Page 26 of The Perfect Betrayal

“So you get it now?” Hannah asked.

"I think so," Dallas told her as he leaned in closer to scrutinize the textbook. "Just give me a second to go over it on my own."

They were sitting at a small table at the Green Room Café on the UCI campus, where, for the last five minutes, she’d been reviewing what he missed in class the other day. He was a quick learner, and it had taken only half of the ten minutes she’d promised to give him to understand the concepts.

She stayed quiet while he looked over the book and the notes he’d taken while she was explaining things. As he studied the material, she studied him. Unlike yesterday, when he’d shown up to class in a t-shirt and jeans, today he was wearing a collared shirt and casual slacks. It was almost like he’d dressed up for the occasion. Or at least dressed up as much as a college sophomore does.

His dark wavy black hair was combed properly, and he’d shaved since yesterday. She’d also noticed that he seemed a little more nervous than he’d been then. Initially, she thought it was because he was worried he wouldn't understand the material and would look stupid. But that clearly wasn't the case. He got it just fine, which made her think it was something else.

When she’d first arrived at the table at 11:45, his cheeks had gotten a little pink. The same thing had happened again when she told him he’d nailed a concept. Was he just shy or was it something about her that had him fumbling a bit? Despite her reservations, she had to acknowledge that it was charming.

And shedidhave reservations. Which is why she’d spent a decent chunk of yesterday afternoon doing a background search on Dallas Henry. After her bad experience with the student whoclaimed to need her help and then tried to assault her in a library study room, no one got the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Having said that, while the guy wasn’t squeaky clean, he wasn’t a felon either. Dallas Henry had grown up in Bakersfield, in Central California. That’s where he’d gone to community college for the last year and a half, getting impeccable grades, before transferring to UC Irvine for the spring quarter.

Prior to that, in high school, he had a mixed record. Hannah knew that because she’d hacked into the school’s database and accessed everything in his student record. His first few years were mediocre, and he’d had a few disciplinary issues, specifically a couple of fights with other students and an allegation of once being high on campus, although that was never proven.

His problems weren’t hugely shocking once she uncovered the timing of his issues. They correlated closely to his parents’ divorce and his father’s subsequent death in a car accident, one in which he was apparently drunk. That sequence of events would have upended anyone’s equilibrium.

He appeared to right the academic ship around in the middle of his junior year, getting straight A's from that point forward. But it was apparently too little too late to get him into a top-tier school right off the bat, which explained going the community college route to start off. She was curious to ask him what had turned everything around for him, but that would have obviously revealed that she'd been checking up on him. Couldn't have that.

She also noted that he came from a working-class family. His father, before his death, was an electrician, and his mother was a teller at a local bank. When she remarried, it was to the bank manager. Dallas had worked multiple retail jobs throughout high school and was currently in the work-study program at UCI, where he was a part-time staffer in the main library.

Other than the two fights and the scuttled weed allegation, he seemed pretty clean-cut. But clean cut didn't mean safe, which is why she'd also scoured his social media presence for anything alarming. He didn't have much of one, which she found slightly odd for someone his age. Then again, she was only a year younger than him, and she kept a low profile online too.

Of course, in her case, it was because she'd had multiple interactions with stalkers and murderers. He just seemed uninterested. Maybe the personal tragedies he'd faced in his own life had diminished his interest in exploring online drama.

Because she wasn’t about to take any chances, she was also able to access the portal for his health records. Sometimes her time working for Kat’s detective agency really paid off. In this case, it didn’t show much.

He had an emergency inhaler for mild asthma, and he’d undergone an emergency appendectomy when he was fourteen. Regarding her primary concern, that he might have had treatment for some mental health issue, his file was clean. She would still proceed with caution, but he’d at least passed her initial test for casual personal interaction.

“What?” he asked.

“Huh?” she replied, confused.

“You’ve kind of been staring at me for the last twenty seconds,” he told her. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Oh, no, sorry,” she said, feeling her own cheeks turn slightly pink. “I was just lost in thought. I didn’t realize I was staring.”

“Uh huh,” he replied, seemingly unconvinced. “So I think I’m going to be okay with this material now. Thanks for helping me out.”

“I don’t think you really needed all that much help, to be honest.”

"Maybe it seems that way now," he said. "But I wasn't sure, and it's always nice to get a sanity check, you know?"

“I do like the occasional sanity check,” she agreed, though she meant something very different than him. “And I’m glad we could knock this out quick because I’m supposed to meet up with my friend in a minute.”

“Is that your way of telling me that it’s time to clear out?” he asked.

“Kind of,” she admitted. “But I didn’t want to be outright rude.”

“I wouldn’t call it rude,” he said with a grin as he packed up his stuff, “just blunt bordering on harsh.”

“Really?” she asked, now genuinely embarrassed.

“Nah, I’m just teasing,” he said, standing up and throwing his backpack over his shoulder. “I’ll get out of your hair now. Thanks for taking the time.”

“That’s okay.”

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