Page 49 of Dream a Little Dream

“Copycat?”

“It’s too late.” Kenny shook his head. “Copycats move fast. They feed off the publicity, the thrill of replicating someone else’s crime to get the same recognition. This? This is too…methodical. And different. It’s staged, for sure. Almost like a…gift. The vine?” Kenny pointed to it. “That’s tied around him like a bow.”

Jack gave him a sideways glance, lips twitching in the faintest of smirks. “Welcome back.”

Kenny’s expression hardened. “No—”

“You know you won’t sleep, anyway.” Jack squeezed Kenny’s shoulder, then stood, glancing up to the sky where a helicopter fluttered overhead. “The media will have a field day with this.”

“Sir?” A uniformed officer approached, breaking the tension. Kenny stood, blinking back the significance in Jack’s words. He wasn’t ready for this, and yet…he was already in.

Jack straightened, slipping back into his role as senior officer. “Yes, Jenkins?”

The officer, a woman with sharp eyes and a notebook at the ready, flipped through her notes. “We checked with the university administration. No one filed an official report on Rahul Mishra going missing. Not even to his family.”

Jack frowned. “Who reported him missing, then?”

Jenkins adjusted her stance. “It took some chasing, but eventually we found it. A neighbour in the Halls reported it to the accommodation officer late Friday night.”

“And no one followed up?” Jack glanced back at Kenny, as if expecting him to explain the university bureaucracy. Kenny shrugged. He was an academic, not pastoral.

“Do we have a name for the neighbour?”

Jenkins nodded, flipping to another page in her notebook. “Aaron Jones.”

Kenny’s pulse quickened. Throat tightened. “What?”

Jack turned sharply toward him. “You know him?”

Kenny blinked away the sudden unrest. “Yeah. He’s in my first-year cohort.”

Jack paused for a second, reading the tension in Kenny’s face before nodding. “Well, looks like you’re involved, whether you like it or not. Let’s go talk to him.” He stripped off his gloves with a snap, the finality of the motion echoing in Kenny’s mind.

Kenny followed, with heavy steps and a thudding against his chest, spelling out the words, shit, shit, shit.

chapter twelve

Trouble

Aaron sat atop the table of a picnic bench outside the student centre, tatty trainers on the seat, lighting the cigarette Mel had been so kind to beg, borrow or steal for him. She perched by his feet, gazing out at the grassland where the skins v shirts five-a-side match kept them amused through their lunch hour. Taylor was among them, askin, and Aaron checked out his shirtless body as he played ball, every so often Taylor sneaking a glance over at him.

“He fancies the fuck out of you,” Mel said, flicking her ash on the gravel.

“I know.”

“You like him?” She peered up, shielding her eyes from the low October sun.

Aaron shrugged and took a drag from his cigarette. Objectively, Taylor was easy on the eye. He had a toned, fit body. Symmetrical face. Stylish hair he looked after. And a casualconfidence proving he was comfortable in his skin. The woven leather rainbow bracelet wrapped around his wrist announced the pride in who he was and how he had no fear or shame. And he was cool with public displays of affection, if him spooning him on the dancefloor on Sunday was anything to go by. With all that, Aaron should feelsomething. Arousal, at least.

But, as was the norm, he was indifferent.

Sometimes he wondered if he evenwasgay. But he could recall his childhood, his youth and the adolescent attractions getting him into trouble at more than one placement. Kicked out of a foster home completely for it too. Maybe that’s what had caused him to be less…outward facing. There were other labels he could try out. Some friends of his had offered them for him—demisexual, aromantic. Neither felt right. He just had a narrow selection of men who got him off. Of whom hewantedto get him off. And an even narrower selection of thosehewanted to get off.

“You’re good at that.”

Aaron blew out smoke as the five-a-side match came to a natural end, the lads picking up bags and tops to head to the afternoon lectures. Taylor peered over to him, scraping back his hair, a wry smile as he leisurely collected his top, probably thinking he was giving Aaron a show. Aaron looked away. So Taylor dragged the top over his head and sauntered over to the bench.

Mel stood. “See ya.”

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