The Scammer - 33

That was too easy.

I pick at my nails, the thought running through my head over and over again.

That was too easy.

It’s the prevailing feeling I have. His steps have been too calculated and meticulous. To trap him without breaking a sweat

doesn’t seem plausible. More impossible. Nothing in life is that easy. If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is;

that’s my dad’s motto. Kevin hated the saying. I wonder if he was thinking it . . . in his final days.

That was too easy. What am I missing?

So caught up in my own pseudo-failure, I barely notice Nick ripping into the men facing me.

“How does a guy like that make bail and you LOSE him?” Nick snaps, standing behind me in a conference room at the police station.

“He has the means,” Mr. Richard says, the lawyer my parents hired.

Devonte wasn’t kidding when he said he had friends in high places and favors to cash in on. He was out on bail in less than twenty-four hours.

“And now he’s gone! Free to come and attack Jordyn!”

Gone seems like such a simple word. Gone implies he’s no longer around but Devonte feels omnipresent in every sense. I can still smell him, his scent baked into our

clothes and all over our dorm rooms.

“Devonte’s last been seen jumping on a flight to California, probably trying to make a run for Mexico,” a detective explains.

“He won’t be back here anytime soon, I’m afraid.”

The hope was that with him off campus, the fire that is his growing cult would simmer and die. The university is already trying

to come up with excuses to avoid any pending lawsuits.

That was too easy.

But I keep thinking about that smile on his face. What does he know that I don’t?

A chill rips through me.

“What if he comes looking for me?” I ask to no one in particular.

Nick sits beside me, holding my hand under the table, a thumb tracing over my knuckles.

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you,” he whispers softly.

“We have an all-points bulletin and a car set outside the dorm,” the detective says. “The school has replaced the entire security

team. Cameras are up to date. Jordyn, you’re safe.”

Nick’s frat brothers used their connections with dorm security and found out one of the guards had edited footage out a week before Thanksgiving. In the missing clip is Kammy walking out of the dorm, her wig back on, nervously checking around her. Two minutes later, Devonte emerges, seemingly following her. There’s no footage of Kammy returning. Just Devonte. He’s now a prime suspect.

Between confirmation of my whereabouts and cell phone records, I’ve been cleared of any suspicion.

But it didn’t matter. My parents insist on taking me out of school.

On one hand, I almost don’t blame them for their overprotectiveness, especially after losing a son. On the other, I feel like

I’ve failed, like I’m letting Devonte win. I was ready to take the stand, tell the whole story, share everything I knew. I

wanted to see the look in his eyes when he realized he’d lost. But that smile on his face . . . is unnerving.

The only hope left for justice is through Vanessa.