“Give it to me straight,” I said. “What should I do different if I want to make it on the job?”
He blinked, chewed, swallowed, and over the rim of his coffee cup, mumbled, “Think before you do stuff.”
I nodded.
“Seriously. Sometimes you don’t think, Green. I don’t know if it’s your age or what, but stop and consider what you’re doing before you react. You wouldn’t have had a lot of the problems you’ve had if you’d taken a minute to assess the situation. Using our training to act is part of our job. But deciding when to act is an even bigger part.”
Later, while Veena studied in her room with Gage, I found Cooley at a small desk in the corner of the hot, stuffy, and not one bit glamorous maintenance room at VMA. Seeing him there, I understood what Brown meant about the team feeling chapped when I snatched a sweet CPO position right out of training. I asked him the same question I’d asked Kovitch.
“You’re not Nancy freaking Drew,” he said. “Leave the snooping to other people and focus on how best to protect your principal.” He nibbled on a moist croissant, pulling it into pieces. “That said . . . nah, never mind.”
I scooted closer. “No, what?”
“Don’t tell the chief I told you this, all right? But Darya leaves campus after training every day. Runs off with her hair still wet from the shower most of the time.”
“Where does she go?” Class and training consumed the students’ whole days most of the time.
“Damned if I know.”
“Have you followed her?”
“No manpower for that,” he said. “And remember, we don’t investigate. Law enforcement does.”
“Well, are they? Investigating?”
“The chief and Bart have pushed them to, but we don’t have anything solid on Darya yet. I know it’s frustrating as hell, Green, but we have to wait for these dirt bags to make their move.”
Frustrating as hell was right.
After we talked, I found a quiet spot in a classroom and tracked down a number. I hesitated before dialing, less sure of this move.
“Hey, Connor, it’s Nic.”
“Nic—hi.” He sounded a little sleepy, which was all kinds of hot.
“I was wondering—could I take you up on those snowboarding lessons?”
He didn’t hesitate to answer. “Definitely. When do you want to start?”
My stomach fluttered. “Tomorrow?”
“Meet me in the club house at two? We’ll get you geared up, Gogo.”
I clutched the phone. “Wait, you’ve seen Kill Bill, Part 2?”
“’Course. Sick movie.”
“Gogo’s my favorite character ever.”
He laughed. “I’m not surprised.”
Gogo was a 17-year-old Japanese schoolgirl bodyguard in the film. She was also a bloodthirsty assassin who might just as easily puncture your throat with her sharpened number two pencil. Still, she rocked. Connor earned bonus points for having seen it.
His lesson the next day consisted of getting my snowboard boots on and tightened, learning to strap in the snowboard bindings, and sliding down a little incline just below the bunny slope, mainly on my butt. The upside was the rush when I finally stayed on my feet for about ten seconds—and spending time with my handsome instructor.
“You’re a ripper,” Connor said with a smile at the end. “You want to go again tomorrow while Veena’s training? I’ll teach you how to stop and turn on the bunny slope.”
“That would be great. Thanks for taking the time to teach me.” I held out my glove to bump his hand, but he held it instead.
“Any time.” He looked like he meant it.
As I walked back toward the clubhouse, hoping he was watching, I pulled my helmet off to free my hair, and slung my board under my arm, like I’d seen Veena and Ali do.
I liked Connor—a lot—but that wasn’t why I was doing this. Brown told me to take some time to blow off steam, and I thought learning to ride was a fun way to do that. And maybe knowing how to ride a little would help Veena in some way. Having Connor as my instructor was a perk.
Flirting on the ski slope didn’t exactly count as an office romance. Right?
Twelve
Veena’s schedule for the next week ran like this: class, meals, the hill, study, sleep. Her focus was intense. Most days, when she was on the slopes, I was, too. Me versus the bunny hill. Connor was a patient teacher, and each day I stayed on my feet a bit longer before crashing in a heap.
I brought Kovitch a raspberry Danish from the dining hall most nights and got Cooley a coffee whenever I could spare a minute away from Veena in the mornings. Studying took a back seat, and my teachers noticed. I got daily emails to visit them during their office hours for extra help.
After a week, I called Xene who told me I sounded better, more confident.
I felt more confident. Almost like, the stronger I got on my board, and the more I bonded with Kovitch and Cooley, the better I felt. That is, until lunch two days before the competition at Copper Mountain, when Veena passed me her phone, her face drawn. A grainy video showed a baby bear being shot in some snowy woods and falling still.
Tell your father to send us what we’ve asked for or you will die. This is your last chance.
She showed it to me, but she refused to talk about it. I thought I understood. If she let the terror in, her concentration would be shot. And she’d worked too hard for that.
My fingers itched with the desire to grab Darya’s phone and run away with it, but if she sent the texts, she wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave them lying around in her messaging app for anyone to see. Plus, she probably used one of those burner phones like Brown said.
The night before the competition, Veena and I were in our room packing. After shoving clothes in a bag, I popped a couple of Advils. I’d worked on
