Page 48

Troublemaker

“A re you sure this is where Jackson’s cookie traced the IP back to?” I chew my lip, keeping my eyes on the road as we drive towards the city. I don’t want the boys to know how much I’m dreading this trip because I haven’t shared the story of my life prior to my adventures with Seer. It’s not that I don’t trust them; I simply put this part of my life behind me when I graduated.

The memories of my broken heart live on this campus and nowhere else.

Edgar arches a brow as he looks at me from the driver’s seat of the huge SUV. “Of course I am, Tilly. Thorn’s family is well known in the legal community, and as soon as he pranced up our walk, I knew who he was. He wouldn’t dare lie to me.”

“That means he owes him money,” Doyle interjects from the back. “I’d put a fifty on it.”

I sigh, rubbing my temples. “Is that true, Teddy?”

His lips curve and he shrugs. “I can neither confirm nor deny the accusation, Agent Whitley. I’m a simple football coach.”

Presley snorts, reaching up to give him a swat. “Boone, you’re insufferable. If there’s a person in the entire state who hasn’t run numbers through you, I’ll be a pickled herring.”

“Ew. No thanks,” Wolfie grumbles. “Though fish smell might make Jekyll and Hyde like you better.”

“Wait. You haven’t figured out why the cubs don’t?—”

Presley turns and smacks Doyle this time. “Mate, you’re a bloody landmine waiting to go off every second of the day. Remind me why we let you and your gigantic trap come along?”

“Possibly because you all drive sexy muscle or sports cars, and this is my SUV?” Doyle leans back in the back row, his arms above the dogs and cats buckled in beside him. “Plus, I’m incredibly witty and charming. It’s very helpful when trying to subtly interrogate humans.”

Humans? Christ, he’s weird.

He’s not wrong about his capabilities, so I let it go. My hands stroke over Isis thoughtfully, enjoying the feel of her scales. It’s the most calming thing in the universe, and I’ve grown accustomed to having her wrapped around me most of the time. I had to do a little maneuvering at school to get it past Bobbie Jo, but to my surprise, she dropped the subject. “We appreciate you providing the car and helping, Lucky. Don’t let their sniping bother you.”

Edgar snorts. “It isn’t his car. This is one of the city SUVs. I could have procured one just like it.”

“Ah, and yet you didn’t, dog breath! You’re not the hero today,” Doyle chuckles, winking at me. “Don’t be a jealous prat. Just get us there in one piece so Nelia doesn’t feed all of us to Zareb.”

I giggle. Now that I could see. She’d have a hissy fit with a tail on it if we damaged something belonging to the city. “Did Jax mention where on campus this computer is when you were having your chat with him, Teddy?” With the aviators and that bomber jacket, he looks like he stepped out of Top Gun, and even though that’s never been my thing , I’m considering it now.

As if he can read my mind, he lowers his shades for a moment, his aqua eyes dancing with mischief. “He did not. His... friend… couldn’t narrow it down that far because…” His brows furrow, and he looks perplexed.

“Because the signal dead-ended at a VPN run through several onion routers bouncing from country to country like a ping-pong ball. At least, that’s what Eli said.” Wolfie pokes his head between the front seats, smiling at me. “I only understand about thirty percent of that, but it’s why he couldn’t pinpoint a building to check first.”

“Good job, pup,” Teddy rumbles, reaching over to ruffle his hair.

He laughs at the glare Wolfie gives him, and I smile despite my melancholy. The relationship between all of my boys has become much more comfortable since the night I blacked out an entire night. They haven’t moved in yet—though Teddy insisted on having this weird group of stubbly guys come to inspect the outside of the house to prepare for expansion—but I know it’s coming soon. We’re coalescing as a family, and while that scares the hell out of me, I enjoy having people to depend on more than I want to admit.

That’s probably why our trip to State U to investigate the information Jax gave us is triggering me so much. State U’s campus is where one of the worst moments of betrayal in my life happened, and I haven’t ever been as low as I was after Trevor dumped me. It took a lot of therapy to realize his abandonment was so impactful because of the distance between my parents and me, but that’s never lessened the bone-deep pain I feel when something brushes against the trauma. Taking my guys to the literal scene of my destruction is making my gut knot in fear.

“Sugarplum, you’re awfully quiet,” Wolfie says, his hand landing on my arm.

I jump a little, and Isis slithers until her head rests on my shoulder, her coils wrapping more firmly around my ribs. She can sense my riotous emotions somehow, and whenever I get upset, the huge snake draws my attention elsewhere by moving and squeezing. It’s a pattern that started with the Hollar office and has continued every day since. “I... I don’t have fond memories of my time here. It’s why I finished all the upper grad degrees online.”

“Have a poor professor, Magpie? A nightmare roomie, perhaps?” Prez asks. I can hear him chewing on a Twizzler and I roll my eyes. He has a sweet tooth like no one else I’ve ever met.

“No,” I answer, turning my head to look out the window so I don’t have to meet Wolfie's or Teddy’s eyes. “And before you ask, no bullies like high school, either.”

Teddy makes a grumpy sound and speeds up, forcing Wolfie back to his seat. “Then we’ll get what we need and get out. I don’t cotton to the idea of you wandering around alone if this place upsets you. Hell, I don’t even remember seeing you while we were here, come to think of it.”

The last part is more of a mutter, and I snort. “I worked hard to be invisible after the debacle at home. You nor any of the others who were part of it would have ever seen me. I made certain I was safe by bribing a work-study student in the admission office.”

“Oooh, the plot thickens,” Doyle calls from the back.

Christ, he adores conflict and chaos. If he weren’t so damned hot, I’d smack him on principle.

* * *

Once we arrived, the guys refused to let me run around alone, but they also acknowledged that given the sprawl of the SU campus, we needed to split up. They sent me with Jekyll, Kali, and Isis while Eury, Hyde, and Hecate went with their favorites. Doyle, as usual, winked and strolled off on his own, whistling like he planned on doing something absolutely unacceptable.

Hopefully, it doesn’t involve explosives or any kind of physical fights. I’m well versed in good-looking boys from Belfast and their hidden street skills. I feel Doyle is hiding a fuck ton of things I’d be both fascinated and impressed by—which is why I yelled ‘no violence’ at his retreating back. That he was heading towards the science building didn’t escape my notice; the chem labs are there.

I rub my temples, and Isis adjusts, hissing near my ear. My cadre of animals and I are headed in the building's direction where my parents had offices. Teddy is headed for the main and admin areas, Wolfie is sniffing around the dorms, and Prez decided he’d be best served by nosing around near the graduate and professional degree programs.

We’re hoping to find people who knew my parents or get a ping from the app Jax’s booty call created. Eli swears he will use the guest Wi-Fi to scan for devices that match some or all of the markers from the signal he found. They need to be within five feet of our phones, so we have cover stories just in case anyone questions our presence.

I’m not sure what finding the computer gives us, but Jax says it connects to some symbols and writing in the mystery trunk and my parents’ letters. That has to be connected to his theory about their accident being murder and then… hell, I don’t know after that.

If they were into some weird super secret shit and got killed for it, does that mean their activities flagged me somehow for working in law enforcement? I mean, I thought I had clearance to the moon because of all the places I worked or been—including AirForce One—but the rejection that sent me back to the Hollow was shocking.

Could my parents have been on some McCarthy/No Fly type list and it extended to me? I guess it’s possible, but it doesn’t seem like I would have even gotten a foot in the door to some places I’ve been over the years, if so. No, this has to be something more sinister and secret to only pop up when I interviewed for the FBI. I’ll be damned if I know what it is, though.

The Beauregard Fine Arts building looms in front of me and I stop by the fountain with a sculpture of a Sphinx. The piece is beautiful and created by some famous unknown from France, but even when I tried to research it, I couldn’t find any information about the sculptor. I used to sit by this fountain and throw quarters in to make wishes when I was a child, and when I came to SU, it was one of my favorite hangouts. My parents were long since retired, and even though the name on the engraved plaque reminded me of the bad times in high school, the familiarity made me feel comforted.

Of course, given that the great-great something or others of Antigone Lisel Beauregard donated it, I have mixed feelings now. She’s long gone, and I’m back here at the beginning of my life again, looking for answers in the same way I was before. The stakes are different, but it’s amazing how patterns repeat themselves in our lives.

Sighing, I remind myself that I am not the Catastrophe anymore, nor am I the broken toy that lived on the campus. I’m a successful businesswoman with talent, an excellent education, and enough boyfriends to start a basketball team. I’ve moved on and up, and memories of the past can’t hold me back. With that in my head, I stride to the doors of the building, intent on finding out which current staff members worked here when my parents ruled the English department.

It’s Fall Break, so while there aren’t many undergrad students milling about, there are troves of graduate students and PhD candidates walking around like zombies. It’s easy to ID them because they look like they haven’t slept in months, haven’t done laundry in a week, and have stains from whatever they shoved in their mouth as they worked. Also, grad students move to messenger bags rather than backpacks, and PhD drones roll their shit around in briefcase luggage.

I don’t want any of them to ask where I’m going, so I tuck my sunglasses in my messenger and motion for the animals to be quiet as I creep through the lobby. One girl looks up, sees Isis, and blinks before shaking her head and taking a large gulp from a huge coffee tumbler. She thinks she’s hallucinating, and I’d laugh if I didn’t prefer her to not think too hard about what she saw. When I get to the elevator, I quietly check the labels for the floors and push the button.

The English department is on the eighth floor, and I hope they still have a listing of offices outside of the elevator doors. In the age of apps, it’s possible they’ve moved to an app-based info system that allows students to locate things through geo-location and that would suck an awful lot. It would keep me from looking like I belong, as well as make it harder to identify the offices. When the doors open, I breathe a sigh of relief. The stubborn refusal of academia and artsy folks to adopt tech saves the day once again.

Pulling out my phone, I hit the school website as I lean against the wall as if I’m texting. I compare the names on the directory to the bios of the professors on the English department page as I cross-reference. There are at least six professors who are high in the department whose information leads me to believe they knew my parents. That’s where I will start after I do a quick check for the device we’re hunting.

Eli’s Snitch app pops up, and I hit the scan button. Jekyll bumps his head against my hand, and I watch him walk over to a sitting area to plop down with Kali. Clearly, they’ve stood guard at the front, and I suppose that’s not a poor plan. A womp womp sound lets me know the scan is complete—nothing in the immediate area has earmarks of the trail we’re hunting. Waving at my companions, I turn and head down the hall towards the tenured staff offices.

If I’m lucky, these people will be here having midterm office hours or working on papers they need to publish. Otherwise, this is a wasted trip.