Megan
Monday evening, my idle curiosity got the best of me and I got online and performed some quick personal research. I’d read between the lines of what Paige had said at lunch, that her parents knew Senator Sutton from their country club. I had an inkling their connection might have played a role in Paige’s landing the internship. Sure enough, I discovered that Richard and Suzanne McQuaid had contributed the maximum amount to each of Senator Sutton’s campaigns over the past years. They’d also contributed tens of thousands to political action committees, though none of those funds went into Sutton’s coffers. Unlike many politicians in Texas, whose largest contributors were oil and gas companies. Sutton refused contributions from special interests. It was one of the reasons he was so respected.
Though hiring the daughter of contributors seemed to fly in the face of his slogan—“The Best Representation Money Can’t Buy”—Alexa had a valid point. If the internship was unpaid, it was more like volunteering, right? For all I knew he had a whole slew of unpaid interns slogging away in his office and at his campaign headquarters. And if Paige had a high GPA and good job references, she shouldn’t be prevented from getting an internship just because her parents had donated money to Sutton’s campaign. She should simply be given the same consideration as any other applicant.
My roommate only left our room Monday night to brush her teeth and use the facilities in the adjoining bath, so I hadn’t been able to have Brigit search the room and show me where the drugs were hidden. But at least I’d finally learned my roommate’s name.
After I’d turned off my desk lamp around eleven, I’d said, “I know you aren’t happy about having a dog in the room, but we’re stuck with each other so we might as well do our best to get along.” At least until I have to possibly arrest you for selling drugs. “You haven’t even told me your name, you know.”
Still bent over her textbook and chemistry homework at her desk, her leg pumping up and down with nervous energy, she exhaled sharply. “It’s Emily.”
“All right,” I said. “That’s a start. Good night, Emily.”
A few seconds later she issued a reply, speaking so softly I could barely hear her. “Good night, Morgan.”
Tuesday morning, I woke a few minutes after six. It took me a few hazy seconds to realize the bed didn’t feel familiar. Also missing was the familiar warm, heavy body pressed up next to me.
I sat up in the dim dawn light peeking through the miniblinds and scanned the room. Brigit wasn’t lying on the rug. She wasn’t on the tile by the door, either. Nope, she was curled up on Emily’s bed, tucked in the V between my roommate’s legs, her head draped over Emily’s calf.
This isn’t good.
As quietly as I could, I slipped out from under my covers and stood. On hearing the movement, Brigit opened her eyes partway, but blatantly ignored my hand motioning for her to get down from the bed and closed them again. Darn dog!
What now? I couldn’t very well call her name or I’d risk waking Emily. The last thing I needed was her freaking out again.
I tiptoed across the rug, bent down, and puckered my lips, aiming a stream of breath at Brigit’s face to get her attention. She opened her eyes again, but unfortunately so did Emily.
My roommate sat bolt upright, jerked her covers up to her chin, and shrieked at the top of her lungs. “Aaaaaah!”
Brigit stood on her bed, took a moment to yawn and stretch, then hopped down.
“I’m so sorry!” I told Emily. “She must’ve climbed onto your bed during the night.”
Tears had formed in Emily’s eyes and she panted like a dog, her breathing loud in the otherwise quiet room. She doesn’t dislike dogs. She’s terrified of them. For a potential drug dealer, the girl was quite a wimp.
I clipped Brigit’s leash onto her collar and ordered her to sit. “Emily,” I said, kneeling next to her bed. “I promise you there’s nothing to be afraid of. Britney is a very well-behaved dog. She wouldn’t hurt a flea.”
It was true. Mostly because I made sure she didn’t have fleas. Criminals, on the other hand? Heck, yeah, she’d go after those with incredible determination and ferocity. But I couldn’t very well tell Emily that, especially since she might be one of those criminals we’d be going after.
Emily gulped as a tear escaped and ran down her cheek. “Promise she’s nice?” she asked meekly.
“I promise. How about if I bring her over and you can pet her? Would that help?”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”
I’d learned from experience that the only way for a person to overcome her fears was to face them. “Can we try?”
Emily’s gaze went from me, to Brigit, and back again. Her eyes were still wet and wide, bloodshot, too, from lack of sleep, but, finally, she nodded.
“Come here, Brit,” I said, patting my leg.
Brigit came over and sat as instructed, wagging her tail as if to encourage Emily to trust her. Slowly, tentatively, Emily reached out a hand and gave Brigit’s head a single pat. Brigit responded by giving Emily’s hand a long lick with her tongue.
“See?” I said. “She’s not so bad.”
Emily held up her dog-slobber-moistened hand. “That was sweet and disgusting at the same time.”
“Sweet and disgusting,” I repeated. “That’s dogs in a nutshell.” With that, I threw a robe on over my pajamas and slid my feet into my slippers. “I need to take her out. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I rounded up the roll of poop bags and stuck them in the pocket of my robe along with my ID card and cell phone. As quietly as possible, I led Brigit out of the dorm and over to the far side of a green space so she could relieve herself. Fortunately, at this early hour, only a couple of maintenance workers were out and about on the campus, so I didn’t embarrass myself. I unclipped Brigit’s lead to give her some freedom, and took advantage of the moment to contact the university police department.
“She alerted on rooms 306, 313, and 518,” I told the male officer who answered. “She also alerted on the room I’ve been assigned, the one Miranda Hernandez lived in, but I haven’t had a chance to search it yet. My roommate hasn’t left the room since my partner alerted. As soon as we’re alone, I’ll see what we find and let you know.”
“Great,” he said. “In the meantime, I’ll get officers over to those rooms to see what they find.”
Brigit had gone number one, and was now popping a squat under a large live oak tree. Good. I wouldn’t have to worry about her needing to go in the middle of my morning class.
While my partner dropped her load, I left a voice mail on Detective Jackson’s phone at the police department, telling her what I’d told the campus police. With any luck, they’d find a huge stash of Molly in one of the rooms, identify the student as the dealer who’d sold to Miranda Hernandez and Ashleigh White, and Brigit and I could move back home. Of course, depending on what I found in my own dorm room, it could turn out that Miranda herself was the dealer and that she’d had a bad reaction to her own product. Still, despite the fact that all sorts of people were dealing drugs these days, I had a hard time believing a young woman with such an innocent face could be a drug dealer. Call it instinct. Or maybe call it naiveté. It was possible my instincts were nothing more than wishful thinking and that her face had looked so young and innocent only because she’d been unconscious.
Having finished her business, Brigit turned her attention to the tree, sniffing around its base and peering up into its branches, probably hoping to see a squirrel to chase. I whipped out the roll of bags, pulled one off the end, and scooped up her droppings, tying the bag closed.
“C’mon, Brigit!” I called, grimacing when I realized my blunder. Britney, I reminded myself. She’s Britney now.
I looked around for a trash can, but none caught my eye. Rather than take the bag of poop into the lobby to dispose of it, I figured the considerate thing to do would be to toss it into the big metal bin behind the dorm. I circled around the back of the building and tossed the poop onto the top of the bin, which was nearly full. The bag landed with a soft plup.
When I turned to go, I discovered the red-haired girl from the dining hall coming toward me, a white garbage bag in her hands. She looked down at her cell phone as she walked, multitasking. She looked up on hearing my footsteps, her feet faltering for a split second and her face showing surprise on seeing someone else out here so early. As she approached, she gave me the standard, “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said in reply. It took everything in me not to ask, Were you the girl with Miranda Hernandez at Panther Pavilion?
Brigit and I returned to our room to find it empty. The sound of the shower running in the bath told me that Emily was bathing.
Now’s our chance.
I gave Brigit the order to search for drugs. She lifted her head and put her nose in the air, sniffing. Rather than moving to Emily’s side of the room, my partner stepped over to my bed and hopped up on it, still scenting the air, her nostrils twitching. She stepped from my bed onto the taller desk, her paws sliding on the flat surface. As I stepped over to make sure she wouldn’t slide off and hurt herself, she reared up onto the bookcase bolted to the wall over the desk and stretched her head up as high as she could. Sniff-sniff. She froze in that position.
Above the bookcase was a small metal slatted air vent held to the wall with screws. Are the drugs inside the vent? I had neither the time to remove the vent, nor the tools to do so at the moment. It would have to wait until later.
As I spooned canned food into a bowl for Brigit, the shower stopped running. I gathered up a pair of clean underwear and a bra so I could be next in the shower. When Emily returned to our room, I traded places with her, taking Brigit with me, instructing her to lie on the mat until I was done.
When I was finished, I returned to the room to find Emily dressed and checking e-mails on her computer, her knee bouncing up and down as usual. The girl had so much nervous energy, was wound so incredibly tight, it was a wonder she didn’t fly into a million little pieces. After sliding into a pair of jeans, sandals, and a short-sleeved peasant blouse, I applied my makeup and twisted part of my hair onto my head in a messy but stylish pile, holding it in place with a clip. Ready, I turned to my roommate. “Want to get breakfast?”
She glanced up from her computer. “Okay.”
I took my backpack with me so that I could head straight to class from the dining hall. Emily brought hers, as well. Downstairs, I rounded up a banana, a bowl of oatmeal, and a glass of orange juice. Emily met me at the table with a tray bearing three cups of coffee, along with greasy hash browns and bacon, early death on a plate.
I eyed the mugs. “Three cups of coffee?”
“And that’s just for starters,” she said, raising a mug and taking a gulp.
I sipped my juice. “Do you have an eight o’clock class, too?”
“Yeah. My other one is at three.”
Good to know. That would give me a couple of hours later this afternoon to look in the vent.
I eyed her across the table. Her eyes were puffy and she had huge, dark bags under them. Her skin seemed paler, too. She appeared not unlike some of the drug addicts I’d dealt with on the job. “Are you feeling okay, Emily?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just a little tired is all.” She tossed back a big gulp from one of the mugs. “I’m the first one in my family to go to college. I’m here on grants and an academic scholarship. I’m trying to maintain my 4.0 average, but these summer classes are killers.”
She spoke the truth. When professors had to cram a full semester’s worth of material into four or five weeks, the pace was nothing less than frantic. It was bad enough with my political science courses. I could hardly imagine what it would be like to take two chemistry classes with their required additional labs in a summer session.
Her comment about the grants and scholarship caught my attention, too. The fact that she qualified for grants meant she came from a family of modest means.
“Did you get a full ride?” I asked.
“I wish,” she replied. “The scholarship pays for half, the grants cover some of the rest. I have a part-time job at the rec center on campus. But I’ve had to take out a student loan, too. I only hope I’m not still paying it off when I’m fifty.”
She wasn’t the only student with that concern. Still, her financial straits made me wonder. Just how far was she willing to go to finance her education? I’d heard about a college student in Florida who’d pocketed thirty grand a week from sales of MDMA. Several students at the University of California–Santa Cruz, including sorority girls, had also been busted for dealing the drug. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Would those worries about student loan debt cause Emily to resort to dealing Molly? Hmm … I’d keep an eye on her, see if any evidence presented itself.
“Alexa and Paige seem nice,” I said, changing the subject. “Do you know them well?”
“Not really,” she said. “Miranda used to hang with them some, but I’m not really the party-girl type.”
Yeah. I’d picked up on that when she’d stayed up studying until the wee hours of the night. But the fact that she was a serious student didn’t mean she wasn’t selling Molly. Smart dealers didn’t use their own product. It was a quick way to end up addicted and broke and in deep with people who wouldn’t think twice about breaking your kneecaps with a crowbar.
Still, I wasn’t entirely convinced she wasn’t using drugs of some sort. Maybe something she thought would give her a competitive edge, help her focus. She wouldn’t be the first college student to abuse Ritalin or Adderall. Short of searching through her things, I had no way of knowing if she had those types of drugs in our room. In order to maintain probable cause and avoid an unconstitutional search, Brigit was trained only to alert on illegal substances. In fact, when some states had legalized pot, dogs who’d been trained to sniff for marijuana had been rendered useless as drug detection dogs in those states.
I ate a spoonful of my oatmeal. “I wonder where Miranda got the Molly,” I asked, carefully watching Emily’s reaction. A dealer would realize I was asking where I, too, might score. An innocent person would think it was an innocent question.
Though she shrugged nonchalantly, she seemed to be carefully watching me, too. “It’s probably not hard to find.”
What does that mean? College kids could be somewhat cryptic.
She glanced down at Brigit, who was staring at the stack of bacon and drooling. “Can I give her a slice of bacon?”
“I’m sure she’d love it.”
“Will she bite my fingers?”
“Not if you toss it.”
Emily picked up a piece of bacon and threw it up into the air. Brigit rose onto her hind legs and adeptly snapped it into her mouth on its way down.
“She’s quick,” Emily noted.
“And always hungry.” I poked at my oatmeal with my spoon. “What was Miranda like?”
“What do you mean?” Emily asked.
I shrugged. “Well, I know she did drugs. But did she do a lot of them? Was she street smart?”
Emily snorted. “Street smart is the last word I’d use to describe Miranda.”
Now it was my turn to ask, “What do you mean by that?”
“This may sound mean, but she came off as, like, a twelve-year-old. Coming to college was her first time away from home other than a few sleepovers. She said her parents would never even let her go to summer camp. They called her constantly to check in. It was really annoying. She even cried her first night in the dorm.”
Poor girl. I doubted Emily had done anything to make her roommate feel more comfortable. If anything, she’d probably made her feel worse.
Emily gave me a pointed look. “What’s with all the questions about Miranda?”
Uh-oh. Had I been too obvious? I raised a nonchalant shoulder. “Just curious.”
Luckily for me, Emily let it go.
When we finished our breakfast, we turned in our dirty dishes at the appropriate window and headed out into the lobby.
“Need to use the restroom?” Emily asked.
“Might as well.” I’d had a big glass of orange juice and it was a long time until class would be over.
We stepped into the public restroom off the foyer. I parked Brigit outside a stall and headed inside. When I turned around, I froze. There, on the back of the door, among a variety of graffiti and next to the standard If you sprinkle when you tinkle, someone had written FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL MOLLY (817) 555–2567.
This message was not so cryptic, at least not to someone in the know. I whipped my cell phone from my backpack and, when a loud toilet flushed, snapped a pic. Quickly, I returned my phone to my bag.
Had Emily steered me into this bathroom on purpose? I had no way of knowing for certain. But with the two of us having discussed Molly only minutes before, it was difficult to write things off as mere coincidence.
I finished my business, washed my hands, and retrieved Brigit’s leash. Emily and I walked out of the restroom and exited the dorm together, parting ways on the front steps.
“See you later!” I called.
“Yep!” she called back.
I debated my options. A big part of me—the impatient part—wanted to duck between some bushes and call the number right now. Another part of me—the smart part—realized I should probably run things by Detective Jackson before taking any action. After all, this investigation was hers to manage. I was merely a willing minion tasked with collecting information or evidence.
As I headed to class, I texted the photo I’d taken in the bathroom to the detective, along with a message. Found this written in lobby restroom. Next step?
A minute later I received a reply. Call the number. Set up a buy.
Ok, I texted back. My hand a little shaky, I dialed the number. On the first ring, the call went to voice mail. “Hello,” a voice said. It was either a low-pitched female voice or a high-pitched male voice. Given that the speaker seemed to have used one of the voice-changer apps to disguise his or her voice, it was impossible to tell. “Molly can’t get to the phone. Send her an e-mail at funtimemolly@gmail.com.” The recording went on to spell out the e-mail address. There was no invitation to leave a message at the beep, so I didn’t.
Using my phone, I logged in to the e-mail account I’d set up for my alter ego. After discussion with Detective Jackson, we’d decided to use an address that would not identify the account holder as my alter ego, Morgan Lewis. The fact that I was asking questions around the dorm might already have raised suspicions, no matter how subtle I was trying to be. If I openly identified myself in the e-mail, that could be the icing on the cake if the dealer thought I’d come to the dorm undercover, looking to make a buy. Better to remain anonymous. I’d chosen a generic e-mail address, the word “bluebonnet” in honor of the state flower, followed by three random numbers.
I mulled over what to say in my message to funtimemolly. Hmm. I was totally out of my element here. Finally, I decided to go with: Would like to meet up with you by this weekend, Molly. That would leave the ball in their court as far as how they wanted to handle the deal. And if it turned out that the message on the bathroom wall was truly for a girl named Molly, it would sound innocuous enough.
I texted Jackson to inform her what I’d done.
Good work, she texted back. I’ll trace the phone number.
Having done what we could for the time being, Brigit and I continued on to class. Though it was only five minutes before the lecture was scheduled to start, we were among the first to arrive. Looked like early classes plus summer session led to a lot of late arrivals. I took a spot near the back of the room where I’d be less conspicuous.
A horde of students poured into the room right as the wall clock turned to eight. Many, both boys and girls, wore baseball caps in an attempt to hide the fact that they’d woken up too late to comb their hair. The abundance of wrinkled clothing said that many of their outfits had been worn yesterday and retrieved from floors in a rush this morning. One boy walked in, shamelessly dressed in what were clearly pajama pants given that they were made of flannel and bore cartoon superhero images.
Brigit lay at my feet, napping, as the lecturer launched into a comparison of elites versus activists. While I found the subject fascinating, my partner clearly did not. At one point she began to snore, drawing the attention of students around me and more than a few snickers until I nudged her awake with my toe. She looked up at me bleary-eyed as if to ask What did I do?
As the class went on, I looked around at the students. Though only a few years younger than me, they looked like children. My years since college, the things I’d seen while on the police force, they’d aged me well beyond my years. As a cop, I knew things they’d never know, should never have to know. Things nobody should ever have to know.
I wondered who among them had never tried drugs and never would. Who among them had tried drugs once or twice out of curiosity or peer pressure. Who among them regularly used drugs. Who among them had become addicted and would spiral out of control until they ended up in jail, rehab, or a coffin. I hoped there were few of the former and none of the latter, though I suspected the large class held some of each type.
Two hours later, the lecturer wound things up and the class ended. I led Brigit back to the Jeep and drove to my house, which was only a mile and a half from the university, yet far enough that few, if any, students lived in my neighborhood. Leaving Brigit in the car, I hustled into the house, grabbing a Phillips head screwdriver from the kitchen junk drawer and a pair of disposable gloves from under the sink. After giving Zoe a quick scratch under the chin, I returned to the car.
We returned to the campus. As we approached the dorm, I spotted two campus policemen talking with a male student outside. The strained look on the boy’s face told me he was in trouble. Did they find something in his room? Is he the dealer I’ve been looking for?
Seemed I had a lot of potential suspects, but no concrete conclusions. Until I did, until whoever was selling Molly to these kids was behind bars, I had to keep working.
I slinked around behind the student, trying to be as invisible as possible as I entered the dorm. Hooking a left, I led Brigit into the girls’ restroom. Forgoing the stall I’d used that morning, I ducked into each of the others. The back door of each one bore the same message and phone number. FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL MOLLY (817) 555–2567. I wondered if the same message appeared in the boys’ restroom.
I took the stairs up to the second floor, passing five boys in the stairwell and exchanging friendly “heys.” Emily wasn’t in our room, but I couldn’t take a chance on checking the air vent yet, not until I was certain she was in class. I stashed the screwdriver in my desk drawer and glanced at the clock. It was straight up eleven. On the early side for lunch, but given that I had a one o’clock class and had eaten an early breakfast, I figured I might as well head down to the dining hall.
I went into the bathroom and knocked on the door that connected to Paige and Alexa’s room. “Paige?” I called. “Alexa? Want to go to lunch?”
There was no answer. Looked like they were out. At least with a dog for a partner, I was never alone. I clipped Brigit’s leash back on her and downstairs we went.
In the cafeteria, I looked around for familiar faces. I saw April and Jasmine, but given that they’d been no help the day before, I didn’t see any point in sitting with them. I gave them a friendly wave, and fixed myself another salad at the salad bar. Brigit got another meat-only sandwich.
Glancing around the room, I spotted the curly-haired boy who had been in line in front of me before. He caught my eye and smiled, angling his head to indicate the seat across from him. I had to admit I was flattered, even though I had no intention of pursuing anything with this boy given that Seth and I were in a committed relationship. Still, what could it hurt to flirt a little? It’s not like anyone would know and, after all, I was only doing my job here. The guy might have known Miranda or Ashleigh or Colby, might have known who sold them the Molly.
I led Brigit over to his table and sat down. “Hi,” I said, giving him a smile.
“I’m glad you came over,” he replied, smiling in return and extending a fisted hand across the table to greet me. “My name’s Hunter, by the way.”
I gave Hunter a fist bump. “I’m Morgan.” I ruffled Brigit’s neck fur. “My dog here is Britney.”
He reached down a hand toward my partner. “Can you shake, girl?”