His Baby Agenda

“Convince me.”

“Convince you? How about you just tell me what you know. I’m not really into talking people into believing me.”

He’d missed talking to Conner and seeing Gabi to meet with Daria, and now it hardly seemed worth it. He put his glass down on the table and stood up. “Enjoy your drink.”

“Kingsley, wait.”

He turned around. She gestured to the seat he’d just vacated.

“Do you have something to tell me?” he asked. “I get that you might be curious given we went to the same school, but I’m not really here to satisfy that curiosity.”

“I’ll talk to you about what I know. Sit down,” she said.

He did but left his drink on the table. He’d just ordered it out of habit. He wasn’t really interested in drinking.

“I was surprised when you asked me about druggings on campus because your frat house was notorious for that behavior at parties. I know of at least seven women who went to parties there and woke up groggy the next morning with vague memories of sex and nothing else,” she said.

“Date-rape drugs?” Kingsley asked. “I never knew anything about that. Did they have any idea who was involved?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t working on the college paper back then. But I went through all the security records and found seven different girls over a four-year period.”

“All the time Hunter and I were there?” he asked. He knew that he’d never drugged a girl. Since he was the star quarterback, panties had practically fallen off as he’d walked by women.

“Yes.”

“Did the reports end when we left?” he asked.

She flushed and took a sip of her drink. “I never checked. I was determined to find out what really happened to Stacia, but the women who were drugged didn’t run with you or Hunter so it was a dead end.”

“Maybe it wasn’t. What else did you uncover?” Hunter and he had both been over the night a million times, but there were pieces that were missing. Things they’d never been able to put together.

“You are serious about this,” she said again. “I’m shocked. I thought you had moved on.”

“The ID channel is running a ten-years-later special on the Frat House Murder. They always do those reenactments that make it seem like Hunter and I killed her. And I have son who’s three, Daria. He’s going to start school soon and the murder is always going to be a question in everyone’s mind. But everyone still thinks I did it. Even you.”

She leaned in and he had a feeling he was getting her reporter persona now. “Why? You have your life. You’ve been cleared of all charges.”

“But everyone still thinks I did it. Even you.”

She shook her head. “Touché. I think you might be changing my mind a bit.”

“Would you mind sending me the research you did? I just want to see if there is something that you uncovered that will jog my memories of the night.”

“If you uncover what happened, will you give me the story first?” she asked.

They would need someone to bring the story to light, and giving it to her wouldn’t be a bad idea. “Sure.”

“Okay. I’ll send you what I have. It’s not a lot. I mean, I copied the security reports and I have some videos and pictures that people took at the party that night.”

“What were you going to do with them?” he asked.

“I’ll compare them to see if the same people who were known to be at the other parties where the girls were drugged were there that night. There were no other reports of druggings the night Stacia died.”

“Is that odd?” he asked. He couldn’t wait to go through her notes.

“Sort of. Every other time it happened, there were a few women who reported feeling funny but who hadn’t been attacked. Almost like the perpetrator had drugged a few women to see who would be an easy target.”

“Interesting. I look forward to getting your notes,” he said, taking a business card out of his pocket and handing it to her. She took it from him, dropping it in her purse before she got to her feet and left.

He might have gotten their first solid lead on who had harmed Stacia. The campus security hadn’t been cooperative when he’d called them and no one wanted to talk to the guy they thought was trying to pin his crime on someone else.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and noticed he’d missed several calls from Conner’s iPad. He checked the time but it was too late to call. He texted his son to say he loved him and then texted Gabi to apologize.