The girl, who was at least in herright mind enough to gasp, jump up, and hike down her skirt, hurried past Flynnwithout a backwards glance. Her face had the telltale flush of drunkenness justlike the president’s, but he was clearly much worse off. Instead of getting up,he slowly toppled backwards, until he was lying on his back on the bed with hisfeet still on the floor.
“Sit up, kid,” Flynn said, walkingover to him and snapping his fingers above the guy’s face. “Are you listening?Sit up.”
The kid mumbled somethingunintelligible. In the back of his mind, Flynn knew he was only a couple ofyears older than this house president—maybe even less, if the kid had done agap year or stayed on for a longer period of study. But as far as Flynn saw it,he was an adult, and this president was still acting like a kid. Irresponsible.Taking things too far. Not staying in control.
“Christ.” Flynn watched as thepresident seemed about to go to sleep, then turned and spewed right over theside of the bed. He had to jump backwards to avoid getting any of it on hisbrand new dress shoes, or the bottom of his pressed suit. With a grimace and adisgusted noise that came purely from his heart, Flynn walked back out of the roomand into the hall.
“You,” he said, collaring a kidgoing by who looked less drunk. “Are you a member of this frat?”
“Uh, yes sir,” the kid shoutedover the music. So, he was sober enough to recognize that Flynn wasn’t justanother partygoer.
“Look after your president,” Flynnsaid, shoving him gently toward the door. “He needs some help.”
Flynn shook his head, standing inthe corridor and listening to the party. Loud shouts and screams, pumpingmusic, everyone drunk and probably high as well—it was a typical college party,and just like he had assumed out there, it meant that they weren’t going to getanything useful out of anyone tonight. Even if there had been anything todiscover, showing up here would have blown their advantage of surprise, and nowthe killer would know they were onto him.
Not that Flynn believed for asecond that the killer was here. Frat boys could be assholes, sure, and theywere more interested in partying and meeting girls than anything else in life,but that was exactly the point. They weren’t killers. And even if they werekillers, they normally went after their rich parents or accidentally suffocateda drunk girl during group sex—they didn’t go strangling middle-aged women inremote areas.
This was a dead end, and it alwayshad been. Flynn had known that from the moment they parked outside. Actually,he’d known it since the moment Agent Prime had brought up her hare-brained pitheory, and he was done with trying to follow it up.
He picked his way back down thestairs, dodging a girl who was swaying toward the wall as she stepped upwards,screeching something about needing to pee. Charming. He stepped outside to geta little more quiet and pulled out his phone, dialing his partner’s numberquickly.
The line rang and rang. Flynnglanced back at the house, his irritation building. Prime couldn’t possibly bewith the president—he’d found him upstairs. What was she doing? Why wasn’t sheanswering her phone?
Cursing under his breath as thecall went through to voicemail, Flynn stalked back through the doors and intothe noise of the party, sweeping his eyes quickly over the attendees in thehall. Everywhere he looked, he could see violations that he knew he ought toalert someone to. If not taking care of it himself, at least calling the sheriff.Half of these people had to be underage, and there were at least two instancesof public nudity that he was sure had to come with some kind of charge.
But he pressed on. This wasn’t thetime to start putting underage drinkers in cuffs. Not that he would have hadenough pairs of cuffs on him if he wanted to. He doubted the entire sheriff’sdepartment had enough. Maybe he would have a word with campus security on theway out, but he wouldn’t be at all surprised if they didn’t take it seriously.
Striding through the first room,he scanned unsuccessfully for Prime’s short boyish hair and her black clothing.It was dark here, and he had to squint into a few corners before beingsatisfied enough to move on. This was some kind of game room, although thegames being played in it at the moment mostly consisted of things including theword “pong.” No sign of his partner, again.
From the game room, Flynn emergedinto a calmer space—a kitchen, where the music was more muted at least, andwhere the low-light bulbs were the normal kind instead of blacklight. There wasa large kitchen island in the center of the room, loaded with liquor bottles.Yup, Flynn thought to himself, there goes another thing I should be arrestingsomeone over, if I wasn’t looking for an actual murderer.
He was about to move on when aclunking noise from the other side of the island, loud enough to actually beheard over the music, caught his attention. Flynn began to move around theisland, but he didn’t even get all the way before an elbow suddenly appeared,latching onto the counter to pull up the weight of a body.
A very familiar one,unfortunately. Flynn sighed. It was Agent Prime—clutching an empty bottle ofliquor, which was unsurprising considering that the bottom had been smashedaway, and struggling to remain upright.
“Agent?” he barked, shouting loudover the music. “What’s going on?”
Prime made some kind of mutteredcomment, inaudible over the music. Flynn stepped toward her, grabbing her bythe elbow. She looked like she was going to fall again. This close, he couldsmell that her breath reeked of liquor.
He didn’t need her to answer thequestion. He could see what was going on. She’d pulled him into a frat partyunder the pretense of looking for a murder suspect, only to grab whatever shecould find in the kitchen and get herself drunk as hell.
It was fairly impressive that she’dmanaged it so fast, actually. She swayed away from his contact with her elbow,nearly falling back against the counter until
