Page 92 of Kings & Chaos

Still, I was almost grateful for the distraction, because tonight’s game made this little operation look like a game of tic-tac-toe. Apparently, there was a rumor that the Knights were moving on their target for game two, and that meant we had to move first to keep from losing.

I still felt sick thinking about it, and I had no idea what I was going to do when the time came to play my part.

I got out of the car and crossed the gravel drive. The day was cold and gray, a hint of what was to come over the next three months as we all battened down the hatches for winter.

The house wasn’t huge, but it looked like something out of the Italian countryside, with an old stone facade, a big wooden door, and a circular driveway complete with a little fountain that wasn’t running.

When I reached the door, I took a deep breath and bypassed the doorbell in favor of the big bronze knocker.

A minute later the door was opened by a middle-aged woman in jeans and a white button-down under an oversized sweater. Her graying hair was pulled back from her pretty face, her brown eyes a little hollowed out.

“Mrs. Giordana?” I asked in my most professional, I-have-every-reason-to-be-here voice.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I’m a few minutes late,” I said. “I’m with the paper?”

She shook her head, and little lines appeared on her forehead. “I’m sorry?”

“The observer?” I hoped the expression on my face screamed ingenue (that was one of Oscar’s favorite words to use when describing innocent women in old movies).

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Oh geez… Ron said he’d set up the interview? For the article on Dean Giordana. Sorry, your husband.”

She shook her head again. “No one set up anything.”

I sighed. “Ron does this sometimes, not that I’m smack-talking him behind his back. Ron’s great, he’s just a little—”

“This really isn’t a good time,” Mrs. Giordana said. Her first name was Ruth, and I knew from the research I’d done that she came from old money.

Legit money, not Mafia money.

I blew out a breath, like I was giving up. “Of course. I’m so sorry. For the mix-up and your loss. It’s just…”

She lifted her eyebrows.

“The deadline for the next edition is tomorrow, and we were really hoping to get a tribute to your husband in this one. The next issue won’t come out until February, after the holiday break, and, well… Dean Giordana was just such an important part of the school. It feels… wrong not to write a tribute, you know?”

I was rambling because I was nervous, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I sounded like an idiot, and it was better for Ruth Giordana to think I was an idiot than a liar.

She sighed. “What do you need exactly?”

“I got most of what I need online,” I said. I could feel the ticking of the clock behind our conversation. I needed to get into Dean Giordana’s study stat. “I was mostly hoping for a few pictures of his office or study or whatever, just to, you know,humanizehim, show a personal side to him.”

The lines were back on her forehead. “I don’t know…”

“You can totally observe while I take the pictures,” I said. “I know we’re asking for access to his private space. We just want to, you know, reallyhonorhim.”

I was taking some risks, making some assumptions based on the research I’d done. But an old money woman like Ruth didn’t marry a poor, mediocre dude like Stephen Giordana unless she’d really loved him, and if she really loved him, she was a lot more broken up about the loss than the student body of Aventine, who’d gone back to their regularly scheduled activities without a second thought and barely even acknowledged Interim Dean Garcia.

“How long would this take?” Mrs. Giordana asked.

“Like… ten minutes,” I said. “Maybe fifteen at most.”

She sighed and opened the door. “I can give you fifteen minutes.”

Chapter35

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