from poverty and drugs. But, bonus for the guy who actually offed Nate Hardy, the Quinns are drifters. Someone pins a murder on the guy with no family, no ties, no history. Easy scapegoat. Send the guy away, problem solved.”
“And that’s assuming we believe Will didn’t do the offing.”
“Do you?” Soph asks quietly. “Do you believe he’s innocent?”
“Cam said he was.” I lean a little away from the wall to catch a glimpse of the brother and sister chatting. “She said he’s innocent.”
“Do you believe her?”
Yes. Unequivocally. “She also said she attended a wizarding school, so…”
“So when she lies, you know it. She doesn’t even try to be convincing.”
I sigh. “She was pretty fucking convincing about the part where her name is Cameron Quinn. She even had the boy name for a girl thing going on.”
“So maybe the boy name for a girl thing is fact,” Soph hedges. “There are lots of names that would fit the bill. Charlee. Drew. Alex. Chris.”
“Quinn,” I breathe out.
“Hmm?”
“Quinn is a name that can be used for boys or girls. It’s also the name she encouraged me to use when we, uh…”
Soph snickers. “Mmhm. Quinn. First or last name, could be related. I’ll add it to my net and see what pops.”
“She was a senior that first year we met. She was finishing up high school,” I explain. “Which means, at some point, they enrolled.”
“Yeah, once Will became an adult. I’d put money on it. He became her guardian, plopped her into school, helped her get at least her GED. She didn’t go on to college after high school. At least, she wasn’t in college when they visited Stacked Deck that second year. And I doubt she’s going now.”
“What she wants to do isn’t taught at a regular college anyway.”
“Juilliard,” Soph sighs. “She wants dance. Not economics. Maybe I could cast my net a little further east. I mean, everyone knows about Juilliard. It’s a world-renowned school, but maybe she was just that little bit more invested because it was local to her.”
“Geez.” I exhale a gusty breath and swipe the side of my hand over my face. She’s so fucking close. Literally a shout away, and yet, I can’t touch. “A search like that is gonna burst your net wide open, Soph. There will be a lot of matches.”
“Well, that’s better than no matches, right? And I’ll add Quinn to the search and see what pops.”
She pauses when Will steps away from the door. Somehow, using her voodoo and her technology, she can see what I see. “Alright. He’s heading south; toward the docks.”
“Which means Cam is home.” Nerves batter at my stomach as she steps inside and slams the door. “Alone.”
“Do what you’re gonna do, fighter. But be careful… If you spook her, she’s skilled at burrowing and escaping. She’s been doing it her whole damn life. If you pounce too soon, she’s gonna bolt like a wild horse.”
“I don’t think I’ll approach her just yet.”
I study the door, the locks. Then I think of the dancing from earlier. The baby ballerinas. Best of all, the smile. She’s in hiding, and she said on the phone that she’s hurting. But she smiles when she’s in that studio.
That means something, and I’m not willing to break it just yet.
Victoria
Dance Class and a Date
After class with my toddlers, and then bologna sandwiches for lunch – plural because yum – I do the same thing I do almost every single weekday at one o’clock.
I switch our TV on, flip to YouTube – because we have a fancy TV now – and I go searching for either Sophia’s or Lucy’s channel. I attend class with these women on an almost daily basis, but I do it alone, in my living room, and I pretend that it’s not all as pathetic as it seems.
Over the years, Lucy’s channel has expanded from just being about her, as though we were voyeurs looking in, to her leading by instruction and addressing her audience.
Soph’s sessions have remained consistent to how they were before, except now she uploads more content, more often, and sometimes, she invites Lucy and her dance partner Rudy in.
The recital I attended with Jamie that time, Lucy’s dance partner had been her boyfriend, Mac, but everyone knows that she has an actual professional partner, a mocha-skinned gay man named Rudy. He’s a flirt, a sweetheart, he’s skilled on his feet, and in the time after that performance, I learned via these channels that Rudy’s alleged sprained ankle