Snow looked back. Riley stared at the floor with those shiny eyes. Slowly Snow descended the stairs, stepping on each tread with one foot, then the other. No one followed him. At the bottom, Mrs. Wishus’s apartment door still stood open. He stopped and waited.
Please, stop me. Say you believe me.
If Riley doesn’t believe me, how could anyone else?
He looked inside Mrs. Wishus’s apartment. No one. She must still be outside doing battle with the reporters. He glanced around.
There.
A door in the back of the apartment, by the kitchen.
Maybe it leads—away.
He crept in, dragging his body like it weighed a thousand pounds, glancing at the big front windows that looked out on the porch. Through the ruffled curtains, he could still see the outline of the TV trucks. He stayed back so the reporters wouldn’t catch sight of him and circled the living room. Above the fireplace a framed piece of embroidery said “The truth is worth fighting for.”
Snow swiped at his eyes.
I can’t prove I’m innocent, and I’m about to be expelled. The only person alive who cares about me is in a coma and might die. That’s the truth.
Funny. He thought he’d been alone most of his life. He really hadn’t known what alone was.
He slipped out her back door into the cold gray morning. His bike was in Riley’s car. Good thing he liked to walk. Pulling his hoodie over his head, he stayed on the least traveled streets. Two blocks from his apartment, he stopped and watched the ATM at the local bank.
Nobody. Good.
He ran across the street and inserted his bank card, tapped in the code, then requested two hundred dollars.
Transaction Denied.
What?
He repeated the process.
Transaction Denied.
His breath poured from his lungs, and he fell against the screen. He didn’t have credit cards. He’d always used cash. But he didn’t have any. What little money he’d carried had gotten soaked in his pants pockets, and he’d left it to dry in Riley’s kitchen. Sweet Jesus, he didn’t have a cent.
A man in a suit walked up to the ATM, so Snow turned and hurried away. He had a little money in his apartment. That would hold him over until he could contact the executor of the trust and get some cash from him. Surely, no matter what the lawyer thought, he couldn’t deny Snow his own money.
It took nearly an hour of slow trudging to get to his apartment. There they all were. From behind a tree, he watched the reporters outside his building. They must be coming in from all the surrounding towns, because there weren’t enough local newspeople to fill one van, much less three. Damn being well-known.
How did they know to go to Riley’s house to look for me?
Easy. The same way they got this whole story. Anitra Popescu. Or whatever her real name is.
What does she get out of this?
I suspect we’ll find out.
Snow circled the building until he found the janitor’s door.
Cross your fingers.
He tried the handle and the door slid open.
Yes.
The homeowner’s association had chastised Mr. Olney, the caretaker, several times for being lax about the door.
Thank you, Mr. Olney.
Snow sneaked through the basement and then took the stairs to the top floor. On the landing he slowly cracked the door open.
Holy God.
He closed it quietly. Police stood at the open door to his apartment.
Maybe I should just go give myself up to them. At least that way I can tell my story.
Slowly he peeked out the door again.
A policeman in uniform walked out of the apartment door with an armload of stuff. He raised an eyebrow to the guard at the door. “Did you see this shit, man? I didn’t know this kind of porn even existed. Jesus. Do guys do this to each other?” He shoved a magazine in the other guy’s face. The guard’s eyes widened.
Porn? What the hell were they talking about? Snow closed the door. Somebody had planted porn in his apartment? His breath came in gasps.
No roof over your head. No phone. No money.
His mentor in the hospital. He’d even lost Winston’s friendship. No one who didn’t know the story of his imaginary shame. No Riley. His back hit the wall, and he slid down to the floor. Where could he go? A lawyer managed his family trust, but he only did financial stuff, not criminal defense. People thought Snow was a criminal.
He curled in a ball and let the tears slide down his face until his eyes closed on their own.
CHAPTER 17
WHEN SNOW’S
eyes opened, the tiny bit of light that had filtered up the stairwell from the windows at the bottom was gone. Night? He moved and pain shot up his back. He was used to sleeping on the floor, but not a surface this hard. He pried his fingers into the door and opened it a crack. The door to his apartment had police tape over it. Still, he could sneak in and—
A burly sheriff wandered down the hall, looking bored. So much for that plan. Snow let the door close.
Alone with nowhere to go.
He took a deep breath.
Time to stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something.
What?
Don’t know, but something.
He stood quietly and stretched the kinks out of his back.
I have money, if I can figure out how to get it. Then I could leave here and go someplace else.
What about the professor?
Jesus, he’d been so self-absorbed he’d nearly forgotten.
If I leave, he’ll be at the mercy of that woman.
He could already be gone.
No!
He sucked in a breath.
Even if he is, I have to be sure she doesn’t get away with it.
With what?
Shut up.
He slipped softly down the stairs until he got to the basement and back to the janitor’s exit. Interesting to find it locked. Someone must have realized the mistake. He opened it, made sure the lock was still fixed, peeked outside into the quiet night, then took a deep breath, stepped out, and closed the door behind him.
No going home.
That certainly expanded his horizons into the great unknown. He pulled his hoodie over his head and wrapped his windbreaker tighter against the cold.
Wish I had my warmer jacket.
People in hell want ice water.
Where to?
The trees and foliage near the river would keep him hidden. Hard going, but hell, he didn’t have a destination he had to hurry to. He slipped through alleys at the backs of buildings and down darker streets until he heard the sound of the river.
Taking a more rural road, he slogged along for another fifteen minutes until he saw the expanse of the river in the distance. He shivered. Not exactly the most pleasant memory. He pushed through some dense bushes and stared at the swift-moving black liquid. Liquid he’d nearly drowned in. If it hadn’t been for—
Wait. What about the Iota Pis?
They didn’t live in Snow’s town or go to NorCal. Maybe they wouldn’t know about the story.
Hell, everyone knows.
But maybe they wouldn’t care so much. Besides, if they did, at least he could steal some food from their garbage. Tomorrow he’d make his way to the office of the trust’s executor, get some money, and figure out what to do next. He planted a foot into the wet, sucking dirt and moved forward.
Two hours later, he stopped and leaned against a tree. Branches had smacked and scratched him, and his tennis shoes, which actually belonged to one of the Iota Pis, had turned brown with mud. Their house was farther than he thought. In the water it had only taken a few minutes to get there.
Finally he recognized some of the features of the riverbank.
There’s where they rescued me.
He could still see the big pole they’d thrust out into the current. The house had to be nearby. He didn’t remember being carried far.
Maybe you blacked out.
Possible, but—no, there it was. That had to be it. The big, three-story farmhouse-style building stood tucked into some trees. Man, what a location. Isolated, with an amazing view of the river from the back. Unusual for a fraternity house to have such prime real estate.
All the windows but one were dark.
Makes sense. It has to be late.
The lighted window was on the second floor. A few big trees bowed gracefully near the house. Okay, he hadn’t climbed a tree in years, but what the heck. Had to be like riding a bike, right? He scoped the tree nearest the window, took hold of a low branch, and swung up. After a few harrowing handholds, he made it high enough to look in the window. Doc sat at a desk, staring at a computer screen, with a large coffee cup beside him. Doc had saved him before.
Snow found a couple of hard berries growing on the tree. He picked them and tossed the first one at the window. Missed completely. Again. This one hit, and Doc looked up, but only for a second. Snow blew on his hands. Walking had warmed him up, but he was losing heat fast. He tossed another berry and then another immediately after that so it would seem less like an accident.
Doc cocked his head toward the window. Snow tossed two more berries. Doc got up and pressed his face to the glass. Suddenly his eyes widened. Snow let go for a second and waved, then grabbed the branch again. Doc disappeared from the window, and Snow started climbing down—carefully.
He was trying to figure out how to manage the six feet from the branch he was on to the ground when Doc’s voice called, “Snow, is that you?”
“Yes. Hi.” He looked down at Doc’s upturned face.
“How come I always seem to find you clinging to branches?”
“Yeah, sorry.” He stared at the ground, scooted on the branch until he could lower himself, then let go and dropped, but not without a huge splinter in his palm. “Darn.” He sucked on his hand.
“Let me see.”
Snow held out his hand to Doc in the near dark. “Splinter.”
“More like a log. Come on, let’s get that out.” He walked toward the back door of the house, and Snow followed. Doc glanced back. “So, uh, why are you here?”
“I had some trouble. You might have heard.”
“Haven’t heard anything. Working on a huge paper. All I’ve done for the last four days is study and write. I disconnected my Internet so I wouldn’t be distracted.” Doc closed the door after Snow walked in, and turned on the light. Warm.
“Seems like I always come to your place to get warm.” Snow smiled.
Doc turned and looked at him. “Holy shit! What happened to you? You look as bad as when I fished you out of the river. Worse. At least then you were clean.”
“I walked here on the riverbank.”
“Where’s your car?”
“I can’t drive, remember?”
“Oh, right. Why didn’t you call us to pick you up?”
Snow stared at his muddy sneakers. “Wrecked my phone in the river and haven’t had a chance to get a new one.”
“Holy crap. Don’t I remember a boyfriend? Couldn’t he have brought you?”
“We broke up.” It started as words and ended on a sob.
Doc put a friendly hand on his arm. “Oh man, you have got trouble. Come on. I think you need a shower and some minor surgery.”
That barely covered it, but would be a good start. “C-could I have a drink of water?”
“My God, kid. When did you eat last?”
“Yesterday.”
“Shit. Come on.”
In the bathroom, Doc brought a glass, watched while Snow sucked down water, and pried the splinter out of Snow’s hand without asking another question. Good. Snow really didn’t want to answer. After his shower, Snow wrapped himself in some sweats Doc left for him and walked into the room about as big as a broom closet Doc had pointed to. A sandwich, some milk, and another huge glass of water sat beside the bed. Tears of pure gratitude slipped out of Snow’s eyes. Doc didn’t come back, so he wolfed the sandwich, drank the water until he was slurping the bottom of the glass, and fell onto the narrow daybed, sound asleep.
“YOU BOYS
didn’t lie. He is exceptionally beautiful. Reminds me of a friend from New York.”
Snow rolled his head to the side to escape the voice.
Sleep more.
“I’d sure believe he could lure anyone he wanted, so maybe the stories are true.”
Damn.
That was a different voice. Snow pried his lids open—and stared at the wall about six inches from his face. He flipped over and looked instead at the mass of people gazing down at him. He vaguely recognized them all—the fraternity brothers?—except for one tiny, elfin man in a brilliant red-and-yellow plaid suit. Just looking at him made Snow want to smile. The rest of them? Not as much. “Uh, can I help you all?” He didn’t dare sit up, since the giant sweats he kind of remembered putting on last night seemed to have slid down to his butt.
The elf smiled. “How are you feeling, my boy? I understand from Doc that you came to us last night in difficult straits.”
The biggest guy in the group—Bash?—jutted his chin forward. “Yeah, because somebody found out he was a whore and threw him out of NorCal.”
Doc crossed his arms. “Sorry, Mr. P. I didn’t know about any of it when I let him in last night.”
Romeo smiled his beautiful smile in his beautiful face. “Why should it possibly matter to anyone if Snow is a professional? We all have to make a living.”
Well, hell.
Snow let the covers drop, grabbed the giant sweatpants, and pulled them up as he came to sit, a move that tangled him in orange cotton, but he finally managed to face his firing squad. “I’m not a damned whore. While I agree with Romeo that it wouldn’t be anyone’s business if I were, the fact is, someone who hates me for reasons I don’t completely understand accused me. She’s gone to a boatload of trouble to get rid of me. In fact, I think she was responsible for the whole drowning thing too, but I can’t prove any of it. So thanks for the sandwich and the place to sleep, and if you’ll get out of my way, I’ll leave.”
Mr. Elf crossed his arms like Doc. “Where will you go?”