Page 18 of The Ruse

From what Cambrielle had told me, last spring had been pretty intense and crazy for him.

Had he wanted to come back to this small town with all its gossip? Or had he been forced back here?

Cambrielle had said he went to live with his aunt and uncle in New York for a while. Had they sent him back here since his brother was his actual guardian?

I didn’t get a chance to ask him any of my questions, though, because the doors opened behind us and Ava stepped into the room with a flurry of excited energy.

“I made it.” Her cheeks were flushed, probably from a mixture of the cold weather and her rush to get here.

“With twenty-three minutes to spare even.” I laughed at my sister’s antics.

“Take that, Heather and Headmistress Sutton,” Ava said with a smirk.

Ava was on shaky ground with our dorm mom and the headmistress of the school after missing curfew a few times this month. After plenty of warnings, she’d been threatened with house arrest if she was late again.

Apparently, the threat of not going to her boyfriend’s house on the weekends was a good incentive to get her back here in time.

Ava glanced at Asher, as if noticing for the first time that he was in the room. “Did I just interrupt something?” Ava asked, glancing between the two of us.

“No,” I said. Lifting my iPad for her to see, I added, “I was just watching my show while I waited for you to get back.”

“Oh, that weird serial killer show you’ve been watching?” Ava asked.

Why did she have to describe it like that? It made me look sketchy.

“It’s not all about him killing people,” I hurried to say before Asher could think I was into weird stuff. “It’s just an interesting story.” I peeked sideways at Asher. “I-I don’t like the actual violence.”

I had always been more sensitive to gore and violence in fact, so I usually fast-forwarded or closed my eyes during those parts.

“I like the psychology of it,” I added when they didn’t say anything. “Joe’s internal monologues are entertaining…you know, in a creepy sort of way…” I let my words drift off when I realized my rambling was not helping my case.

I probably should have told them about the parts that the hopeless romantic in me liked. The part where the underdog jumped through all sorts of hoops in order to get the girl.

You know…until the girl had to die…

Wow. Maybe I am messed up for enjoying this show.

Ava looked at Asher who was listening to our conversation, and with a smirk, she said, “It’s always the quiet ones you need to worry about, isn’t it?”

I was pretty sure she’d meant it as a joke, but from the uncomfortable expression on Asher’s face, it was obvious he thought Ava was referring to him being the quiet, murdering type.

I should have told her about the conversation I’d had with Cambrielle yesterday. Then she’d know that she was talking to someone who’d been labeled the loner type whose girlfriend had suddenly disappeared after last being seen in an argument with him.

“Anyway…” I cleared my throat before Ava could say anything else that might upset Asher. “It’s getting late, and we should probably get to bed.”

“Yeah,” Ava said. “Heather wanted me to check in when I got here.”

“You better hurry up then,” I said.

Ava rushed up the staircase that was on the opposite end of the room from the one Asher had used to come down earlier. The common room was a sort of middle ground between the boys’ dorms and the girls’ dorms, and the only way through the locked doors was with the ID badges we’d been given by the school.

The locks weren’t foolproof. I’d heard of a couple of guys getting caught in their girlfriends’ rooms after curfew a few times since school had started, but they did work better than I thought they would when I’d first moved in.

I picked up my blanket and iPad and was planning to follow Ava up the stairs when Asher nodded toward the screen of my tablet which showed the still frame of Joe talking to Love. “Did you decide to watch that show after learning about my police investigation?” he asked. “Trying to get inside the mind of a serial killer so you’ll know what to watch for?”

“N-No,” I stammered, my cheeks flushing hot.

“It’s okay if you did. I know after my joke and what you heard…” He sighed and ran a hand through his wavy locks. “I guess I wouldn’t blame you for being scared of me.”

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