“You want to see a move?” I whispered in his ear. “How about this one?”
I clenched his arm, whirled his body around so his back was to me, and yanked his hand up. He yelped as I put pressure on his shoulder and elbow joints. I leaned close.
“Jake, you’re a jerk. Stop messing with girls’ minds.”
“What? I—”
“Shut up. I want you to go to Darya right now, tell her the truth, and apologize for using her. And leave me alone. Got it?” I pulled his hand a little farther up to make my point.
“Yes, okay! I will.”
I let him go, grateful no one had seemed to notice our chat . . . no one except Muth. Shit. He was coming my way, his expression thunderous.
“Miss. Rossi. Come with me.”
I followed him out of the room while texting Kovitch to let him know I needed him to cover with Veena.
Muth gestured to the couch in his dim office, but he didn’t sit himself. I guessed he was going with the angry father routine.
“I believe we spoke about the importance of safety at VMA when you arrived, did we not?” he said.
“We did.”
“And I told you we had a no tolerance policy on violence.”
“I think you said something along those lines.”
“But I just saw you contorting one of my students in some kind of hold.”
I groaned inside. Jake had deserved what he’d gotten, but I’d reacted instead of thinking it through—as usual. “Yes, you did.”
He eyed me, and I waited, resigned.
He didn’t speak for a moment. “Mr. Brown told me you will accompany Veena to Laax tomorrow, and he expected your assignment to end after the Olympics.”
I managed a curt nod. Veena had negotiated with her parents. Once the Olympics were over, she’d return home and do private tutoring for the rest of the semester instead of coming back to VMA, at least until the FBI got a handle on who was behind the kidnapping attempts and threats.
“Which means after tonight, you will no longer be my problem.”
I blink. “I guess not.”
“Excellent. That will be all. Please return to your room and keep your hands to yourself until you leave.”
I stood. That was it? No punishment or at least a public humiliation? Muth must have seen the suspicious confusion on my face.
“You aren’t an official student at VMA, thank heavens. And your job here is nearly finished. I’ll make an example of you with our students, of course, by saying you were asked to leave the school for violating our policies and because your grades were terrible. Both of which are true statements.” He clasped his hands in front of him. “But I see no need for further reprimand. I would like Veena to return safely from Switzerland as an Olympic champion—and without you. So please do your job well. Good evening, Ms. Rossi.”
He opened the door and fearing what I might say if I opened my mouth anymore, I left without another word. Veena and Gage sat in the hallway, backs against the wall. They hurried to me when I came out. Kovitch mopped a floor down the hall. We made eye contact, and he kept mopping.
“What happened?” Veena said.
I shrug. “Nothing. He just told me to go to my room.”
We all snorted with laughter at how that sounded.
“I mean, he was pompous and everything—”
“That’s a given,” Gage said.
“But he didn’t really do anything.”
“Are you good?” Veena asked.
“I’m fine. But I’d better do what he told me to do.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
“No, seriously. You were having fun at the dance, you should go back.”
She glanced at the door. Music and peals of laughter rolled out. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Definitely. I’m going to take a walk and clear my head, then I’ll head up to the room.” As long as I wasn’t messing with his students, I didn’t think Muth would care.
“It’s below zero out there,” Gage said.
Like the Weather Channel, that one. But I liked him and Ali. The rest of VMA I wouldn’t miss much. Veena and her friends went back into the dance, followed by Kovitch under pretense of emptying the trashcans. I grabbed my coat and gloves from our room and headed outside.
My nose instantly went numb, while the night air froze my lungs. I walked quickly to keep my body temperature up, and my feet took me to the slopes out of habit. After dark, the mountains couldn’t be seen so much as felt, like squatting giants waiting to wake with first light. The ski clubhouse was closed up, but I sat on top of a picnic table in front. I couldn’t stay long without turning into an ice sculpture, but I wanted a minute to breathe in the peace and quiet. It would be the last time for a while.
Every minute of this assignment had been firsts, all wracked with self-doubt. My first CPO assignment. First time being part of a professional team. First time in Colorado or at a ski resort. First time around elite athletes. And tomorrow, first time leaving the country. I’d applied for an expedited passport when SSA hired me.
Somehow, despite every mistake I’d made, I’d be protecting Veena while she chased her dream on the big stage, one most athletes would never see. Almost every Olympic organizing committee over the past fifty years had received terrorist threats of one kind or another—but the number of ways the kidnappers could get to Veena was paralyzing. I needed to be at my best.
The consequences of failure were too awful to imagine, especially now that I knew Veena and her parents.
A memory of Gram floated up. I was at my first softball game, around age seven, a crowd of eager parents behind me, and I
