They stared at each other.

“What about you, Peyton? What do you want?”

“Right now, all I want is to get out of here.”

Desmond stood there, watching her walk closer to him.

“This is the point where any normal guy would offer to take me home, Desmond.”

“I’m not exactly a normal guy.”

“I know.”

She took his hand and walked off the porch, leading him.

“My truck…”

“Is beyond scary. I saw you pull up in it.”

She reached in her bag, tossed her keys in the air, and he caught them.

“We’ll take my car.”

In her dorm’s parking lot, he leaned over and kissed her. Her hand moved to his face, pulling him closer.

At the outer door, she swiped her card.

They were kissing again, her walking backwards as they stumbled into her dorm room. Desmond saw everything in flashes as his shirt came up and they resumed kissing before her shirt came off. Biology and chemistry books littered the floor. She tossed an IBM Thinkpad off her bed. He winced, hoping it would survive the fall. The place smelled of candles and something sweet he couldn’t place.

He glanced back at the door. “Your roommate—”

“Is home in Seattle.”

That night was like the first computer program he ever wrote: a series of run-time errors followed by a quick compilation.

He was thankful that it was too dark for her to see his scars.

In the morning, however, sunlight blazed through the window. He saw her eyeing the burns on his feet and legs, the knife wounds on his chest and abdomen, and a dozen other small scars.

She said nothing, only went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and threw on some clothes. She was a lot less chatty than last night. Desmond wondered if she regretted it. Wondered if he should say something.

“I’m late,” she said.

He sat up.

“I have lunch with my mom and sister every Sunday.”

“I…”

“Relax, cowboy. Just pull the door shut when you leave.”

She handed him a small slip of paper.

“What’s this?”

“The last part of the case you’re working.”

He unfolded it. It was her phone number.

Chapter 66

Chapter 66

After the night he spent with Peyton, Desmond’s life settled into a pattern. He worked his heart out at xTV, saw Peyton in his off-hours, and read when he wasn’t spending time with her. He found a new library and began requesting books on finance and investing. He read Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis and everything he could find on the subject. His inheritance, roughly three hundred and twenty thousand dollars, was still hidden in a sack in the Airstream trailer. His only real expenses had been the trailer, the suit, and the legal costs of settling Orville’s estate. He became obsessed with how to invest the remaining money.