Still, it seemed to be something that irked the kid, because he couldn’t resist saying, “Mr. and Mrs. Portman are good people of above average but not exceptional intelligence. They’ve succeeded through a combination of nature, nurture, and hard work, and most of the people they mix with are the same. So if they meet someone who deviates from that norm, it unsettles them. They’d prefer to think of me as an idiot savant than someone whose brain simply happens to work in a freer and more complex way than theirs.”
Finn assumed Jonas hadn’t spoken to the police like this, because if he had they’d probably have put him on a suspect list and taken him in for questioning—for all the reasons Jonas had just suggested.
“And what about Hailey—how does she do on the intelligence scale?”
“Different, from them and from me. She doesn’t have ideas the way I do, and she can stare at a puzzle and have absolutely no interest in solving it, but she thinks deeply about things. You know, she’s truly profound. It blows me away sometimes. She’ll recommend a book and I read it, but then she talks about it and I see it in a completely different light. She’s amazing.”
There it was: Jonas was in love with Hailey Portman. His eyes were sparkling now, his face animated, as if it wasn’t enough to be in love with her, he also had to communicate that love, to help a relative stranger understand how incredible she was.
That explained his vigil, too, his need to find her, to ensure that no harm came to her. Finn noticed him shiver as a cold wind found the junction on which they stood.
“It’s cold, Jonas. Let’s go and grab a coffee somewhere and then you can tell me what you know, and why you’re watching Gibson’s apartment.”
“Okay.” Jonas started walking. Finn fell in with him, guessing he knew a coffee shop and was heading for it. “You can tell me about Gibson, too.”
“Maybe. I don’t know much.”
“He’s the reason she left.” Finn looked at him questioningly. “She was scared. I was scared, too.” He pointed ahead, and Finn stared for a moment before spotting the coffee shop, which wasn’t one that he’d ever noticed before, but then Jonas looked at him earnestly and said, “Actually, I’m still a bit scared.”
Chapter Nine
Jonas took his hat off as he walked in. Again, Finn was sure he must have seen him without a hat before, but he was surprised somehow to see the brown, tousled hair. The kid was disturbingly good-looking, and as they sat down Finn noticed one of the waitresses and two young women at a nearby table giving him intrigued glances.
But if Jonas knew he was intelligent, he either didn’t know or didn’t care that he was good-looking. His whole view of that probably came down to whether Hailey found him attractive, and Finn suspected this wasn’t the time to be asking about the nature of their relationship.
Jonas ordered a hot chocolate, Finn a black coffee.
“Okay, Jonas, let’s start from the beginning. What’s your history with Gibson?” Jonas looked confused, so for the second time Finn explained, “That’s the name of Hailey’s neighbor.”
“I know that, you already told me. But we don’t have any history with Gibson. We’ve never even spoken to him, we just accidentally spied on him.”
“Okay, so tell me about that.”
Jonas nodded, apparently acknowledging that it was a fair request, and said, “Hailey and me, we do a lot of the same classes, so we often work together at her apartment or mine.” He glanced across at the waitress, who smiled back at him, a smile that was interested. She looked in her late teens herself, and Jonas probably looked more than fifteen. “I think we should split the bill, if you don’t mind. I think it would be inappropriate for you to pay for me. After all, I don’t really know you that well.”
Finn took a moment to catch up with the sudden change of subject. “I hadn’t given it much thought, but since when did buying someone a hot chocolate count as inappropriate? Actually, for something like this I think it’s stranger to split the bill. What would you and Hailey do if you were out having coffee?”
“That’s a very different scenario, you can’t compare the two—but you do make a good point.” Jonas thought about it, as if Gibson had been forgotten, and added, “As I chose the venue, on this occasion I’ll pay.”
“Okay.” Oddly, Finn still accepted the kid’s earlier assertion that he didn’t have Asperger’s, but there was something out of the ordinary about him—the words “different drummer” spun through his mind.
Satisfied, and without registering that there had been a break in his story, Jonas said, “More often than not hers, because I have a younger sister, who’s pretty cool, but she thinks Hailey is amazing so she never leaves us alone.”
“Do you hang out together when you’re not studying?”