even had time to recover from the softness and strength of his hands.
Which is why I nearly missed his answer—but seriously, right then his hands seemed a lot more important than anything he could possibly say.
“I’m new. Tomorrow’s my first day,” he said, and he let go of my hands. Which was disappointing, but it sure seemed like he’d held them a moment longer than necessary…hadn’t he?
“Oh,” I said. “Tomorrow. Wow.” Yeah. There were many things about this situation that were short-circuiting my ability to form sentences.
“Yes,” he said. “Not quite the welcome I was expecting.” He made a small gesture toward the window, which reminded us both that we were standing in the midst of a murder scene in the middle of the night. We stared at each other again for a long moment.
I broke first. “Oh,” I said, like it had just occurred to me, “you must think it’s so weird that I’m here, don’t you?” Implied: Because I think it’s pretty weird that you’re here . I laughed nervously. “Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but I…needed a book from my locker.”
He cocked one elegant eyebrow at me. “A book?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Shakespeare. Macbeth . Very gloomy. Lots of mu—” Don’t say murder! “—umbling. Mumbling about…witches…and stuff. Have you read it?” Oh, that was suave. Clever and romantic, all in one fell swoop .
“A long time ago,” he said with a half smile.
“Well, we have a test tomorrow, and I have to finish reading it, so I thought I’d get it now.” I trailed off lamely, wondering how much he had seen of me climbing through the window and searching the floor.
“Oh,” he said. “Of course. I’d have thought they’d cancel any tests scheduled for tomorrow, but it’s always wise to be prepared.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s me! Prepared.” For tests, yes. For strange, hot boys in moonlit hallways, not so much.
There was another pause. Two could play this little game. I lifted an eyebrow at him .
He laughed softly. “All right. I have a confession to make.”
Score! Murder solved! Well, that was much easier than I’d expected. Wilhelm and Olympiawould be so proud. Assuming I made it out of here alive. Well, you know…“alive.”
“I heard about the murder,” Daniel said, gesturing again, “and I’m afraid I was curious. I thought I should know more about my new school. I like figuring things out myself…I guess you could say I’m an amateur detective.” He rubbed his head, looking convincingly sheepish. “Do you think I’m terribly strange now?”
Yes, but don’t worry, the “terribly hot” part makes up for it. I couldn’t figure out whether he was lying. It sounded about as believable as my story—which is to say, not very.
“No,” I lied. “I bet lots of other students would have done it if they could have figured out how to get in. Um…how did you get in?”
“Through the boys’ locker room,” Daniel said, pointing down. “The lock was already broken, so I just walked in.”
HMMMMMMM.
Possibility one: Daniel was lying, and he’d broken the lock himself to get in, which he could easily do if he were a vampire.
Possibility two: Some other vampire, possibly of the murderous variety, had broken thelock earlier this evening to come up here and revisit the crime scene, as I hear criminals do all the time.
Possibility three: That’s how Tex got in last night—as did the vampire who killed him.
“Isn’t that how you got in?” Daniel said innocently.
“Um, yeah,” I said. “Of course. Lucky break for me.”
He glanced at my hands. “So…where’s the book?”
“I was just going to get it,” I said, trying to look all casual. He followed me down the hall and around the corner to my locker. I laughed awkwardly. “I guess I wanted to look at the crime scene, too.”
“A fellow investigator,” he said with that hint of a smile again.
I rummaged through my messy locker until I found
Charles Tang
Jennifer Mortimer
Stephen Dando-Collins
Doug Johnson, Lizz-Ayn Shaarawi
Tymber Dalton
Twyla Turner
Pati Nagle, editors Deborah J. Ross
Adrienne Lecter
Sara York
Cynthia Harrod-Eagles