Page 58 of Drowning in Darkness

I dig deeper, moving past the headlines and into less restrained local reports, widening my search for anything linked to the college and its students around that time. I zero in on one article that catches my attention.

Student dies following hospital admission.

It happened two months after the attack. The report attributes the death to a single-vehicle crash caused by the guy driving under the influence.

I read the sentence twice. Then a third time. Something about it feels... convenient. Too vague. Too carefully written. The crash wasn’t high-speed, just careless. A needless loss of a future for a man who had everything to live for. He had no priors, not for this, anyway. But upon further digging, I realize he should have a record as long as my arm for violence and assault against multiple girls.

I dive beneath the firewalls and pull up his post-mortem report. The toxicology tracks, and then I find that the coroner changed his report several times over a few days. In his early report, he notes that the injuries are not typically consistent with a crash at thirty miles per hour. But that got erased.

I search the man’s name instead. Keiran Fisher. The name rings a small alarm bell, but I can’t place why.

A second report appears in a local paper. The emergency room team claimed he arrived at the hospital with catastrophic head injuries that the police refused to discuss.

My attention sharpens as I follow the life of the second accused. One year later, he was dead. The third died a few months after. Their families play it down as terrible, coincidental tragedies.

But there are three names and three obituaries. Three different official explanations that somehow all avoid explaining what actually happened.

I lean back against the side of the bed and let Stephanie’s words replay inside my head. They said there were six. But only three paid.

The answer arrives almost immediately—Hunter. An older brother with military training and every reason in the world to hunt down the men who destroyed his sister.

My gaze drifts toward the bed. If they weren’t already feeding the worms, I would hunt these fuckers down right now.

But why did she say six?

Stephanie sleeps, one hand curled beneath her cheek, completely unaware that somewhere between borrowing my shirt and stealing my bed, she’s handed me another mystery to solve.

I lower the laptop onto the floor before disappearing into the hallway for a blanket. The sofa is twenty steps away. The guest bed even closer. Neither feels like the right place to be tonight. If she sleepwalks again, I want to hear her before she reaches the kitchen.

I spread the blanket across the floor beside the bed, prop the pillow against the wall, and settle back. The floor is unforgiving, and my neck will hate me in the morning. Neither concern survives more than a passing thought.

Because if the nightmares come looking for her again, they’ll have to step over me first.

TWENTY

STEPHANIE

The heart has strange ways of betraying itself. Mine started with breakfast.

The first thing I notice is that the ceiling isn’t the same one I fell asleep under. I might have only been here one night, but I spent far too many hours staring at it, wishing things were different. That I could fall in love without reservation, that my dreams of being swept off my feet were not a pipe dream.

White timber beams stretch overhead, crossed with thick oak darkened by age. For one disorienting second, I simply stare at them while my brain scrambles to remember where I am.

Then yesterday crashes back to me.

Christopher.

The shooting.

Camryn.

Our escape and the devastating knowledge that her boss is not above taking bribes from rich men.

James.

The lodge.

James.... I push myself upright, hissing as my ribs remind me that Melanie’s warning about taking it easy wasn’t a suggestion.