Good Grades & Mystery Games: Chapter 9

When I turned up outside of Scarlett’s apartment, I wasn’t going there to work on the project. I actually don’t know why I was there.

I asked Charles to take me for a ride around the city to clear my head and it was either going there or going to my dad’s house. As soon as I remembered that Miles was there, I realised that I’d be better off waiting outside. Still, I don’t know why I was shocked that she turned up as if she doesn’t live there. I definitely wasn’t expecting her to have a lead.

Well, from what she explained and her uncle Gio’s explanation, it could be nothing. They think that something is going on with the imports of diamonds from a local dealer which is not what they have been doing for years.

Just finding out that alone is more than I need to know. It feels dirty knowing these things as a Branson. We never trade secrets like these, but I can tell that she needs help in some way and I’m going to give it to her. I knew I hit a nerve asking her about it during our study session, but it seems to have broken down a piece of a wall that she’s had up for years.

Obviously, because she’s a Voss, she has the coolest fucking car. I’m a guy. I can admit when a car looks good, even if the person driving it drives me insane.

She has a black Lamborghini Urus with red stitched seats. Red, I thought, like her name. It’s beautiful. It has been on my car wishlist for a few years, but I didn’t want to invest in one since I don’t drive as often as I should, and my Range Rover is collecting dust in the garage.

I know I wanted to admire it, but since she explained the situation on the elevator ride down and since we got into the car, she’s not said a word. She’s been staring out at the parking lot and I’m pretty sure she’s spaced out.

“Are you going to drive or what?” I press, looking at her and then the empty parking lot.

“I don’t know yet,” she whispers.

I sigh, unbuttoning another button on my shirt. Why do I suddenly feel nervous? I take another deep breath. “What do you mean you don’t know? You know where we’re going, don’t you?

“Yes, I’m not an idiot,” she murmurs, looking at me now, those brown eyes piercing me with a look so fierce it could cut glass.

“Okay…? Then what’s the problem?” I ask again, looking out into the near darkness. It’s getting close to 8PM. “I don’t want to get there when it’s too late.”

She turns away from me, facing the steering wheel while she shakes out her hands as if she’s about to run a marathon, twisting her neck to the side. “I don’t know,” she groans as if it’s my fault. “I’m too excited or nervous. Or both. I can’t sit still.”

God, does she want to find out what happened or what?

“Then get out,” I demand. She turns back to me, eyes wide.

“What?”

‘Let me drive. Move seats,’ I explain. If she’s not going to get us to where we need to be, I’m going to have to be the one to do it. Trying to contact Charles is not an option. You try hiding an Escalade outside a random shop in Provo and see if you don’t get caught.

She throws her hair over her shoulder. “Branson, I hope you take this the wrong way, but I’ve never seen you control a vehicle a day in my life. You’re always being chauffeured around everywhere like some sort of fucking prince. What makes you think I’m going to let you drive my car?”

I huff. “Why are you making this difficult?”

“Because I don’t trust you to drive my car. Do you know how much this thing costs?’ she says, gesturing to the gorgeous car.

I roll my eyes. “I have a licence and I have never had a ticket or any type of violation in my life. If you’re not going to drive, let me do it. We’re wasting time. If I crash it – which I won’t – I’ll just buy you a new one. You know I can afford at least three of these.”

She considers it for a second, pulling her full bottom lip between her teeth. “Fine,” she says finally, unbuckling her seatbelt. “But be kind to Bellezza Nera.”

I don’t know why her Italian catches me off guard. It shouldn’t. Especially when I’ve heard her speak it a million times, but here, in this dark and confined setting of this car, the way she rolls the ‘r’ almost makes it sound filthy.

Jesus.

If I’m getting turned on by Scarlett Voss speaking Italian, I really need to get laid.

She lets me take over her seat, switching around to the other side, settling in the passenger seat, one leg hanging down and the other pulled up to her chin. How in the world is she comfortable like that? I flick my attention from her and to the road, following the instructions that the GPS has set up.

Unlike most people I know, Scarlett doesn’t change the music ten times before settling on one song. She knows exactly what she wants and settles on a playlist and the first song that plays is ‘Sweet Disposition’ by The Temper Trap. It’s not a bad song, but it could have been better. The only upside to this is that she’s relaxed more now, and she doesn’t look like she’s about to bolt out of the door or stare into space.

We drive mostly in silence as the playlist continues to play more songs, similar to the one that played first.

When we get to the street in Provo, as I imagined, it’s mostly deserted. It’s never extremely busy here, but there is the odd person wandering around as all the buzz lies within the bar at the corner. It’s lively down there, loud cheers and music playing, but from where we need to be, the lights on the stores are the only thing keeping it lit. There’s a laundromat, a record shop, then the jewellery store, Julia’s, wedged between an antique store and a convenience store.

We park in a side alley, giving us a side view into the shop because of the way the streets have been designed. It would be too obvious if we parked on the main road, so this is our best shot. The store looks normal from here, a typical white, sterile looking place with a silver sign. It must be close to closing time now because there’s only one person behind the till, sitting on their phone.

“Are we going to go in?” I ask Scarlett as she stares out of her window at the shop.

“No,” she replies, her voice quiet.

“So, now what do we do?”

“We wait, obviously.”

Wait for what? I don’t know, but I’m terrified to ask any questions because she’ll either get angry at me or start to freak out again and I can’t deal with either of those things right now.

She’s still staring out the window and I’m still staring at her, and I can’t fucking move my eyes.

Okay, I have a problem.

Not like that.

Sometimes, when I get too in my head, (which is often) I stare. Not because something is particularly fascinating or drawing my attention. I just need something to focus on so my brain can just shut up for two minutes. Most of the time I’m aware I’m staring, and I probably look insane and even when I tell my eyes to move I just… Can’t.

My therapist calls it ‘compulsive staring’ as part of my OCD diagnosis, but I hate the label and I just let people comment on it the way they want. There is no use trying to explain it to people who wouldn’t understand.

But this time feels different. Most times I space out and I don’t actually know what I’m staring at, but this time I do.

It’s her and only her.

It’s her long dark brown, slightly curly hair and that fucking ribbon that she always wears. It ties up half of her hair in a cute bow and it makes her whole look seem innocent. It drives me crazy every time I look at it because it draws people into this false innocence. But she is the furthest thing from that. She’s lethal and dangerous and-

“Any theories?” she asks, still looking out the window. I shake my head, averting my eyes to the steering wheel in front of me. Could she sense my eyes on her? God, I hope not. I clear my throat.

“What?” I croak out.

“What do you think is going to happen? I can’t sit here in silence, Branson,” she explains. I don’t know how long I was spaced out for, but I’m surprised she didn’t fill that with her talking. She talks a lot. A lot of it is nonsense. But it’s a lot.

“I never said you had to,” I whisper, picking at the cuffs on my shirt.

“Well, it didn’t look like you were starting a conversation anytime soon,” she murmurs with that sarcastic undertone that makes me want to shake her shoulders.

“Do you always give this much attitude?”

“Do you always say the most stupid things?” She turns to me now, raising an eyebrow. I narrow my eyes at her, not sure what to say and she backs down with a smirk, turning back to face the store. “Just tell me a theory.”

I sigh, trying to think of something. It’s what I should have been thinking about instead of her. I say the most basic, typical thing that comes to mind. “I think whoever is in there is someone in Voss and is probably connected to Tinzingate in one way or another.”

She blows a raspberry. “Boring,” she says, dragging out the syllables. “Next.”

I groan, scratching at the back of my neck as I try and think of something more substantial. “Okay. I think that whoever we were supposed to be looking out for has been using the change in strategy for the diamonds as a coverup, steering you away from where the real source is; the source that leads you to finding out who started the rumours with Tinzin and Voss.”

“Ooh, that’s not bad,” she says, turning to me and she actually smiles. Not at me, but at the idea. And it’s sort of…endearing? I don’t know. But the way her face lights up does something to me.

“Are you a true crime junkie or something?”

She shakes her head. “Not at all. Only about this. I’m getting more of an adrenaline rush from being here than I could from a documentary.”

“Why do you care so much? Aren’t you supposed to want to rebel or some shit if you’re not even a part of the company?”

I finally say what I’ve been thinking all day. About what this means to her. Why is she so set on finding out what happened when no one else is? Most of the press has made up their minds, not digging into what has happened, waiting for her dad to recover. Meanwhile, my dad thinks it’s our place to find out what happened to expose them.

“I don’t have to be a part of the company to care about my dad,” she argues. Fair. But I want to know more. There is more than that. Especially because she’s letting me help her. She must be desperate.

“Come on. What are you trying to prove, Angel? This seems like more than just trying to help a situation that doesn’t need you meddling with it,” I say, shifting in my seat to get more comfortable, leaning in closer to her. She glances out the window hesitantly and when she catches no more movement from the store she turns back to me.

“Not like I need to tell you any of this, but I’m hungry and I’m tired and I don’t know what I’m saying,” she begins.

“Strong start if you want me to listen to you,” I mutter, and she pins me with a look. The look. The one that my dad gives me when I’m being a little shit. The one that when she gives it, it’s extra fucking terrifying. I wave my hand between us, adding, “Continue.”

“You know that my mom was sick for a really long time, right? Well, of course you did. Everyone knew. Because we couldn’t get a moment of fucking privacy, even when we switched to private care, we were still followed everywhere,” she explains. I don’t say anything, not wanting to break whatever has led her to open up to me. “I was useless. Absolutely fucking useless. I was scared and all I could do was stand and watch. I couldn’t help the company because I didn’t have enough experience. I couldn’t succeed in school because of the pandemic, so none of it even mattered. I couldn’t help my mom and she was literally dying right in front of me. Do you know what that feels like, Branson? To watch someone you love almost disappear right before your eyes?” I shake my head, almost frozen to the spot. I do know what that’s like, just not in the way she means. “She managed to pull through, luckily. And now we’re going through it again, but this time, I can have a handle on it. I’m going to find out what happened, and my dad is going to be fine.”

She ends her last sentence almost with a growl, as if she’s trying to convince herself that that is what is going to happen. I swear the more I speak to this girl, the more I learn about her and how fucking wrong I’ve been. She has layers. Tons of them.

“That’s…A lot,” is all that my stupid brain can come up with to say. She blinks at me for a second, slightly shaking her head at me in disbelief before dropping my gaze and turning back to the window.

“Gee, thanks for that analysis,” she mutters. “Like I said, I’m hungry and tired, so don’t let me telling you that go to your head.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I argue. I totally was.

“Right,” she says sarcastically. She leans off from the window, resting her head against the headrest with a sigh, giving me the prettiest fucking view of her throat. No. We’re not going there. “Do you know how long this is going to take?”

“You’re asking me?” I say. “You’re the one with the lead that got us here.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think we’d actually just be sitting here,” she retorts, her eyes still closed. I watch as the guy inside the shop finally slips his phone into his pocket, turning off the back light as he walks towards the door. “I’m just going to come back on my own tomorrow.”

That’s a terrible idea. There is no way she’s going back here alone. It’s a fine enough place, but everywhere becomes sketchy at night. The guy from the shop stands outside the door now, hands in his pockets as he looks around. I slouch down further, trying to hide myself from view.

“Don’t you think that-”

“Stop talking,” I mutter, watching as another dark figure appears, walking towards the Cell Phone Guy. They nod at each other, their mouths barely moving, and my heartbeat picks up.

“Okay, that’s a bit rude,” she replies. “I was just going to-”

“Scarlett. Stop. Talking,” I bite out and she opens her eyes, ready to rip me a new one. She sees that I’ve lowered my gaze from just above the steering wheel and her eyes widen as she looks between me and the two figures.

“Oh shit,” she murmurs.

“Yeah, oh shit.”

She leans down closer to where I’m looking since I have the better view. She’s too close to me now and I hate it. I can smell her Chanel No. 5 and the coconut scent of whatever she uses in her hair as some strands tickle my forearm.

“Why are you so close to me?” she groans as if she isn’t the one that came to my side of the car. She tried to reposition herself, but her elbow ended up wedged into the inside crease of mine.

I nudge her with my arm, but she doesn’t budge. “Why are you so close to me?”

She ignores me, huffing, “Can you just move your arm?”

“I would, but your elbow is right in my-”

“Jesus, Branson. Just move your-” She pushes me again and she’s practically wedged between me and the steering wheel.

“Scarlett, for the love of god-”

“I can’t see anything when you’re in the way!”

There’s a moment of brief – and I mean, brief – silence before the loudest sound I’ve ever heard starts to blare out.

Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep.

The fucking car alarm goes off and we duck our heads down, hoping that will shield us from the attention we’ve just drawn to ourselves. Could tonight get any worse? We’ve been going in circles, Scarlett’s mood shifting like the weather, and now we’ve completely blown our cover.

I glance over to her, and her shoulders are shaking, her head tucked beneath her hands in a protective embrace. Is she crying? I really hope she’s not crying. I’m fully convinced that it is only me who ends up in these kinds of situations.

When the car stops beeping, I look up to the store slowly, groaning when I see the lights are completely off and the two guys that were standing out there have gone. Fucking great.

“They’re gone,” I say, nudging Scarlett beside me and she lifts her head up.

She turns to me and our gaze locks. My lips part in exasperation. Honestly, I thought my life was about to be over just then. She blinks back at me, staring, her eyes wide and her cheeks a deep red.

Then the strangest thing happens.

She laughs.

Her face basically cracks open like the sun bursting through the blinds, her white teeth fully showing as she throws her head back, tears springing to her eyes as she clutches her chest. Her laugh is a high wheeze that I’ve never heard before. She only ever snorts or scoffs at me. This is her real laugh. It takes about two seconds of her contagious laugh before I start to join in with a low chuckle, shaking my head as I scramble to drive us away.