Page 77 of Paranoid

“Dylan?” Tori Suzuki’s voice brought him back to the present, at his terminal in the library media room, where he and the rest of the class were supposed to be finishing their English essays.

He looked up and caught her smiling at him from the next computer terminal. “Sorry to bother you, but . . .”

Dylan’s heart jolted. When Tori smiled at him, with her dark eyes and pretty face framed by shiny black hair, he could barely concentrate. She had a boyfriend, so he didn’t think she was actually flirting with him, but she always sat next to Dylan if they were in the media room during second period, and he was good with that.

“What?” he asked, keeping his voice low so the library monitor wouldn’t pounce on them. Exams were proctored, but since it was harder to cheat on an essay, no one watched too closely.

“I was wondering if you could show me that trick you know to make your essay look a little bit longer? Without changing the margins.”

He got it. If the essay wasn’t five pages, you couldn’t get an A. And it was easy enough to put all the punctuation in thirteen-point type for starters. He had a few other tricks as well.

“Sure.”

She leaned in, so close he could smell her perfume. He tried not to notice; he couldn’t get distracted by anything, not even Tori.

He swallowed hard.

“You think you could set it up for me?” she whispered.

“Sure,” he said again. As if it were the only word he knew. Girls like Tori made him nervous, even nice girls who already had a boyfriend. He shot a glance over his shoulder to see if anyone was paying attention. Nah. Holding his breath, he leaned over to her keyboard and opened the systems file. A few changes, probably less than sixty seconds, and he was done. “Try it that way.”

She opened her file, scrolled through it, and flashed him a bright smile. “Wow! Perfect! It’s five pages now. That’s amazing.”

Dylan nodded.

“Thank you so much! You’re so good at that.” She paused for a second, then whispered, “Hey, is it true? What they’re saying about your mom?”

“My mom?” Where was this going?

“You know, what was in the paper? That she . . . that she was arrested for murder.” Her almond eyes rounded a bit and he felt cold inside. “And it’s online.”

He knew. He’d already read it himself, but the article was pretty straightforward; just gave the facts on a homicide that was as old as dirt.

So Tori was suddenly interested in him so that he could help her do her homework and because his mother was some kind of psycho or something, possibly a killer? Suddenly he looked like some kind of bad boy? Edgy? Really?

“She didn’t kill anybody,” he said under his breath and felt heat crawling up the back of his neck.

“I know, I know, but wow. Arrested for murder. Can you imagine?”

“No.” He felt suddenly defensive.

“It’s kind of . . .”

Don’t say “cool.”

“. . . interesting.” She flashed him another smile. He’d known about the article and had wondered if it might be a big deal here at Edgewater High, but Tori was the first to bring it up to him. If anyone had read it or cared, he hadn’t heard about it.

Until now.

“If you say so.”

“At least you can say your mom’s not boring.” Tori picked up her things. “My mom’s an actuary. Ugh.” She rolled those incredible eyes, then pulled her phone from her pocket, studied the screen, and didn’t look back at him as the tone sounded, signifying the end of class and the end of the day.

He grabbed his backpack, keeping with the mob of students. It was too bad that he couldn’t even think that she might like him just a little if only for the wrong reasons.

Slipping into the hallway and losing himself in the throng of teenagers walking, shouting, laughing, and banging lockers, he felt a little niggle of pride. She was right, though. He might not be good at a lot of things, but he understood computers, inside and out. He had mad skills, but word was getting around. She wasn’t the first kid to ask for his help, and that wasn’t good. He had to keep a low profile. Not show off. Now more than ever since Walsh was on his case. He was scheduled to meet with her right after school.

In the hallway, he skirted the area near his locker and kept up with a group of kids heading toward the main doors near the admin offices. He kept looking over his shoulder for Schmidt, but he was nowhere to be seen. Good. As long as Dylan kept with large groups, he should be safe.