"Please tell me you're carrying pepper spray," Keagan said with a yawn.
"Two cans," Morgan swore, holding both up in front of her cell phone.
"Hey, Meg, it's not that I'm not thrilled to see your face, but it's two in the morning, and I've had enough carbs to put the Cake Boss in a coma. I am losing my sparkle."
"OK, so happy Thanksgiving. I miss you both, and . . . you're going to be assigned a Council security detail, day and night, on campus, because I'm in a little bit of trouble and you're considered potential emotional liabilities. OKthanksbye."
I reached to close my laptop lid, and both girls yelled, "Wait!"
"Are you OK?" Keagan demanded.
"Tell us where you are!" Morgan cried. "Do we need to come down there? Because I will leave this frozen wasteland of a mall parking lot and come down there. I will make that sacrifice for you. Because I love you."
"What kind of trouble are you in?" Keagan asked, fully awake now.
"I didn't do anything. A scientist who works for the Council got a little aggressive with his swabs and got fired over it, and now he's pretty mad about it and made some threats against the people I love, and since that's you . . . you're going to have vampires and Council-approved humans following you around to keep you safe."
"Oh, sweetie." Keagan sighed.
"Will they be hot vampires and Council-approved humans?"
"Morgan!" Keagan cried.
"I haven't been on a date in weeks," Morgan shot back.
"Which is more important than the safety of our aggressively swabbed friend how?" Keagan asked.
"Please word that differently," I told her. "Anyway, the Council will send official notice on Monday, but if you see Tina when the dorm reopens this weekend, you might want to tell her that Council personnel will be landing on campus. They might even take advantage of the vampire-friendly features at New Dawn-Why are you two looking at me like that?"
Both of my friends had "bad news" expressions on their faces, like my skinny jeans were anything but and they didn't have the heart to tell me.
"Meagan, Tina's gone," Morgan said carefully.
"As in she's supervising a different building?"
"No, Meg, she died about a week ago."
"What?" I yelled. "Why didn't anybody tell me? Ophelia!" I turned to see Ophelia and Jamie snuggled up on the couch in the parlor. "Why didn't you tell me Tina died?"
"Oh, right, sorry. Tina died in a car accident last week," Ophelia said.
"Why would you not tell me that?"
"Honestly, I didn't think you and Tina were that close," she said. "If Morgan or Keagan had died, I would have told you. Does that help?"
"Thank you, Ophelia," Keagan called. "That's really nice . . . for you."
"OK," Morgan said. "Tina's car got stuck on some train tracks, and she didn't pull off in time. The wreckage was awful. It burned for hours. Our photo guys got some really detailed gory shots, but the editor refused to print them because it seemed insensitive."
I Googled "Tina Messinger wreck" on my tablet and pulled up a Lexington Herald-Leader news article about the crash. I cringed at the sight of the twisted wreckage of the car. "These were the ‘sensitive' shots?"
Morgan nodded. "Yes, our guy got splashes of blood on the sidewalk. We didn't use those."
"Why do you ask these questions?" Keagan sighed.
"Was she in a car accident or a ‘car accident'?" I asked, turning to Ophelia.
"You know, the sarcastic air-quote fingers aren't necessary," Ophelia said.
"You did say you were annoyed with her over the whole contacts list thing," Keagan supplied.
"Keagan, you're supposed to be the nice one!" Ophelia grumped.
"Nice doesn't mean stupid." Keagan snorted.
"OK, I love you both, but I'm going to hang up and yell at Ophelia for her inability to tell important details from useless stuff she doesn't think I'm interested in," I said. "Morgan, if you turn up on YouTube for snatching a vegetable steamer out of a child's hands, I will share it on every available social media platform. Keagan, get your sparkle back."
They waved at the screen as I shut down my programs and turned on Ophelia.
///
"You didn't think our dorm director dying in a fiery crash was worth sharing?"
"It slipped my mind," she said with a shrug. "You spent ten minutes at dinner detailing the outfit you wore to tell your economics study group to go on the Mammoth Cave tour and ignore the warnings against wandering. And why are you so interested in what happened to Tina?" When Jamie shot her a significant look, she added, "Other than her being a person you knew and would naturally be interested in."