Delaney and Adya were deep in the library, squirreled away in a cluster of wooden carrel desks, when Mackenzie found them. She dropped into an empty chair, her coffee spattering every which way and her curls in a snarl.
“Greg Kostopoulos,” she said, without preamble.
Adya plucked an earbud from beneath the pink blush of her hijab. “Hello to you, too.”
“Greg Kostopoulos,” Mackenzie said again, as though they ought to recognize the name. “Yesterday, a hiker and his dog were hiking Starved Rock out in Illinois and they found a body in the woods. Guess who it was.”
Delaney’s stomach went cold.
“That’s right,” Mackenzie said. “Greg Kostopoulos. The official report says he tripped and fell while out for a run. But here’s the kicker—he’s not even from Illinois. He’s from Ohio.”
“Oh, wow,” Adya marveled, peering around the divider at Delaney. “Ohio.”
“That’s definitely fishy,” Delaney agreed.
“Will the two of you be serious for a second?” Mackenzie drew her phone out of her pocket and began scrolling through it. “Kostopoulos was an active student here at Howe. What’s a college student from Massachusetts with roots in Ohio doing out in Illinois in the middle of the fall semester?”
“Slow down, Sherlock,” Adya said. “He probably had family out there. Are the police even investigating it as a murder?”
“They’re not,” Mackenzie admitted, and shoved her phone into Adya’s lap. “But I have a vibe, okay? Something isn’t clicking. This is Greg. Do you recognize him?”
From this angle, Delaney could just see the grainy profile of a boy’s face on the screen. Adya bent low over the phone, her nose crinkling.
“No,” she said, and slid the phone back to Mackenzie. “That’s not the boy from my head.”
“I already asked Price about that,” Delaney said. “He didn’t seem to know anything.”
“Unless he’s lying to you,” Mackenzie pointed out.
The thought made Delaney uneasy. Not because she was worried that he might be, but because she knew that he was.
He was lying and lying. And she was letting him.
The chair next to her gave a violent stutter and a body dropped into it. Startled, she glanced up to find the previously empty seat occupied by Eric Hayes, his face shadowed beneath a gray hood, the bite of an autumn wind clinging to his frame as though he’d been swept in off the quad.
“You need to leave him alone,” he said, leaning over the arm of his chair.
Delaney knew who he meant, but she was feeling impertinent, and so she asked, “Who?”
“Spare me the clueless act,” he said. “I know you and Price have been cozying up after-hours.”
“He’s been helping me with some things for class.”
“It’s literally his job,” Mackenzie added.
“Not talking to you, Red.” Hayes kept his focus trained on Delaney, and she did her best not to shrivel under his gaze. “I wasn’t aware Price held office hours in a fogged-up BMW in the middle of the night.”
The cluster of wooden desks went quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Delaney’s throat squeezed tight. Her cheeks stung as if she’d been slapped.
“That’s what I thought.” Eric rose from his chair, swiping his hood from his head. “You want my advice? Find yourself another study buddy. Before someone gets hurt.”
The three of them sat in silence as he stalked off across the reference lab.
“Unbelievable,” Mackenzie said when he was out of earshot. “I’d bet every last one of my meal points that they’ve all gotten themselves involved in something they shouldn’t have.”
“His name was on the wall,” Delaney said, watching Eric join a table of upperclassmen. “That can’t be a coincidence. Maybe Greg Kostopoulos is up there, too. I can go by after class and check it out.”
Adya suppressed a shudder. “I don’t know, Lane. That place has a bad vibe.”
