Dark Turns (16 page)

N
ia felt like blasting music and dancing in her room. Her student had beaten Aubrey, the same girl who had told Ms. V awful things about her, all the while pretending to be above reproach. A petty part of her wanted to celebrate, rubbing Lydia’s win in her neighbor’s face.

Nia stifled the urge by calling Detective Kelly. She’d promised Theo. Besides, she shouldn’t gloat. Nia knew the pain of a failed audition better than most.

She settled on her couch and dialed the detective. Kelly answered on the second ring. “Ms. Washington? Calling with another student confession?”

The comment could have been sarcastic, but Nia thought his tone sounded genuine. “No. I’m actually calling because
Theo is in a pretty bad way and I was hoping there might be something you can do. Maybe talk to the students or—”

Kelly cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to hear that. But we can’t comment until we close this case.”

“The students here saw you arrest him. They don’t believe that he’s out now because he didn’t do it. They think the police just didn’t have enough evidence.”

“Well, it’s not just the alibi. You can tell students that we have other evidence that he didn’t do it.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t really—”

“Saying you guys have something else isn’t going to convince anyone. And Theo is suffering. He’s not eating. I think he could hurt himself.”

The detective’s breathing became audible. “Did you tell his parents?”

“I don’t think they can help. He needs the students to understand that he didn’t do this. If you know he didn’t, then maybe you can give a statement to the press?”

Air overwhelmed the receiver with static. “Look, I really can’t say anything publicly until the case is over. But come to see me tomorrow. Perhaps I can give you something, off the record, that you could spread around.”

Punishment for her good deed. Kelly’s office was an hour away by bus. The meeting could take half the day. Maybe Peter could drive.

“All right. I’ll probably bring a fellow teacher too. See you tomorrow afternoon.”

Nia hung up before Kelly could object. The drive with Peter would be much more pleasant than the bus.

She’d tell him tonight at dinner. Perhaps they could celebrate Lydia’s win with a picnic on campus. The third week of September had ushered in cold winds that had accelerated
the foliage’s costume change. The oaks had exploded in reds and golds during the past few days. It would be romantic to see the landscape around sunset.

Nia thought better of it. She didn’t want beautiful scenery to encourage “the talk.”

They’d never discussed the nature of their relationship or whether they were exclusive. The sheer amount of time they spent together made it clear that there couldn’t be anyone else. She liked having a constant companion. She guessed Peter was the same. Maybe marriage had made him more comfortable with dating just one person.

Or maybe he
really
liked her. Problem was, she didn’t know how she felt about him. She liked him, of course. But she was still reeling from the breakup with Dimitri and his recent revelation that he’d made a mistake. Until she resolved her feelings for her ex, she couldn’t claim to have deep feelings for anyone else. She didn’t want Peter to express any sentiment that she couldn’t return.

Nia had just enough time for a bath before getting dressed for her dinner date. A pair of jeans and a top would work fine tonight. They had passed the point of impressing each other with appearance. After you saw someone naked in the morning a dozen times, what they looked like with lipstick or hair gel didn’t matter all that much.

She walked into her bathroom and turned on the faucet. The dining halls served dinner from six to eight o’clock, and most of the students would be eating. Peace, quiet, and a satisfying soak followed by dinner with a handsome man. What better way to celebrate?

Nia peeled her shirt over her head. Something smashed against her wall. She heard the thud of the impact and then a sound like snapping wood. A profanity echoed through the plaster separating her apartment from the neighboring unit.

Had furniture fallen? Was someone hurt? She put her top back on and hurried out her door.

She looked at the hallway. Her bathroom shared a wall with dorm nine. Aubrey’s room. Nia knocked. “Aubrey. Are you in there?”

Footsteps marched toward her. The door yanked back.

“Are you okay? I heard something break.”

Aubrey held the door open another few inches, just wide enough for Nia to see inside. A wooden foot stretcher lay against the wall, splintered into pieces.

“Piece of junk,” Aubrey said. Her eyes looked a shade bluer than usual. Eyeliner smudged at the corners.

“But you’re okay?”

Aubrey still wore her ballet uniform. Frayed lines ran up her flesh-colored tights like slash marks.

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “Ms. V had me focus on the wrong thing. All that pain perfecting my feet for nothing.”

Nia could sympathize. It was awful to work hard to achieve something, to physically suffer for it, and then not get it. How many diets had she tried? How many times had she danced on swollen feet only to not get the part?

“You’ll be beautiful in the pas de deux.”

Aubrey smiled, a tight, closemouthed expression that didn’t reach her eyes. The girl’s blue irises targeted her like a pair of hunting scopes.

“I need to up my game. I’m losing too much to the competition.”

Nia scrambled for some words of encouragement. Before she could find any, Aubrey started to shut the door.

“I better study.”

The door closed in her face. Nia walked back to her room and the now-full tub. She slipped into the bath and dunked her head beneath the water.

*

Hot air blasted against her bangs. Nia pulled the round brush through one last time and shut off the appliance. She examined her reflection in the mirror: clean, put together, ready to see Peter. She threw on a long cardigan over her jeans and stuffed a change of underwear into her handbag. She could don the same outfit tomorrow. She doubted she’d wear it for long anyway.

Her cell buzzed just as she walked outside. She fished it from the pocket of her sweater, now wrapped tight around her to ward off the chill in the late September air. She was always cold. Anything less than seventy-five-degree weather iced her bones.

Dimitri’s number showed on the home screen. She waited a beat before she answered. They were friends now. But she didn’t need to pounce on a friend’s phone call as though she’d been counting the seconds to talk to him. She hadn’t even thought of Dimitri much since he’d visited. They’d only spoken once or twice on the phone. He’d called more than that, but she couldn’t answer when at Peter’s apartment.

“Hi.”

“Hi. How are you?”

“Good. My student Lydia got the solo.”

“Wow. That’s great news.”

“Yeah. She dances with real feeling, and she was able to execute on some of the things she’d had trouble with before.”

“Well, she had a great teacher.”

Dimitri’s compliment warmed her insides. “Well, I shared some of the tips that Ruban gave me.”

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I’m good.” Nia stopped walking and flexed her foot, verifying to herself that she told the truth. “That stretching boot I told you about is amazing. A little over a week and my foot feels much stronger.”

“That’s even better news.”

“Yeah. I think staying off it a bit this past week has also helped. I’ve been talking through my corrections more than demonstrating. And now that auditions are over, I’ll probably be able to take it even easier.”

“Well, it’s good that you’re getting to rest it a little. Speaking of auditions, I have some news.”

Nia braced herself. Dimitri’s revelations always stirred up powerful and, lately, unwelcome emotions. She tried to read his tone. He sounded happy.

“I landed one of the soloist roles in
Agon
. They just announced. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

Longing tempered her enthusiasm. She’d dreamed of dancing in Balanchine’s classic.
Agon
was one of her favorite ballets: a showcase of athleticism choreographed to Stravinsky’s romantic and quirky score. It was one of the few ballets that gave men the stage for extended periods of time rather than employing them as lifts and props for their female counterparts. Men in the company would have competed fiercely for one of the four male roles.

“That’s wonderful. Congratulations. You’re perfect for it.”

“You’ll come to see me opening night? I have tickets.”

“Of course. What day?”

“Next Saturday.”

Ten days away. The fall show would be the following Friday evening. But surely Ms. V wouldn’t have the students practice the Saturday before. The students who went home wanted one day with their parents, and bodies needed to rest. Besides, it was her Sabbath.

“I’m sure that will be fine. And, if not, I’ll make it happen.”

“Great. You’re the only audience I want.”

D
etective’s Kelly desk was in worse disarray than the last time Nia had seen it. Once organized stacks now teetered from the weight of overstuffed folders. Pinned documents littered the attached cubicle wall like fliers on a grocery store bulletin board.

The detective pulled a piece of paper from the top of his desk and pushed it across to where Nia and Peter sat facing him.

“You know what SMS spoofing is?”

Nia picked up the sheet and held it out for Peter to see. It was a printout of an online banner ad, blown up. The ad featured a picture of a phone with a text message “555” number on it. Orange lettering beside the image spelled out the offer:
“SMStealer: Send text messages from any phone number. Buy credits now.”

“I’ve never seen this.” Nia turned to Peter. “You?”

Peter pushed his hair back. “No. What is it?”

“It’s the latest way technology is making my job damn near impossible.” Kelly’s finger accused the paper. “SMStealer is an app that allows people to send a text message and make it appear as though it came from another number—basically, it lets you commit fraud.”

He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on top of his stomach. “Of course, they maintain it’s a service for legitimate marketers who need messages to appear from a single company extension.”

“So this is how the message was sent from Theo’s phone?” Nia asked.

“All of this is off the record. You can’t say it came from the police.”

Nia nodded. “Sure.”

“Once we confirmed that Theo was in Claremont, we launched a deeper investigation into Lauren’s phone records. Turned out Theo was still in her contacts under, well—” Kelly cleared his throat. “Let’s just say a not-so-nice name. But the text message didn’t link with the name in her stored contacts. It came up as just his phone number.”

Kelly held out his hand for the paper. Nia passed it back to him.

“We now know that’s an indication of a spoofed text. If the text really comes from a number, it displays the sender information as the name stored in the phone.” Kelly waved the paper. “We’re pretty sure the text was sent using this app. It’s one of the only ones that hasn’t been shut down or sued out of business.”

Nia felt Peter’s energy change beside her. His back stiffened. He became still, like a squirrel sensing a dog. Nia read it as anger. He probably hated Kelly for not doing such due diligence in the first place.

“And you think you can find the person who did this?” Peter asked.

“There’s a good chance that whoever used the app did so from a traceable cell phone or computer.”

Kelly sat forward in his seat. He rolled up the SMStealer paper and slapped it against his desk. The act jostled some of the stacks and sent the smell of ink into the air. Much of Kelly’s research must have been fresh out of the printer.

“We need cooperation from this SMStealer company,” he continued. “As you can imagine, they’re fighting us. The state attorney’s office is working on a subpoena.”

Peter sat back in his chair. He looked like he was on day two of the flu. Exhausted. Pale. In need of a bucket.

The text spoofing meant the murder was premeditated. That punched a big hole in Peter’s theory of an opportunistic predator who had stumbled upon easy prey seeing Lauren by herself at the boathouse.

A digital desk clock sat half buried on the corner of Kelly’s desk. Nia saw the number twenty-five. She needed to get out of here. Group rehearsal would start in ninety minutes and the drive took forty.

“So, bottom line, we can tell students that the text was faked,” Nia said.

“I can’t tell you what to tell anyone,” Kelly said. “And everything I am telling you is off the record. You can’t say the police told you. But if you were to tell students that these text spoofing applications exist, maybe they would form a different opinion about Theo.”

“Do you think another student is responsible?” Peter sat on the edge of his chair as he asked the question.

Kelly rapped the paper against the desk. “I didn’t say that,” he said. “But whoever sent the text knew both Lauren’s and Theo’s cell phone numbers. I can’t stop you from drawing your own conclusions.”

A
bell’s chime echoed in the auditorium rafters. The students froze on stage, as though time had stopped behind the curtain line. At Ms. V’s command, they relaxed from their varied positions, shaking out limbs and descending onto flat feet.

“Good rehearsal, class.” The Russian spoke in her regular faux-French accent. “They’re all yours, Ms. Washington.”

Finally. Battle had promised that Nia would lead the corps de ballet after roles were assigned, giving him and Ms. V more time to concentrate on the solo and partner dances. But Ms. V had been unwilling to relinquish control of the class. Nia had arrived ready to teach and been told to watch while her boss led the first practice on stage.

Fortunately, Ms. V never stayed for stretching. She watched the teacher exit, feeling particularly happy that she could have the students all to herself. She had something to tell everyone, and she didn’t want Ms. V interrupting from the audience.

Nia clapped her hands. “Okay. There’s no barre in here, so we’ll stretch with partners. Everyone, please pair up.”

She rose from her front-row seat in the empty auditorium. The air grew hotter as she approached the stage steps. Ms. V had wanted the spotlights blaring at maximum brightness in order to scrutinize movements.

The students moved around the stage to find their usual partners. They always broke into the same sets: the T twins, Alexei and June, Joseph and Aubrey, Kim and Suzanne. Normally, Marta, as the second least popular kid in class, would end up with new-girl Lydia.

Aubrey sashayed from the front of the stage to the center where Lydia stood.

“Be my partner?” She grasped the soloist’s hand. “It’s better to do this stuff with someone who shares your flexibility.” Aubrey turned to Marta. “Help out Joey.”

Marta nearly skipped over to Joseph. The boy looked at the floor, not concealing his annoyance.

Lydia flashed a toothpaste commercial smile. She seemed relieved to have a classmate talk to her. Since landing the solo, Suzanne and Kim had become less friendly. Nia guessed that, before Lydia’s arrival, Suzanne had considered herself second best after Aubrey. Suzanne didn’t like being bumped, and bulkier Kim seemed all too happy not to stand next to ballet’s idea of the perfect body.

The rest of the class paired up in the expected way. Nia stood at the edge of the stage. “Okay. Stand back to back
and then grab your foot and bring it up as high as you can toward your head. Use your partner’s back for support.”

The class transformed into five letter Ws. Nia moved toward Alexei and June. The pair talked to each other as they held their legs by their ears.

“So, super thin?” June asked.

“Basically emaciated.” Alexei chuckled. “He’s on the guilty diet.”

Nia placed her palm on June’s foot. She pushed it another inch higher. “Really try to attain maximum flexibility,” she said.

The girl pressed her lips together. Nia let go. “Hold it there for a four count.”

Nia rounded to Alexei on the other side. “Sorry to overhear. But if you’re talking about Theo Spanos, he’s not guilty.” The auditorium acoustics made it easy for the whole class to listen in. Out of the corner of her eye, Nia caught the T twins watching. “Apparently, that text message to Lauren didn’t come from Theo. It was just made to look that way.”

Alexei’s leg fell onto the floor with a thud. He put his hands on his hips. “How do you know?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t disclose that.” Nia assumed an authoritarian tone, trying to give her information more weight than Alexei’s usual gossip. “But I have it on good authority.”

Doubt clouded Alexei’s face.

June’s leg returned to the floor. “The police probably told you. Or Dean Stirk?”

Nia didn’t respond. June didn’t seem to care. She appeared excited to hear someone finally agree with her that Theo didn’t do it.

“Good authority?” Alexei’s eyebrows rose in disbelief.

“There’s an app that allows people to fake sender information. Someone likely used it and entered in Theo’s number. It’s called SMS spoofing.”

“So Theo really didn’t do it.” June spoke loudly. “I knew he didn’t.” She turned to Alexei. “He’s really not a bad guy. If you got to know him, you would like him.”

“What are you talking about?”

The question came from center stage. Aubrey had lowered her leg. Lydia’s back no longer touched her partner’s. She balanced by herself.

“Theo isn’t guilty,” June said. “Ms. Washington heard that the text message was faked using some kind of app.”

Aubrey glared at Nia. “Who cares about an app? Theo is definitely guilty. He’s the only one who would want to hurt that girl.”

June returned Aubrey’s annoyed look. “How much evidence do you need? The police already let him go. They know he was waiting for someone in Claremont when Lauren was killed. And now this text message is fake.”

“He had motive,” Aubrey said.

“Just because you messed around with him and he didn’t care enough to keep it quiet doesn’t mean he’s a murderer,” June said. “You made that tape. That’s on you.”

Alexei looked at June with an expression that could only be described as impressed.

Aubrey scowled at June and then transferred the look to the teacher that had started the whole conversation. The girl hated Theo for e-mailing that video to his friend. She probably had demanded the meeting in Claremont to punish him by wasting his time.

“I thought I should squash false rumors before they get out of hand,” Nia said. She clapped her hands together. The
sound reverberated on stage. “Now let’s get back to it and stretch the other leg. Press your back against your partner and lift as high as you can. Really aim for a full split. Major companies want to see that straight line. Some even look for a reflex angle.”