Page 67 of Entangled

“I can’t believe it’s June already,” Stephanie said.

Cara glanced over her laptop, the dissertation she had been working on for the better part of two hours finally drifting from her mind. She welcomed the distraction. “I can’t believe I have one week left to finish this damn paper.”

“You’ll kill it, no worries there.”

“Thanks,” Cara said, smiling.

“But are you going to make graduation, or …?” Stephanie trailed off with a nod at Cara’s stomach. “How far along now?”

“Thirty-three weeks, and I probably won’t make graduation.”

“That sucks.”

Cara shrugged. “Late July ceremony is not going to coincide for me, unfortunately. I mean, I probably could make it, if I wanted to. But I’m going to be really, really pregnant, if I haven’t already had the baby by then. I figure since I already took time off from the shelter for around that time, I should probably use it to chill as much as I can.”

“I get that. And hey, the university does do the mini-ceremonies in the beginning of the new semester for those who took the summer to earn their final grades, or whatever.”

“Yeah, Professor Madele told me about it. She made it clear that if I didn’t participate in the coming one, I had better be there.”

Cara leaned back in her chair, resting her hand to the top of her swelled stomach. She thought the baby boy was already like this father, constantly wanting to move, never satisfied with staying still, and far too restless for his own good. Even in the womb. She could only imagine what he would be like after birth.

Still just like his father, probably.

“Miss Rossi?”

Two men dressed similarly in plain black suits approached the table, one already holding out a badge to identify himself. Not that Cara would have needed to see the badges to know the men were cops, or detectives. Growing up the way she had, cops were easy to detect. They all walked the same, dressed the same, spoke the same, and smelled the same.

Like a cop.

“Detective Seeley, and this is my partner—”

“Yeah, that’s nice, hello to both of you,” Cara interrupted. “What can I do for you?”

“Actually, Miss—”

“Cara, please.”

“Cara,” Detective Seeley said, drawling her name out for longer than was necessary. “Actually, Cara, we were hoping you might be able to do something for us. Or rather, help us with some information regarding Gian Guzzi.”

Cara passed her friend a look, although to Stephanie’s benefit, the girl was trying to look anywhere but at the detectives. “Hey, Steph, could you give us a few minutes?”

Stephanie nodded quickly, and gathered her things. “Sure can. I was about to head out anyway. Call me when you wanna meet up to sprint again, Cara.”

“Okay.”

The detectives kept quiet until Stephanie was gone. Thankfully, the library was mostly empty, as it was only mid-day, and the girls had picked a quieter part of the library to work. One between the bookshelves, where only two tables were set up in the large rows.

“All right, ask,” Cara said, glancing up at the detective once she knew they were alone.

“Can you confirm you have personal ties to Gian Guzzi?” the detective asked.

“Define personal for me.”

The man’s gaze dropped to Cara’s stomach. “We have reason to believe he may be the father of your child.”

“What reason is that?”

“Well, we can’t exactly give that information away, Miss.”