On Wednesday, he sat down one seat away from Reagan. Unusual. He normally sat at the back.
He didn't say anything for the first 20 minutes of class.
Then, during a transition between topics, when the professor was writing on the board, he leaned slightly and said, quietly and without looking at her, "He knows your scholarship has a conduct clause."
Reagan didn't move.
"He found out through someone in the financial aid office," he said, still not looking at her. "I don't know who. He didn't tell me."
A pause.
"Why are you telling me this?" Reagan said. Her voice was equally quiet.
Ford was quiet for a moment. He picked up his pen and put it down again.
"Because he also went after a kid last year," he said. "In the business program. And I didn't say anything then. And he transferred out."
He finally glanced at her. Just for a second.
"I'm not..." He started, stopped. "I'm not going to do anything. But I'm not going to pretend I don't know what I know, either."
The professor turned back to the room, and Ford straightened up and looked at the board.
Reagan looked at her notebook. She wrote down the date and time and exactly what he'd said.
Then she thought about Ford Beckett for a moment.
Twenty years old. Big guy. Shane's closest running mate in this whole operation.
He wasn't brave. He'd told her so himself, indirectly. But he was tired of the weight of knowing things and not saying them.
She understood that particular weight.
She wrote his name down, too. Filed it away.
You never knew.
* * *
Thursday evening, 8:15. Reagan was at her desk with her sociology reading when her phone buzzed.
Coach Ray Dunbar. Right on schedule.
He called every Thursday at 8:00. He had called every Thursday at 8:00 for the past three years, since she'd started competing at the regional level and he'd decided that weekly check-ins were part of the training protocol. Not optional. Not negotiable. Just Thursday at 8:00.
She picked up.
"How's the campus?" he said. No hello. Ray Dunbar didn't waste time on hellos.
"Managed," she said.
Pause.
"That's a different word than last week."
"Last week I said managed."
"Last week you said it different."
She set down her highlighter.
Ray Dunbar had known her for 11 years. He had watched her compete in 17 regional tournaments, two national qualifiers, and one junior nationals. He had seen her lose and seen her win, and seen her lose badly and come back.
He knew her voice the way a luthier knows a particular instrument. Every resonance, every tension.
"Someone came after my roommate," she said.
She told him, briefly and in order. The anonymous complaint, the scholarship condition, the timeline.
Ray listened without interrupting. That was a thing she'd always valued about him. He let you finish.
When she was done, he was quiet for a moment.
"He went around you," he said.
"Yes."