Fraud (Antihero Inferno #2) - Lily White Page 0,95

time, and he took it out on Lacey like it was somehow her fault. I swear he expects the poor woman to police this place in his absence.”

From what she’s telling me, Tanner hasn’t changed a bit since high school. He’s still a dickhead that needs a lesson taught to him.

Fortunately for Lacey, I’m here and just the girl to do it.

I stare across at Luca and smile, my toes pushing on the ground to rock Tanner’s chair back and forth.

“So,” I say, needing her to launch into a longwinded conversation, “Tell me about Everly. I know she’s a big deal, and Jase seems to want to kill her, but nobody told me why.”

Laughing at that, Luca kicks her feet up onto the coffee table in front of the couch and begins the story at the beginning of her second year at Yale when a surprise reshuffling of dorm assignments led her to being roommates with Everly.

Something about what she says awakens my spidey-senses as being strange, but I ignore it to continue on with my plan to screw with Tanner.

There’s not much on his desk that I can mess with, but as Luca talks, I run my fingers over his computer keyboard and glance up at the monitor.

A thought comes to mind, and very slowly so that she doesn’t notice what’s happening on his screen, I pull up the settings. Scanning my options, I grin and decide to change the display language.

A hundred different choices pop up, and I know I need to go with something out of the ordinary. As part of our prep school education, we learned enough Spanish, French and Italian to be able to have a rudimentary understanding. Choosing one of those would make switching the computer back too easy.

My eyes land on Swahili, and I quickly click on it, biting my cheek to keep from laughing when everything on his screen becomes a mess of indecipherable writing that he’ll never figure out.

Done with that, I glance at Luca again, smile, and keep listening as she continues on about how Everly was the person who dragged her into the first party where she met Tanner.

I take another look around, rock in the chair some more, and then have a flash of brilliance that is sure to send Tanner’s blood pressure skyrocketing to dangerous levels.

Intentionally knocking a cup of pens off the desk to the floor, I say, “Whoops. Damn, I’m such a klutz. Keep talking while I drop down and pick these up.”

Luca’s chipper voice continues on while I lower myself to the floor, and quickly loosen all the levers and bolts holding the chair together, leaving them just tight enough to keep the chair from falling apart.

Whoever sits in the chair next is going to crash heavily to the floor, and I smile just to think about it.

There’s no way the chair will hold any weight, so rather than sitting down in it, I push to my feet and step away from the desk, slowly making my way back to the front of the room where Tanner left me.

Five minutes pass while Luca finishes her story, my mind skipping back to the beginning to focus on the one detail I found strange.

“Did you ever find out why they suddenly switched dorm assignments? Was that through the entire building or-“

Luca’s head tilts.

“Actually, no. It was just my room and Everly’s. We both wondered about it, but never really found out what happened.”

I nod my head. “It just seems weird after what my dad said about her being there for a specific reason.”

A light bulb could have gone off over her head and it wouldn’t have been more telling than her expression that I’d just touched on a fact she hadn’t considered.

“Oh, my God. You’re right.”

Of course, I’m right. Unlike them, I’m not yet caught in this game, so I have a clearer view of the players and how the pieces are being shuffled around.

Just then, Tanner and Gabriel walk up to the door, my eyes immediately seeking out the gorgeous emerald green I’ll only ever associate with Gabe.

He steps up beside me. “Are you ready to go?”

I grab his hand and start walking him toward the elevator.

“It was good seeing you again, Luca.”

Glancing at Tanner, I look him up and down but say nothing. He doesn’t seem bothered by it.

Gabriel notices I’m in a mad rush to leave, his eyes sliding my direction with suspicion behind them as he leans forward to push the call