Page 29 of Liar
“He was found late last night, dead in the parking lot near his vehicle. Time of death is about six-thirty,” Melendez said, taking the picture from me. Good thing too, because I couldn’t stop staring at it.
He was alive less than twenty-four hours ago. I was the last person to see him alive. Neither fact made much sense in my head, and I must’ve worn my emotions on my face, for Melendez sighed.
“We’re talking with his family and his friends, but no one knows anything about any enemies he might’ve had. The area where he parked his car was a blind spot of the university’s security cameras.”
“I don’t know much about him,” I said, wishing I was alone right now. Wishing I could press pause and rewind this day, or even fast-forward it. “I don’t know who could’ve done this—”
“You see, that’s where I have a theory.”
I looked at her. Melendez and her theories…sometimes steered too close to the truth.
“Ray Ruiz has been quiet,” Melendez said, pointing to me. “And you were the last person who saw Mr. Weinberger alive. What we know about Ruiz is, he’s not afraid to hurt anyone he thinks is getting too close to you.”
Right. Because of Will.
“You haven’t seen Ray Ruiz? Or heard from him?”
Melendez’s question snapped me back into reality, and I met her dark eyes. “No, I haven’t.” I also knew for a fact Ray was dead, which meant…which meant Corey’s killer was still out there. Was yet another person dead because of me?
How much death could my shoulders carry?
“All I have right now is conjecture. The wound on Mr. Weinberger doesn’t match Ray’s typical MO, so if you can think of anything that might help this investigation, please let me know.”
“Can I…” I swallowed, knowing it was wrong of me to ask, but doing so anyway, “Can I ask how he died?”
Melendez closed her manila folder, her mouth thinning into a line. Her silence made me believe she wasn’t going to tell me, but in another moment, she opened her mouth and said, “His throat was cut.”
I paled, my stomach churning.
“One clean sweep. Whoever did it knew what they were doing. This was no accident.” Melendez paused, letting her words sink in: “This was murder.”
Oh, God. Did I have another stalker? Was I just stalker bait or something? Was it my clothes, my attitude? I was hardly online these days, so it sure as shit wasn’t my social media presence. What the hell was wrong with me?
No. I was overreacting. Melendez said it herself, it was all conjecture. All theories and hypothesizing. She had nothing concrete right now.
“Be careful out there,” Melendez said, getting up. “And if you see anything, call me. I’m going to make sure we’re keeping an eye on you for a while. I don’t want him trying anything else.” She was so sure this was Ray, so positive she knew who the killer was…meanwhile I was horrified.
Horrified because Hillcrest had another killer on its campus.
They were going to keep an eye on me because they thought I was the key, the missing link, the bait to catch Ray, but what they didn’t know was that Ray was already off the streets. This…Corey had fallen to someone else. It was almost too much of a coincidence, though, when I was the last one to have seen him.
I should’ve known by now there were no such things as coincidences. Not around here, not when life and death were involved.
Melendez led me down the hall, and once I was no longer at her side, I practically ran to the exit doors, my fingers clumsy as they grabbed for my phone.
I dialed Declan, and he answered almost immediately, “Hey, is everything okay?”
“I…” My feet stopped. The Hillcrest police department was behind me, Main Street in front of me, its busy lanes full of cars. I was going to walk back to campus, but the knowledge that someone else was out there, possibly watching, gave me pause. This was like deja vu, and I hated every second of it. “No,” I finally answered, because it was the truth.
“What’s wrong?” Declan’s voice was fraught with concern, and I flinched when I heard it.
After waiting a moment, my heart started to tug at me. The police station wasn’t far from a house I hadn’t been to in a while…a house I was supposed to go to tomorrow with my guys. I hadn’t heard from Sawyer at all today. Granted, it wasn’t like we spoke every day, but knowing what I did about Corey…
“Let me call you back,” I said, hanging up before my feet took off.
I ran. I ran like I’d never ran before. How many would die because of me? And, of course, it had to be because of me. I didn’t believe in coincidences like these. It was too much. I’d almost lost Will and Declan—I would not lose anyone else, even if they weren’t currently with me.
I crossed roads stupidly, caused a few cars caught in mid-turn to honk at me, but I didn’t care. Soon enough the large rental houses came into view, and I ran right to the big white one, the three-story house that looked more like a mansion than anything else. The house I’d spent so much time in last semester while trying to hide away from Ray. While trying to recover from what I saw at that Halloween party.
