“Dad sent me away.”
“You didn’t put up a fight, did you?”
“No,” she agreed, “I didn’t. But that was then. And I’m not that girl anymore. I’ve grown up, Brad.”
She could see he was struggling with the idea. She went on, “Don’t you want me here?”
“You’re my sister, my only sib. Of course I want you nearby.” He drew a resigned-sounding breath. “Mimi was okay with this?”
“She encouraged it. She knew how important it was for me to do this.”
“A ‘can’t move forward before you go back’ sort of thing?”
“Yes.”
He dragged a hand through his hair. “I guess I get that. But you can’t surprise Viv the way you did me. I have to give her a heads-up. This could trigger an episode.”
With her mom, almost anything could trigger an episode. A thrumming started in her temple, like a silent drumbeat, pounding out a warning. It was a call she hadn’t heard in a long time. “Seems to me an episode is unavoidable, whether you give her a heads-up or I simply show up on her doorstep. And the fact is, I’m here. What am I going to do? Hide?”
“It’s your decision, sis.” He paused, then went on. “But there’s one more thing I think you should know.”
“What’s that?”
“They’ve reopened the investigation. A couple weeks ago.”
CHAPTER THREE
The night of the murder
The man seemed to come out of nowhere. He emerged from the blinding snow like some sort of monster, and for one, terrifying moment, Sienna thought it must be the killer, come back for her. As she opened her mouth to scream again, the beam of a flashlight blinded her.
“Campus police,” he called. “Stay where you are.”
Sienna nodded and hugged herself. As if in a dream, she saw him kneel beside the body, check her pulse. Heard him swear softly.
That muttered curse proof the girl was dead.
She started to cry, great racking sobs from the depth of her being. She shook violently and the cop stood and wrapped his arms around her.
He had a gentle touch. And a kind voice. “Shh … shh … It’s going to be all right. You’re safe, I’m here.”
She was safe.
Safe.
As the thought penetrated, her hysteria evaporated. Her legs went weak, and he tightened his grip on her.
“That’s right,” he murmured. “Now look at me. Not at her, at me.”
She wanted to, more than anything, but couldn’t seem to drag her gaze from the girl in the red snow.
“Wh … who … is she?”
“I don’t know. Now, look at me.” This time he said it forcefully, the way her father would. Startled, she met his eyes. Brown, she saw. A warm, deep brown.
“You recognize me, don’t you? From around campus?”
He looked familiar, but she could hardly think, let alone put a name to a face.
“Officer Randall Clark. Campus police.”
Then she remembered. He’d helped her one time, when she fell and twisted her ankle. He’d been kind that time as well.
“Good girl,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Sienna Scott.”
“Did you see what happened here?”
The image of the red snow, and the girl lying facedown in it, filled her head. She looked that way and a squeak of terror slipped past her lips.
“Sienna,” he said again, gently but firmly, “keep your eyes on my face. I need to ask you a couple questions. Think you can handle that?”
She managed to nod, and he went on, “Did you see anyone? Perhaps fleeing the scene?”
“No,” she whispered.
“How about voices? Did you hear an argument or—”
His radio crackled. “Randy, buddy, you there?”
He unclipped the device without completely loosening his grip on her. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“We’ve gotten some calls, reports of hearing screams. It’s probably nothing but—”
Officer Clark cut him off. “It is most definitely something. You better get over here. Behind the library, between the Humanities and Social Sciences buildings.”
“In this weather? You’ve got to be out of your damn mind. Whatever it is, take care of it.”
“And call the local PD. A female student has been murdered. It’s bad. Real bad.”
Murdered. The word reverberated in Sienna’s head, blocking out the reply of the man on the radio. She shifted her gaze to the dead girl, taking in the hooded parka, once white, now stained red. She looked down, at her own white jacket and gloves, now also stained red, and a weird and horrible realization planted in the back of her head:
She and the dead girl were wearing the same coat.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sienna couldn’t stop shaking. She couldn’t keep her gaze from straying to the dead girl and the white, bloodstained jacket. Tears rolled down her cheeks, freezing before they could splash onto her high collar. “I’m … so … cold.” She managed the words around her chattering teeth. “I … want-t … t-to g-go home.”
“I have to wait for backup. I can’t leave her.” The officer sounded distressed. Confused.
The body. Sienna closed her eyes. Her head filled with the image of deep red creeping across stark white. Pooling in the snow. Seeming to have a life of its own as it drained another’s.
“I think I’m going to be sick!”
The cop quickly ushered her to a corner shielded from the wind. She doubled over and retched with such force it felt as if her very soul were being expelled from her body.
“Come on,” Officer Clark said, “we’ll wait for my backup in the cruiser.”
He led her around the Social Sciences Building, to the parking lot just beyond. His FREDRICKS COLLEGE POLICE cruiser was one of the only vehicles in the lot.
He unlocked the car, then opened the front passenger door for her. “Climb in. I’ll start her up, get the heat going.”
She did and he slammed the door behind her, then went around to the other side. A few seconds later, he had the engine fired up and the heat on full blast. It didn’t take long for the air blowing out the vents to go from cold to downright warm.
“That’s one of the things these cruisers have going for them, great heaters.”
She didn’t respond and he held his hands up to one of the vents. He wasn’t wearing gloves and they looked painfully chapped from the cold.
He rubbed them together. “Take off your gloves. Do this.”
Sienna nodded and went to tug off her gloves. And froze, staring at the blood. For a moment, she’d forgotten. But now it came rushing back. Tripping, landing on her hands and knees, seeing the blood.
Deep red creeping across pristine white.
“I’ll do it for you.”
He carefully peeled off her gloves. She saw that her fingers were stained red. She started to shake.
He gently guided her hands to air rushing out of the vent. “See? Feels better, doesn’t it?”
She nodded.
They sat silently, hands stretched out. As her hands and face warmed, they tingled, as if coming back to life.