Page 56 of Long Way Down

“Lynn is friendliest with Eva, there.”

A petite young woman with a black, razor-sharp bob haircut and overalls. She sat with her gaze fixed unseeing in the middle distance, pencil pressed unmoving to the paper, lost in thought.

“Excuse me,” Dubois said, and moved around the room so he stood behind her. He leaned in close to murmur something to her, but didn’t touch her, Melissa noted with a bit of approval.

Eva started, blinked, shook herself and murmured back. She resumed sketching, but once he’d moved off, she slipped her phone from her pocket and checked its screen beneath her easel.

Melissa pulled up the photo she’d taken minutes before on her own phone and tilted the screen toward Contreras.

He met her gaze and nodded.

Before she put the phone away, she saw that she had a new text from Pongo.What do u want for dinner 2nite?With several smileys.

Dubois returned.

“What about Tobias?” Contreras asked. “We know he’s in Lana’s econ study group. Is he friendly with Lynn, too?”

“Not especially, no. At least not to my eyes. They come from very different worlds, I think.”

“And what world does Tobias come from?”

Dubois’s expression was thoughtful when she snuck a sideways glance at him. “He’s had difficulties, I believe. And lacked the means to make them go away quietly. But he’s talented, and courteous in my classroom.”

Melissa let her gaze return to him, and tried again to envision him pinning a woman down, striking her face again and again. Raping her.This one’s for you, Davey. A dedication for a man in jail.

She couldn’t picture it, but wished, for her own sanity, that she could.

Twelve

There was a small lounge at the end of the hallway, and that was where, after class, they conducted a few impromptu interviews.

Up close, Douglas Waxman evidenced the bloodshot eyes, nonchalant air, and distinctive odor of someone who smoked alotof weed. He had a vape pen that expelled vapor reeking of chemical vanilla, and he turned his head on each exhale to blow the white cloud away from them.

“They let you smoke that inside?” Contreras asked, skeptical.

“Yeah.” Another hit, another stream of white vapor off to the side. “It’s just, like, water.”

“Just like it,” Contreras deadpanned.

Melissa would have preferred the smell of a real cigarette. “We just have a few questions for you, all routine stuff,” she said, breezily. “Have you heard that Lana and Lynn were attacked.”

He took another hit off the vape. “Yeah,” he said, once he’d exhaled. “Shit’s crazy. It’s all over Twitter.” Another hit. Melissa wanted to slap the pen out of his hand. One brow lifted lazily. “News said they were raped?”

Shit. “No official details have been released yet.”

Contreras said, “Based on what we know, the same guy went after both of them. Lana one night, and Lynn the next. They don’t live in the same neighborhood, but they do have this class together.”

He stared at them, glassy-eyed.

“Did you ever talk with them?” Contreras asked. “Hang out outside of school?”

“Nah.” More vape. “We didn’t really have anything in common.”

“Really?” Melissa asked. “But you’re all interested in art.”

His gaze shifted to her slowly, his stare flat, emotionless, disinterested. He took a deliberate draw on his pen and turned his head the bare fraction necessary not to exhale vapor directly into her face. “Lana’s all into nature and shit. Being outside. Likes to paint landscapes. Lynn likes girl shit.”

“Girl shit?” Contreras asked.

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