Free Shift by Jennifer Bradbury Page B

wearing a straw hat.
    Win was gone.
    I caught sight of him as he walked calmly toward the preacher. Win stepped to his side as the pastor cast an arm around his shoulder. They whispered something to each other. And then they appeared to be praying. Both had bowed heads, closed eyes. The preacher’s lips moved furiously; Win nodded his head slightly at irregular intervals.
    What was going on?
    Then both heads rose, another short exchange, they shook hands, and Win headed back toward me. I stared at him as he wove his way through the mass of people waiting to weep at the altar or talk to the preacher. He returned my gaze as he came back to his spot at my side.
    “What?” he asked, feigning innocence.
    “What do you mean ‘what’?” I said, sounding more alarmed than I meant to. “What were you doing up there?”
    He shrugged. Smiled. “Just talking.”

CHAPTER NINE
    Monday after classes I headed to the campus fitness center. It sucked to do my workout inside after two months of glorious, daylong rides outdoors, but I still hadn’t fixed my chain and didn’t have the time it would take to get far enough out of Atlanta to actually enjoy any scenery. The alternative? My road bike remained in my room, hanging on the wall, while I endured a stationary bike and chem book for company. It also seemed like the best way to avoid being in my room, where Ward could find me.
    I’d also been trying to conjure some bike trip magic, hoping Vanti might show up and see me looking simultaneously cool and academic. But it wasn’t working, and my legs were only cramping, not itching even a little.
    Halfway through a programmed hill workout and the chapterI’d been assigned, I heard a voice that I hadn’t been hoping to hear. “This seat taken?”
    Abe Ward popped himself onto the stationary bike next to mine, ignoring the OUT OF ORDER sign and settling in. He wasn’t dressed in workout clothes, just another version of the same getup from the other day.
    “Oh,” I said without breaking pace. “Hi.”
    “Didn’t we have an appointment today, Chris?”
    I closed my book and dropped it to the carpet beside my water bottle. “I sort of forgot,” I lied. “How’d you find me?”
    He smiled. “I’m an investigator, Chris, remember? It’s my business to know people. To get inside their heads and figure out what they’re thinking … what motivates them … plus, your roommate said you’d be here.”
    “Win’s dad never settled for less than the best,” I said, smiling in spite of everything. He wasn’t pedaling, but he looked like he fit on the bike all the same. Probably a decent hill climber.
    “So,” he said, fiddling with the buttons on the console.
    “I told you everything I knew the other day when you were here,” I said.
    He nodded, pushed the pedals of the bike in half a rotation. “Thought you might have remembered something over the weekend.”
    I reached up and punched a button, increasing the resistance on the machine. “Nope.”
    He looked around the workout room. “So let’s just talk about Win, then,” he said. “Was there anything weird in his behavior during the trip? Or maybe before you left?”
    “Win’s behavior was clinically weird, Agent Ward,” I said.
    “Call me Abe,” he offered. “Go on.”
    “I mean, Win was always weird. Always said the wrong thing even when he knew it was the wrong thing. Nearly got himself punched every day of high school.”
    He smiled. “I think I’d like Win.”
    “Maybe. He’s an acquired taste,” I said. “Honestly, if we hadn’t become friends so early, I’m not sure I would have been able to put up with him. He has a knack for pushing people’s buttons. Especially his parents’.”
    Ward raised an eyebrow at this. “Doesn’t every eighteen-year-old?”
    I let the generalization slide. “Not like Win. I remember in third grade he won the school spelling bee. In the final round it was down to two kids—him and this sixth grader. They both