Page 32 of The Perfect Accomplice

Hannah sat quietly for a moment, studying Reggie’s floor, then looked up.

“Marvin’s a senior and an athlete, so he’s probably made a lot of friends in his time at school. They wouldn’t have to be on the team to want to help him out. Do you have a class list?”

“Yeah,” Reggie said, “the professor made a Google doc so we could create study groups and stuff like that.”

“Show it to me,” Hannah instructed.

She stood up so Reggie could have his chair. He sat at his desk and pulled up the list on his computer. There were thirty-six names listed.

“All right,” Hannah said, “Do you mind if I take over for a minute?”

Reggie shook his head and got up so she could take his place. She sat down, inhaled deeply, and started typing.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

She was at his desk for more than a minute.

In fact, it was about fifteen minutes, during which both guys stood silently over her shoulder as she worked. When she finally stopped typing and turned around to face them, Finn and Reggie were staring at her like she was some kind of alien.

“What’s wrong?” she asked self-consciously.

“Nothing,” Reggie said.

She looked at Finn.

“I just don’t know what to say,” he admitted. “I was trying to follow what you were doing but I got lost what with all the databases and programs you were using. It was like watching a chef move around their kitchen.”

“Yeah, well I’m actually a halfway decent cook too, so I guess it makes sense,” she said, unable to hide her pride. “You want to know what I found?”

They both nodded vigorously. She turned back around and pointed at the screen.

“As far as I can tell, there are three credible suspects,” she told them. “Each of them have multiple ties to Jost and two of them have known him for a couple of years at least. But in both of those cases, it looks like the relationships are casual, sharing a few classes or being in the same clubs. It’s this third person I’m most interested in.”

“Sherry Braid?” Finn asked, looking at the screen.

“Right,” Hannah said. “Do you know her, Reggie?”

“Not really,” he said. “I mean, I see her in class and I’m sure I’ve passed her around campus. But I don’t think we’ve ever even talked.”

“Well,” Hannah said, pulling up a new tab with a photo from the school paper. “I can assure you that she’s talked to Marvin Jost. In fact, I think they’re secretly dating.”

“How do you know?” Reggie asked.

"This photo was a candid from a fundraiser hosted by Black Student Union, which they're members of," she noted, before pointing at the corner of the picture. "I used a facial recognition program to find it, among others. Look at them. They're not looking at each other, but they're extremely close. I'd call their physical positioning comfortable, maybe even intimate."

“Don’t you think you’re reaching just a little bit?” Finn asked skeptically.

“Maybe,” Hannah conceded, “but apparently so is Marvin.”

She pulled up another photo from Marvin’s fraternity page. It was from a party several weeks ago. It was a crowd image, but Marvin, who was also very tall and hard to miss, had his hand on Sherry’s shoulder. She was gazing up at him adoringly.

“And then there’s this,” she told them pulling up Sherry’s Instagram. There were no photos of Marvin visible but there was something else. “Isn’t Marvin’s jersey number 24?”

“Yeah,” Reggie said.

She then pointed to multiple instances of the number appearing in Sherry’s photos, including on the whiteboard in her dorm room, and in one close-up photo, scrawled on the back of her hand in red marker.

“But I’ve never seen them in public together as a couple,” Reggie said, clearly not wanting to believe it. “Maybe she’s just a big fan.”

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