Page 58 of Dead to Me

‘Well, that’s… Um, we just broke up,’ he answered, with his voice rumbling into my shoulder.‘So I guess maybe this hug is for me, too.’

It really was only then that it dawned on me that Kit might have weaknesses, too.And everything changed at that point.The dynamic.All of it.It was suddenly clear what Kit wanted, and why Sarah had been so angry with me.

You know what really saddens me, though, when I write this?It’s knowing that at that moment, the one person I really wanted there, to comfort me, was you, Reid.

And it sucks.

22.Reid

Reid climbed out of the taxi feeling pretty much as bad as he’d ever felt.

On the surface of it, what he was reading now confirmed everything he’d believed about Anna.The manipulation.The willingness to seduce.The way she’d put the story above everyone’s feelings.

And yet the truth underneath it all was so different.Anna had been sent in there to capture the interest of an undergraduate, and then had done her best to be a friend to him, even if her motives hadn’t been totally pure.What she’d said to Kit had been right: she’d done nothing to encourage Ryan Jaffett.

But that hadn’t stopped him from assaulting her.And something much worse could so easily have happened, too.Which made Reid want to track Ryan down right now and haul him to the police station himself.Worse, it made him want to ignore everything he was supposed to represent and go and beat the guy senseless.

He felt wretched that she’d been put in that position, and worse that he hadn’t been there for her when it had happened.Instead, it had been up to Kit bloody Frankland to save her.

Reid had been ahead of Anna in understanding that Kit had fallen for her.Of course he’d fallen for her.How could henotwant someone so sparky and smart and out of his control?

But the single worst thing was what else Reid could see: that despite what she was actively saying, Anna had fallen for Kit, too.For his clever, manipulative, charming ways.

It had been plain as day from the way she’d walked straight into that hug of his, but from before that, too.From every description of him.There had been a connection there from the start.

And if she’d fallen for him, it meant she wouldn’t have been able to see Kit clearly when she’d needed to.That she would have been vulnerable to him, and to anything he told her about the others.

Reid felt like emailing her back again, trying to somehow warn the Anna of two and a half weeks ago not to trust that feeling.But obviously that was useless.He couldn’t send something back in time.

Thrumming through all this worry was a growing sense that he was going to find out something about Tanya soon.Something that might be worse than what he’d already come to terms with.

If one of them killed her,he thought,I could have stopped it.I could have stopped it, if I’d got her to talk to me.

As he climbed the stairs to James Sedgewick’s third-floor room he had the dark, heavy thought that he might even be about to come face to face with Tanya’s killer in the flesh.And he felt almost glad to see James’s handsome face drain of colour as he opened the door to Reid and his badge.

‘DI Reid Murray,’ Reid said, his voice flat.Professional.‘I’d like to have a quick word.’

‘Are you… definitely with the police?’James asked, his voice tight with anxiety.

‘That’s what the badge is for,’ Reid said, smiling but without much humour.

‘Only…’ James glanced into the corridor behind him.‘You messaged, didn’t you?And I tried to call the station to see if I should come in, and they’d never heard of you.’

Reid felt momentarily wrongfooted.It had never occurred to him that James wouldn’t just call him back on his mobile.

‘Was that here at Cambridge?’

‘Umm… yeah, it was,’ James said.‘I called 101, so…’

Reid sighed.This could spell trouble if his DCI got told he was overstepping the mark.‘That’s because I don’t work for Cambridgeshire; I’m with the Metropolitan Police in London,’ he explained, knowing there was nothing else for it.He held the badge out to James.‘Here.’

James nodded, slowly, looked at him anxiously again, and then let him into a large, slope-ceilinged room.

‘Sorry,’ James said, handing the badge back and perching on his desk chair.‘Always worry about things being scams and… I didn’t know the Met would do a missing persons here.’

‘There’s some suggestion that the missing person in question might be in London,’ Reid said.He sat himself on the edge of James’s bed, as there was nowhere else to sit.Despite being large, the student room was remarkably empty.

‘Are you talking about Aria?’James asked, looking at him intently.

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