it?”
“Price,” Delaney admitted. His name wedged like a lump in her throat. She didn’t want to think about Colton. Not after last night. She didn’t want to see him again, either—not unless it was to watch him trip over his stupid, expensive shoes and faceplant into a ditch.
“Maybe he knows something.” Mackenzie jotted a note onto her yellow legal pad. “Lane, can you ask him?”
“Me?” Her voice squeaked out around the lump. “Why me?”
Mackenzie didn’t look up from her pad. “The two of you have a thing.”
Horror strung through her. “We donothave a thing.”
“You do kind of have a thing,” Adya said, poking at the ring of milk foam in her mug. “You spend all that time sitting in that empty classroom together. You might as well talk about something.”
Delaney swung her boot beneath the table, making contact with Adya’s shin. “I wouldn’t even know how to bring it up.”
“Easy,” Mackenzie said. “You just say, ‘Hey, I saw your name on a wall with a bunch of other names. Any chance one of them might have been deboned and, slash or, torn into pieces?’?” Eyes brightening, the redhead flashed her a wide, feline grin. “In fact, you can practice right now. Price is on his way in.”
“What?” Delaney froze, unsettled. “You cansensehim?”
“Yeah,” Mackenzie said. “With my eyes. He just walked by the window.”
The door swung wide, bells jingling, and a chilly wind blasted over the threshold. There, on the welcome mat, stood Colton Price, a plaid scarf the color of tobacco leaf wrapped twice around his throat. His cheeks were pinked with cold and his hair was dark with rainwater, and—most disturbingly of all—he was looking over at her.
Mackenzie began gathering up their research, shoving stray papers into her bag. “Invite him over here,” she ordered.
“I will not.”
“You will, too.” Mackenzie looped her arm through Adya’s and hauled her to her feet. “Take one for the team, Laney-Jane.”
“Wait,” Adya protested. “I didn’t finish my drink.”
Delaney watched them go, panic building, and thought about packing up her things and chasing after them. Before she could reach for her bag, the chair opposite her was drawn out and Colton dropped into it, the cold spilling off him in waves.
Rubbing warmth back into his hands, he said, “You look nice today.”
