Page 50 of Framed

I held my breath as I tugged the door open, just a fraction. Only wide enough for my body to slip inside. The musky smell of old books hit my nose before I took a single step. I cast one last quick glance over my shoulder, but I couldn’t see the parking lot or Winter from here.

Just empty, silent streets. Yet the back of my neck tingled, as if someone were watching me.

Holding my breath, I slipped into the dark library and let the door fall shut behind me.

Once inside, I had no idea what to do next. The note didn’t have any further instructions. It just said to be here at four in the morning. I checked my watch. Ten minutes until four. Maybe someone would show up soon? Maybe my stalker was already here, watching me wander through this building.

Or maybe she was outside in the parking lot, having just delivered me to another trap.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Naomi’s body or the splash of gore around her prone figure. I shuddered.

But I also didn’t want to lurk right next to the door. What if someone else came inside and found me here? I forced my legs to move.

The library looked the same as it always had in the dark. I’d come through this entrance before, with Dad, so I knew how to avoid the largest bookshelves. I made my way past those and out into the hallway. The building felt different at night, alive almost. As if it were a living creature, one that harbored all of Tuscaloosa’s problems in its core.

City Hall, after all, was a great place to store a town’s secrets.

I started walking, not sure which direction to go. I passed closed doors, locked offices. My shoes squeaked on the floor, so I slowed down, trying to move as silently as possible.

My watch ticked ever closer to four. I held my breath as the seconds counted down. But when it hit four and kept going, nothing changed.

I climbed to the second story, eyes and ears peeled. This was stupid. There was nobody here, and if the blackmailer left another note, I’d never find it in the dark.

I was just about to turn around and head back to the car, so I could apologize to Winter for the fruitless drive, when a sound caught my attention.

It was coming from the third floor.

I tiptoed to the stairwell and paused, listening. It sounded like a piece of furniture scraping across a floor.

I started up the staircase, pulse racing. At the top landing, I paused again, ears strained. There it was again. A screeching sound, followed by a gasp. My eyes went wide.Is someone hurt?

I stepped onto the hallway. A light at the far end caught my attention. Someone had left their office door cracked, the light inside on. I headed toward it, and heard another cry, this one louder and longer.

But it wasn’t a cry of pain. It sounded like… pleasure?

My footsteps slowed. I pressed my back against the wall as I neared the cracked door. I could see figures inside now, more than one, moving. I held my breath, praying the dark would hide me, and peered through the crack.

A man stood with his naked backside to me. He’d bent a woman over the desk and he drove into her from behind, his hands braced on her waist. She moaned, rolling her head to one side. Her hair splayed across her face, but he reached down to grasp it in one hand, and I covered my mouth with one hand to stifle a gasp of surprise.

I recognized her. Veronica Stewart.Naomi’s mother.

What the hell?Belatedly, I processed the man. He didn’t look like Naomi’s stepfather, William Stewart, even from behind. All I could see from his angle was his ass, which I frankly did not need to witness. But I got a bad feeling suddenly. I glanced up the hallway. Hadn’t I been up to this floor before? It was where the high-up officials kept offices, people like the mayor and…

My stomach sank. I turned back, just as the man bent over Veronica, driving into her harder. He tilted his head just far enough for me to see his profile, but that was enough. He looked so much like his son, in profile.

Governor Decan Adams, Xavier’s father, was fucking Naomi’s mother.

chapter twenty one

Xavier

Where was she going? And who the fuck was she with? I didn’t recognize the black Audi Q8. When I first started following them, I’d gunned the gas just hard enough to catch up and snap a picture of the license plate.

Then I fell back again, far enough behind them on the highway that whoever was driving Scarlett in the wrong direction—away from our campus—wouldn’t notice me tailing them.

I sent the picture to Briggs, then spent the next two hours intermittently spam-calling him. He’d finally called back a moment ago.

“You got anything back on the plate?” I asked.

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