Wicked Sexy (Wicked Games #2)(41)

Tabby turns her head, listening.

“Spoke very highly of you. Fondly, in fact. Says you were the most brilliant student he ever had.” Pause. “Aside from one S?ren Killgaard, that is.”

The breath I didn’t know I was holding leaves my chest in a gust.

Over her shoulder, Tabby says quietly, “You should send an agent to Durand’s house to verify it was him you spoke with. At some point, it will occur to someone on your team that phone numbers can be spoofed and rerouted, and we’ll be right back to square one. Go to his house and talk to him face-to-face, and then you can be sure.”

Harry looks at Chan, who says, “On it,” and leaves.

Then Harry says to Tabby’s back, “You ever think about joining the FBI?”



By the time the sun comes up, the COM center has been moved to another building on the studio campus, two agents from the Boston field office have interviewed Professor Durand at his home, and Harry has given me the rundown on the infamous Bank of America incident.

“Took Tabby weeks to convince the cops she was innocent,” he’d said. “Mainly by proving it wasn’t her who opened the bank account where the stolen money was deposited. Security footage showed an older woman, taller, different coloring. They weren’t able to identify her other than to rule Tabby out. The bank employee who opened the account couldn’t recall anything unusual about the woman that could’ve helped the investigation. That, added to the lack of any other evidence linking Tabby to the crime, made the DA decide not to pursue charges. And that was that. Subsequently, she dropped out of school, and Durand never heard from her again.”

“If there was no evidence,” I’d said, “that means the police searched her computers. Which means they searched her home. But you said there was no address on record for her that year.”

“She rented an apartment near the campus a few days before she got nabbed—”

“And before that?”

“She said she’d been living in her car.”

Harry and I had looked at each other then. I knew we were both thinking the same thing. Either Tabby lied to us about living with S?ren, or she was protecting him by not giving the police his home address.

Neither option worked for me.

“Did the police interview S?ren? And why was it handled by the cops, anyway? A case like that, the FBI should’ve been involved.”

Harry had shrugged. “They went to the address the school had on file for him, but it was one of those UPS mail centers. And by that time, he’d stopped attending classes too. Because it had been a woman who opened the account, they assumed Tabby’s insistence it was S?ren who did the job was just a case of sour grapes.”

“What do you mean?”

His steady gaze had stayed on mine. “A lover’s quarrel.”

“Lovers,” I’d repeated, feeling sick.

“Apparently Professor Durand often observed S?ren sketching pictures of Tabby during class and saw them together around campus. He assumed they were an item.”

“Did he ever see them…”

He picked up on what I’m not able to speak aloud.

“He didn’t say. As for why the FBI wasn’t involved, a decision was made by someone high up at the bank to keep the incident as quiet as possible. Hacks are bad for business. The public gets skittish when they know their money is vulnerable. And for a seventeen-year-old to be accused of making off with millions right under their noses… I guess they decided the public relations shit storm wouldn’t be worth it. Besides, they recovered all the money very quickly. No harm, no foul.”

Something wasn’t making sense. “You said you couldn’t find S?ren’s name in any database.”

“Right.”

“What about his school records?”

“Disappeared, like he never existed.”

“But the police knew about him back then?”

“I know a guy in the local PD, asked him to copy the reporting officer’s handwritten case notes. That was the only place S?ren was mentioned. After the woman on the video, they decided S?ren was a dead end.”

I’d passed a weary hand over my face and asked Harry what he thought. About Tabby, about all of it.

“I think there are a lot of unanswered questions,” he’d said, watching me closely. “But mainly I think this girl is a wild card and dangerous to the clarity of your thinking. Mainly I think you’re balls-deep in trouble, my friend.”

It’s really inconvenient when motherf*ckers are so observant.

I’d avoided his all-seeing eyes and stared morosely out a window instead. “I don’t know what it is between us.”

“It’s something, though, isn’t it?”

Respect for him had made me nod instead of offer a denial, which would’ve been a lie anyway.

He’d sighed and downed the dregs of his cold coffee. “You’ve never been one to think with your dick, buddy, so I won’t give you a lecture. Just watch yourself. I have a feeling this thing is much bigger than it looks.”

I wasn’t sure if he’d meant the situation with Miranda and S?ren, or the situation with Tabby and me, but for the moment, I’d dropped the conversation with Harry due to sheer exhaustion. I’d been up for twenty-four hours and needed to sleep.