Field Journal of Dr. Luce Montgomery
I went to see Basile at the Phi Kat house to ask if he wanted to go into the canyon with me. Every time I go down there looking for the fungus, I can hear chanting, loud enough to hear over the rush of the Cimarron River, though I can’t pinpoint its location. Sometimes it seems like it’s right around the rocks from me, but maybe it’s just the way the sound echoes down there. Either way, I’m not eager to go alone. But when I stopped in to see him, he seemed preoccupied.
I was about to walk into Basile’s bedroom when I heard voices. I hesitated, hovering outside the doorway.
“What were you thinking?” came Basile’s smoky voice, low and deep and tinged with an emotion I hadn’t witnessed on him before. I couldn’t quite imagine his features all twisted in anger. “You know we can’t afford this kind of negative attention right now. Not with the funding hanging on a string and Ellendale not taking an interest in anything.”
“I didn’t think they’d see it.”
“You’re right, you didn’t think. You act like you’re one of the greatest minds to ever bless our halls, but I swear you don’t ever think.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
“For how much shit you stirred, you’d better be.”
I shifted my weight, and the floorboard beneath me squeaked loudly. Shit.
A pause, then, “Get out of here. I’ll deal with you later.”
I moved to the side of the door. Basile looked even more flustered than the boy who’d just walked out of the room.
I flicked my hair behind my shoulder and walked in. “What was that about?”
He sighed and rubbed his temples. “We have a meet in a few months, and if we don’t get any of Ellendale’s funding, we’ll have to do some serious fundraising of our own. I don’t want to have to cancel; those kids have been preparing for months. And now Cella and Max are hounding us, thinking one of our members has something to do with that girl.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Well, do they?”
“No,” he said emphatically. “Grant is just an idiot. Doesn’t think before he talks, or posts. He’s going to get himself into trouble one of these days.”
He’s lying.
It appeared as a whisper at the back of my mind, a voice I could no longer discern was the fungi or my own. Something about the way he turned his eyes down before looking at me or the way his heart sped up imperceptibly, something I shouldn’t have noticed, something I shouldn’t have been able to hear, yet somehow, I still knew …
Grant had done something, and Basile was trying to cover for him.
I left shortly after, resigned to going into the canyon alone.
Key observations: Perhaps my newfound spidey senses will help me locateAgaricus cataphractus? Lord knows, I’ve tried everything else.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The next morning, Max knocked on my door, swearing up and down he’d found a student who could turn the entire investigation on its head. I jumped up and grabbed my bag. “Then what are we waiting for?” We had little over a week left before graduation to figure all of this out, and I wasn’t eager to waste any more time.
When we arrived at his room, the guy was hitting a bong with his friend and surrounded by a cloud of smoke. He fistbumped us when we walked in. I looked dubiously at Max, who winced and clasped his hands together.Just a couple minutes, he mouthed.
“Honestly, if you’re looking into anyone,” Jack D was saying, after an exceptionally verbose explanation of his fish tank, the different species of fish inside, and what actors he thought they all looked like, “look into Grant Hafer.”
Grant? That was the big revelation? I sighed. “We already talked to Grant, but we can’t exactly question him without evidence.”
“Evidence? What more do you need? The little dude was on an incel revenge trip. He was obsessed, man. He hated that Maya was dating a girl after him. Said she was loaning herself out to anyone who wanted it.”
“Creepy and gross, but it’s not exactly cold, hard proof,” I said.
“Tell her what you told me about the party,” Max said.
“Grant told me once that he wanted to fuck Dani to get back at Maya, that he’d ‘fuck her straight.’ Maya said he used to leave these freaky notes on her car.”
I grimaced. “Still, I doubt Basile will let us talk to him without a lawyer.”
