Page 55 of The Other Side
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We spent most of the weekend comparing notes.
Chance had a lot of questions about the weeks preceding Daniel’s disappearance. I had replayed them over and over in my mind so many times, trying to remember if anyone had been acting strange or if I’d noticed anything out of the ordinary, but I simply hadn’t. I hadn’t been looking for anything at the time, and I was more caught up in finals and graduation.
“What were you saying yesterday about the laptop Claire gave you?” I asked late Sunday afternoon.
“I can’t get in.”
“Why not?” I raised a brow.
“It’s issued by the school. Claire thought she had his password saved somewhere, but she was gone before we had the chance to connect again.”
“I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it.” I tapped my finger on my chin.
Chance cocked his head, intrigued.
“Milton Cox has access to all the passwords,” I stated.
“So?”
“Milton Cox also has a habit of leaving his computer open when he leaves to grab lunch, or when he’s distracted.”
Chance narrowed his eyes at me. “Distracted?”
“I’ve noticed he’s easily distracted around me.”
Chance sported a lopsided grin. “That makes two of us, then.”
I rolled my eyes.
“What about the photos you mentioned to Claire the night she gave you the laptop?” I tried to bring the conversation back to the task at hand and pretend that Chance’s flirtation wasn’t affecting me, despite the fact that it very much was.
“Ended up being nothing.” He shook his head. “They were from his article last year about the drugs. But he wrote three other articles in addition to that one. Do you know who he pissed off when each one came out? I know he wasn’t exactly without enemies. I just never thought any of the articles were serious enough to make someone want to hurt him.” Chance’s shoulders slumped.
“What could you have done?” Against my will, I watched as my hand reached out to take his, in comfort.
He nodded, squeezing my hand in return, and then refusing to let it go when I gently tried to pull away.
I sighed, but decided not to fight him on it. Idefinitelywasn’t actually enjoying the feeling of my hand in his. And itmost certainlywasn’t giving me butterflies…
“A dorm monitor was fired over the drug article, but the last I heard, she moved back home to the West Coast. I asked Kenneth if he’d gotten any flak for the article during the faculty mixer. He said a little, but he didn’t seem to mind, and if he did, he’s the newspaper advisor and has final say, so he could have just refused to publish the article.”
“I agree. And the other articles?”
“He wrote one about bribery and another on favoritism between certain students and faculty his sophomore year, butthat was before I got here. I don’t think he named any names, and I didn’t hear about anyone being angry with him. If anything, it gave him a somewhat elevated status amongst the students, who seemed to be largely on his side.”
“What if the students he was referencing were worried he would speak out and cause problems with college applications? Sometimes arguments can escalate quickly,” Chance surmised.
“It’s possible, but they seemed largely anecdotal without any hard evidence, which is why Daniel didn’t print any names. It was more of an editorial with fact-based arguments, versus the other investigative pieces he did that were more hard journalism.”
“And the last one?”
“The one about the scholarship students not receiving the same opportunities as the others?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, the administration and donors were definitely unhappy, but I got the sense they were more annoyed than anything. I remember overhearing the faculty talking about not biting the hand that feeds you.” That was the last day I had tried to hang out in the faculty lounge and was only a few weeks after I’d started at Montgomery. They saw people like me and Daniel as nothing but dogs at their feet. It was disgusting.
