Reputation(46)
I gave him a skeptical look, wanting to ask why not. Instead, I pointed at the bottle of wine on the counter. “Mind if I have some of that?”
Strasser glanced at the wine, then crossed his arms. “How old are you?”
“How old do I look?” And then, after a beat, “I’m almost twenty-one, honest. Birthday’s March nineteenth.” A lie. My birthday was in March, but I would be only twenty.
The teakettle whistled. Strasser switched off the burner. He poured me a half glass of wine. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.” I sipped. “And thank you.”
“Nah, thank you.” His eyes twinkled. “I am way, way too tired for a night out.” He rubbed his forehead and temples, grimacing.
I lowered my lashes. “I can help you relax, if you want.”
Dr. Strasser froze, the wine halfway to his lips. The ions in the room seemed to rearrange. If there was a moment to just act, it was now. I took a step toward him. I would start with a little massage. I’d comment on his musculature. Ask if he worked out. Men loved that. As I stepped closer, I momentarily left my body and saw this scene as a stranger peering through the window: a pretty girl in a sweatshirt and socks and an older man in surgical scrubs stood in the kitchen.
“Aldrich doesn’t have a Dean’s List, you know,” Greg suddenly said.
I stopped halfway across the floor. “I’m sorry?”
“Aldrich doesn’t have a Dean’s List. It’s one of the school’s quirks.”
“Oh.” An oily sensation spread through me. “My bad. I was thinking of my high school’s honors list, I guess.” I raised one shoulder in an Aw shucks, but my heart was starting to beat hard. “And I just wanted to impress you. Is that so wrong?”
Dr. Strasser was looking at me like I was one of those Word Find games; the longer he stared, the more likely it was that the answer would reveal itself. Finally, he said in a voice that wasn’t quite angry but wasn’t quite friendly, either: “Do you even go to Aldrich at all, Raina?”
I felt a cold draft on my thighs. How had he figured that out? But maybe it didn’t matter. I could still feel his yearning. All I had to do was push a little harder, and I’d have him.
“You got me,” I said, pouring myself another half glass of wine. “It’s . . . complicated. Still, I’ll be your Aldrich coed, if that’s what you like. I’ll be whatever you want.”
Alexis snuggles close. I conceal a grin. A new plan is forming, just like it had that night with Strasser. That plan had worked. Worked really, really well.
But now Strasser is gone. And I have to move on to survive.
17
KIT
MONDAY, MAY 1, 2017
The moment I step through our office doors on Monday morning, I feel the same way Alice must have when she walked in on the Mad Hatter and the March Hare having the tea party. All activity on the floor stops. Jeremy stares at me as though he’s seen a three-headed frog.
“Kit!” George rushes over to me. “What are you doing back?”
“You guys need me.” I nervously stuff my key card back in my purse. “Is that all right?”
“Of course, of course.” George follows me as I unlock my office door and walk inside. “I just didn’t want to push you to come back until you were ready.” His gaze slides to the big window that overlooks the street. A few reporters have followed me here. I don’t know what they expect. If I haven’t talked to them yet, what makes them think I’m going to change my mind and suddenly give a statement?
My office has a dusty smell as though it’s been shut for weeks. I can feel my boss watching me. I’ve ignored his calls and e-mails, even the ones about work matters, which mostly had to do with such-and-such donor pulling out because of the hack news. That’s not like me. Kit Manning-Strasser is on point in her job, even in a crisis.
It was Willa who urged me to come back. Create some normalcy again, she said. Even if you stare at your computer for six hours, doing nothing, it’ll get easier with each passing day. Willa said she’d take care of the girls, grocery shopping, and even moving us back into my house, if forensics ever finishes up. Not that I’m sure I want to move back. I’m not sure I can ever go into my kitchen again.
George updates me on some of the pressing hack scandals that most threaten donor support. I offer to make some calls, assuaging the benefactors’ fears and persuading them not to back out of their financial commitments. “You realize they may want to know how you’re holding up,” he says carefully. “Quite a few of them are . . . curious.”
A muscle in his cheek jumps. Is he trying to tell me that a lot of the donors suspect I’m the killer? But the donors are smarter than that. And besides, if I were bad for business, George would have had a conversation with me about it last week. Suggest I take some time off, maybe. He isn’t the type who beats around the bush.
Then George says he has a meeting to get to, adding with a crinkly smile that it’s “really good to have you back, Kit.”
I settle into my desk. My computer is functional again—the Aldrich servers have finally been restored. The IT specialists still haven’t figured out how to take down the hack database, but at this point it’s moot, because the link has been replicated and reposted by a bunch of other sites like Snopes and Open Secrets. I launch my e-mail app, feeling a rush of holy-shit fear. Can I really do this? I’ve just buried my second husband, a murder happened in my house, the whole world knows that my dead husband had an affair, and a man I made out with is married to my coworker. Am I really going to keep it together?