Summer Sons(75)

“What the hell is that about?” Andrew asked.

“I think he’s referring to this.” Riley handed over his phone, which was logged into the university’s library database and open to an article. “Troubled Lineage: Curses in American Gothic Literature” was authored by Jane Troth, with a first-line acknowledgement to Thom West for his assistance. “The article reads like his work, but it’s got her name on it. That’s something to fight about, especially if she’s going to keep rejecting his diss revisions and diverting all her attention to a first-year. And uh, the optics, you know? Rich ol’ white Tennessee lady versus the Black student from up North, et cetera. I wouldn’t put it past her to have some secondary motivations for fucking him over, frankly. We’ve never been close enough for me to ask about that.”

“Seems petty to be a reason to lash out at Eddie though,” Andrew said.

Riley choked on a laugh and said, “When isn’t this academic shit petty?”

“Four rejected revisions,” he repeated.

He ran through his interactions with Troth and West in his head, the usual shades of deference and direction between student and professor taking on an entirely different tone under the light of a previous conflict. West’s efforts to connect the professor and Andrew took on a compulsive edge. Troth’s ghastly, undaunted appetite for Eddie’s research, even though she thought him to be a suicide, spoke for itself. And she had a real obvious, uncritical hard-on for her family histories, which even Andrew had an inkling might indicate some tension between her and a Black student from Massachusetts.

“Not a lot of recourse for a student with a fucked-up power dynamic under his advisor, especially an institution as, let’s say, traditional as this one,” Riley said with a sneer. “Plus he obviously didn’t succeed at calling her out before.”

Andrew handed him the notebook. His heel bounced frantically where he stood, jiggling his leg and redirecting the burgeoning swell of energy out of his body to keep from sprinting across campus to find his supposed mentor. “Troth said she approached Eddie first because of his name; her family knew his. He didn’t initiate contact with her.”

Riley whistled and said, “Like, I feel bad for the dude, but if I’m West and I’m already having a rough time with this lady, trouble getting independent research off the ground, then this fucking legacy asshole shows up and she loses interest in me—”

“Petty as fuck,” he repeated again.

“She’s kept him here years longer than he needed, and his job prospects are dwindling. People have done worse for a whole lot less,” Riley said.

“West missed our meeting this afternoon, but it’s the first one he’s missed. Otherwise, he’s worked real hard to get friendly with me,” Andrew said.

Riley chewed his thumbnail, spinning the chair in quarter circles back and forth. Andrew shifted his weight to his other foot and raked his gaze over the pile of materials again. Compared to the red-line tachometer at two in the morning and a snarling smile, the filtered murmur of a university library held less obvious danger. None of this academic shit seemed worth killing someone over, but nothing ultimately did, in the grand scheme of things. If he put his mind to it, the death he’d expect for himself and Eddie would be an accident, a collision or flare-up, never purposeful violence. Both of them were spoiled enough to assume they’d be their own undoing, he guessed, but Eddie had paid the price.

His phone vibrated and he checked it, said, “Speak of the devil, it’s West,” and answered with a curt “Hey.”

“I’m sorry, Andrew, a meeting with Troth ran long. I didn’t mean to miss you. Are you in class?”

“No, I skipped it,” he said.

Riley steepled his fingers, grimacing as he listened.

“All right. Is it too early in the afternoon to meet me for a drink?” West asked.

“I’m fine with a drink. Where?” he asked, stilted.

West’s harried tone wasn’t any less short when he said, “How about the Red Door?”

“Be there in fifteen,” he said and hung up.

“Is that a good idea?” Riley asked.

“Best idea I’ve had all day.”

“Peace then.” Riley flashed him a quick V sign as he left.

If Eddie had died for some goddamn research into haunted houses and family histories, if that was the stupid reason Eddie’s life had been cut short, he didn’t know what he’d do. Nothing West had shown him indicated the temperament to harm someone else, but none of his other leads had gone anywhere. Tightness sang up his arms, and he realized he was clenching his fists hard enough to make his fingers go numb. The last time he’d had a second to relax was probably—the long drive and the companionable solitude after the faculty gathering, before the incident with the deer carcass.

Crossing campus, he texted Sam.

chill later?

Sorry princess, got work tonight

Unless you just need to get free then the key’s under the rock next to the steps crash on the couch.

The relief that clawed from toes to sternum paused him on the threshold of the bar, hand on the door, staring at his phone. Country woods weren’t his favorite place to be, but Sam’s offer meant something; depending on how the conversation went with West, he’d need to have a breather outside of the rooms Eddie had left behind, and Sam was giving him somewhere to be. No one would fuck with him out at Sam’s, and there would be room to think through whatever he learned. He hated that it sounded so good.