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“No. Bhodi distracted us with his need for coffee. But so what if I had? She’s my best friend, I want to see her!”
“It’s not safe.”
“Why?”
“We’ll get to that.”
“She said Malia’s ‘boyfriend’ – probably meant you Cove – had told her where you were staying but that she’d forgotten.”
“Well, I definitely didn’t,” Cove protests.
“Why would she lie?” Malia exclaims.
Why, indeed.
“What happened once you left the coffee shop?” I ask Malia, hoping to distract her. She shoots me a look like she knows exactly what I’m trying to do, but she indulges me anyway. I wish she’d drink the damn water, it would make things a lot easier.
“We heard a voice shouting for help.”
“Male or female?”
“I-I don’t know. Bhodi?”
“Female,” Bhodi confirms.
“Okay, continue.”
“I realised it was coming from the direction Summer had gone, so we went to check it out. There was a crowd surrounding the…the body. And I had to check. I had to see, to know if it was Summer. So I pushed my way through and…it wasn’t her.”
“I pulled Malia out of there as fast as I could, but you know what teenagers are like. Everyone had their phones out, recording.”
I nod, because the hashtagnecro freakwas already trending. She doesn’t need to know that though.
“Okay. We have other problems too,” I tell my team.
“What?” Reef asks.
“Police presence all over campus, too many eye witnesses to make this disappear, social media interference, a specific person of interest, and whatever else Miss Van der Zee isn’t telling us,” I finish, giving her a hard stare.
She baulks. “W-what?”
“What else happened today? What are you omitting?”
Malia’s gaze flickers to Reef’s and he gives her a tiny nod. I doubt she’s confided in him already – he would have told me. But he certainly has an inkling of what she’s concealing from his time spent masquerading as her therapist.
“You’ll think I’m crazy,” she begins.
“They won’t,” Reef reassures her. “You can tell us anything. Trust me, we’re open minded.”
“I started hearing things when I was on campus…”
“What sort of things?”
“Whispers. Speculation. Gossip. Theories.”
“So?”
“I was hearing what people weren’t saying out loud.”
