The Seduction Game novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Exam

"Her cousin," Nash repeated.

"The roster changed at five," said Hattie. "The proctor who had your room is suddenly sick, and her cousin is suddenly free."

I looked at the black frame of the boathouse against the snow.

"She won't try to take the exam from me," I said. "She'll try to take me from the exam."

"How?"

"The same way she did in the stairwell. A stolen paper in my bag, found by someone she picked."

Nash's hands curled on his knees.

"I'll go to the Dean tonight."

"The Dean can't remove a proctor on a feeling. Your father already told us the chairman owns the committee."

"Then what do we do?"

I stood up and brushed the snow off my coat.

I had spent seven weeks learning what kind of trap Camille Aldridge built.

She built the kind that only needed one witness she controlled.

"We give the room another witness," I said. "A camera in the annex clock."

Nash blinked. "Your idea of subtle is frightening."

"Your father is a trustee. The leak inquiry gives him the right to ask for one."

"He'll sign anything that makes the chairman nervous."

"And Hattie's dad hangs things on walls for a living."

Hattie's face went slowly blank, and then it split into the biggest smile I had ever seen on a human being.

"The school has a camera clock from the leak inquiry sitting in a box in his shed," she said. "I'll go wake him up."

She was gone up the slope before Nash had finished reaching for his phone.

He called his father, and I heard the dry voice on the other end say three words, and then a click.

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