“Yeah.” I felt my shoulders relax. Reliving the memory didn’t carry the same sting, especially with such a sympathetic audience. “Is that why you transferred?”
“Partly. They also have a better science program here, and I need that for what I want to do.”
“Doctor?” I guessed.
“Forensic pathologist.”
It was like hearing Snow White aspired to a career in bare-knuckle boxing. “That’s very, ah, specific.”
“Me and my mom watch a lot of crime shows.” Her eyes slid briefly to me. “We read, too. Mysteries, true crime—stuff like that.”
“Cool.” Generally speaking, Porter-Malcolms were not genre snobs.
“I was actually thinking tonight is kind of like an Agatha Christie,” Terry observed.
Since I didn’t recall stepping over any corpses, I raised my eyebrows in question.
“We’re getting picked off one by one. Now it’s down to you and me, which means either of us could be the killer. Unless someone faked her own death to throw us off the scent.”
“That’s a very layered analysis,” I said admiringly.
I would have liked nothing more than to continue this line of conversation, but an unfamiliar form slammed between us, forcing Terry and me to step farther apart.
“?’Sup, ladies,” said the deep-voiced stranger. He leaned closer to Terry. “My friend thinks you’re hot.”
I waited, assuming there must be more, but no: that was the whole speech. Not exactly “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.” And okay, there were probably very few high-schoolers who could approach the level of Captain Wentworth’s passionate letter at the end ofPersuasion. Still, this guy ought to have been able to manage a simple,Hi, my name is So-and-So, do you mind if I join you?What did he expect Terry to do, fall to her knees in gratitude? His slack-jawed grin conveyed very little, aside from a certain smug blankness.
“Would you excuse us?” I said, because someone had to raise the tone of this encounter. I cut my eyes at Terry, indicating that she should join me.
“Do you know him?” I asked when we had stepped out of hearing range.
She shook her head. The look on her face was trusting, as if I were about to take care of everything. Which would have been a lot easier if there were clear social rules to follow in a situation like this. Even though I had no desire to live in an era of corsets and chaperones and zero career prospects for women, it was hard not to feel nostalgic for old-fashioned civility. In those days, a young man wouldn’t have been allowed to accost us until he’d been formally introduced.
Since that convention had gone the way of white gloves and calling cards, I lifted my chin, determined to handle this my own way. As I approached our would-be swain, Terry fell in behind me. “Please tell your friend that we received his message, which I’m sure he meant to be flattering—”
“We have half a case of Keystone in back,” the guy interrupted, directing the words to Terry. (No prizes for guessing where the missing half had gone.) “You want to check it out?”
The leer that accompanied these words made it clear he was proposing more than a look-at-my-beer expedition.
Terry tugged on my sleeve. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she whispered.
“Maybe?” The way I saw it, there were several possibilities, ranging fromHe’s drunktoWhen hell freezes over.
“Dissociative identity disorder,” she pronounced, not bothering to lower her voice. “I’m pretty sure the quote-unquotefrienddoesn’t exist.”
“Hey,” said the guy, and for a moment I thought he was objecting to the diagnosis. Then his hand clamped onto my hip.
I half jumped, half spun out of his grip. “What are you doing?”
Far from being chastened, he completed a slow inspection of my body—or at least the part from knee to neck. “You’re cute.”
There it was again, the air of noblesse oblige, like he was doing us a favor. My nostrils flared. “No.”
“For real. You have kind of a”—he waved his hand as though cleaning a mirror—“decent little body.”
It took me a second to realize we were speaking at cross-purposes. “I wasn’t disagreeing with you.” Though given my druthers, I would have chosen a more impressive adjective thancute. The larger issue was that he assumed his opinion mattered to me. “I meant no as in ‘no thank you.’ Not interested.”
His face gave no indication my words had registered. On the contrary; his arm reached out as if to grab me again.
