who called 911 to report Professor Rook’s accident, weren’t you?”
Gul’s foot hovers over the next step, my words seemingly arresting her in place. Surprise flashes over her features before her expression closes off.
A group of guys come loping up the stairs, interrupting us. They greet Gul and me with casual head nods as they flow around us on both sides.
I’m quiet until the tide of bodies recedes up the stairs.
Gul picks up speed as she descends. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I jab my thumb over my shoulder. “I heard you up there. You used that horrendous accent when you talked to the emergency operator. I recognized your voice. Don’t even bother denying it.”
She shakes her head. “You must have misheard. I’ve never called 911 in my life. It wasn’t me. Here. Check my phone.” She unlocks it and holds it out in her palm.
I snatch the device out of her hand and scroll through the call log. My confidence drops for a second as I look, finding nothing. There’s no trace of a call to 911. Could I have been mistaken? Huffing, I give it back. “You probably deleted it, for some reason.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Gul tucks it into her pocket and walks down the hall toward one of the shared bathrooms on our floor.
I start to follow her, to push her further, but she waves me off over her shoulder. “I’ll be back in a minute. I don’t need company.”
Grady passes me as I jog up the stairs. “Need a snack,” he says. “See you in a few.”
Ten minutes later, after Cal has doorbell ditched Professor Bins’s private rooms, and Mikhail has tried to recite the alphabet backwards, with hilarious results, I realize Grady hasn’t returned, and neither has Gul.
Over the next few days, Gul avoids me. When I try to confront her in the hall, she disappears. She’s freakishly adept at vanishing in a crowd. Probably the reason she’s so good at collecting dirt on the student body at large.
Finally, on Friday, I corner her outside our last class of the day. She fidgets with her hair, pulling it forward before pushing it back over her shoulder, pointedly staring at me.
I’ll give her this: she doesn’t back down.
The corridor is full of students and professors talking, stowing books and tablets, and messing around on their phones. I’ll have to be careful if I want to avoid being overheard. Normally, I would choose a more private place for a talk like this, but she’s given me no choice. At least here she can’t deny it too vehemently without drawing attention, which I’m guessing she’d like to avoid.
“Why are you pretending it wasn’t you who made that call?” I’ve listened to it a bunch of times since our game of truth or dare, and I’m absolutely positive the caller is Gul. Why would she deny it? That, I’m not sure about.
There are lots of possibilities.
She didn’t see the accident, only the body, and lied about it to the emergency technician because she loves drama.
She saw the accident, but didn’t see or recognize the driver, and thus doesn’t think she has any reason to talk to the police further.
She did see the driver and doesn’t want anyone to know because she’s scared of them, for obvious reasons.
The last possibility is the one that has me the most intrigued, although, yeah, it’s a little farfetched: Gul was outside at the time of the accident because she was in on it. The hit and run wasn’t an accident, and Gul was in league with the killer.
“This again? I’m not the one who called, okay? I didn’t see anything. Will you just drop it already?”
I cross my arms. “Not a chance.”
Gul rolls her eyes. “Ricardo’s right. You’re like a rabid dog with a bone.”
I stop. Ricardo said that?
“Yeah, he did, and I see his point.”
I clamp my mouth shut. I hadn’t been aware I’d said that out loud. Plus, it’s not very nice of Ricardo to say things like that about his fake girlfriend. “Well, Ricardo’s a huge flake, so he wouldn’t know.”
Gul’s eyes glint and a sly smile splays over her face.
I’ve let her goad me into saying something negative about Ricardo. Fake relationship or not, I know that’s against the rules. Still, he broke them first. It serves him right. But if it gets around… “Look, don’t tell anyone I said that.”
“You know,” Gul says, leaning in. “I find it really odd that you and Ricardo