Page 48 of The Perfect Accomplice

He seemed happy to be interrogated.

“Remember, I’m still just a pledge, not a member, so I only eat there when I’m invited, and I was not invited tonight. Besides, I was looking for you.”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously, before immediately moving on to a more pressing question. “How did you know I’d be here?”

"I stopped by your room and asked Lizzie," he explained. "After I convinced her that I meant no harm, she very reluctantly admitted you were here. She looks out for you. Is that because you helped her out with those threatening messages she was getting?"

“I think she mostly looks out for me because she’s a nice person,” Hannah replied, deadpan.

“Well, I’m here now,” he said. “I sure hope that I didn’t scare you when I came up behind you like that.”

“You didn’t,” she assured him. “There’s a difference between startled and scared.”

“If you say so,” he teased.

Hannah, irked by his cockiness, grabbed the calzone as if it might somehow spite him, though she wasn’t sure that he would see it that way.

“Good call,” he said, noting her selection,” they’re yummy.”

“Why are you here?” she demanded, not engaging in his playful banter.

His grin dimmed slightly, and she could tell he was about to get serious.

“I thought you might want to know what happened with Reggie today.”

Hannah put a parfait on her tray and headed for the register, hoping she wasn’t betraying her intrigue. As badly as she wanted to know, she didn’t want to look like it.

“I guess I’m mildly curious,” she conceded.

“Somehow I think that’s the understatement of the day,” he noted, before launching in. “Anyway, it went really well. I joined him in the professor’s office. The T.A. was there too. Reggie methodically went through many of the points you made last night. He noted that a fellow student, Sherry Braid, might be dating Marvin Jost. He explained the playing time situation.”

“And they just caved?” Hannah asked as she handed her meal swipe card to the student at the checkout register.

“Not at first,” Finn told her. “The professor initially said he couldn’t do anything based on a mere allegation from another student.”

“But that’s exactly what was done to Reggie!” Hannah protested.

“Which is what he told them,” Finn agreed. “He said his scholarship was at risk and demanded that they look at the footage from the test immediately. They started to object, suggesting they couldn’t access the video so quickly, but he nailed them.”

“Really?” Hannah asked, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice as they walked to an unoccupied table in the dining room.

“Yeah, he was great,” Finn went on. “He said that he was coming to them as a courtesy but if they didn’t resolve things right away, his next stop would be to the coach and then to the dean’s office. I barely said a word the whole time. Anyway, that’s when they caved.”

“What did they do?” Hannah wanted to know.

“After all their claims that it would be so difficult to access, the T.A. managed to get the test video in less than a half an hour,” Finn said. “Of course, it didn’t show anything incriminating against Reggie, although you can see Sherry staring daggers at him from a couple of rows back.”

“So where do things stand now?” Hannah pressed.

“Reggie’s suspension is lifted, with a note of apology in his academic record for the ‘miscommunication,’” he told her. “Reggie asked what would happen to Sherry. They said they couldn’t get into that, but I have a feeling that it’s not going to end well for her.”

Hannah sat down at the table and, in what she considered a show of tremendous restraint, took a spoonful of parfait instead of going right for the calzone. After swallowing, she replied.

“I’m glad everything worked out.”

She noted that Finn suddenly looked nervous. Sensing something unpleasant coming her way, she tried to nip it in the bud with her own attempt at humor.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Are the blisters you got from your terrible dancing giving you trouble?”

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