Page 65 of Dead to Me

But she didn’t want me to stop,I thought.She wanted to know if Tanya’s death was the cause of Holly’s.She just somehow pulled a fucking miracle out of the bag.

It wasn’t Cordelia’s fault that everything–everything–had been resting on what she’d just disproved.

I realised that I needed them to go.That I couldn’t talk rationally to them right now.That I might cry.Might fly at Anthony and try to stab him with the knife I’d used to cut the limes.Or just break apart.

I charged back inside and tried not to let them see that I was crying because screw that.

‘I’m– thank you so much for coming to tell me.It means a lot.I… I just need to take some time to adjust to it all.’I looked at Cordelia, who was already getting to her feet, acomplex expression on her face.‘Can I… call you tomorrow?’I said.

‘Sure,’ Cordelia replied, with a sympathy I hadn’t expected.‘I’ll… Just let me know what I can do.’

I almost lost it then.The worst thing when you’re on the edge of breaking down is sympathy, right?

‘God, I should be the one saying that.’I gave a really not-cheerful laugh.‘Peak unprofessional.I’m really sorry.’

Anthony looked like hell as he left.But I wondered for just an instant whether this had been the exorcism of a demon for him.And I feel so sad and resentful and angry over that.Because how am I supposed to exorcise mine, Reid?If I can’t find a killer?

I didn’t really do anything after the door was shut.There was nothing to do, was there?

Because I was wrong.I was so, so wrong about everything, Reid.Wasn’t I?I hurt you when I should have been there for you and I fucked everything up.

Everything.

24.Reid

It could have felt like a victory.

The Reid of yesterday– even the Reid of this morning– would probably have been triumphant that Anna had been wrong.

But he’d let her back in now, and accepted who she really was.So all he felt was the pain of it.

As dark as the thought that Tanya might have been killed had been, it would at least have meant the possibility of justice.It would have meant someone to blame.

Someone except himself.

And he felt Anna’s pain, too.It was so blindingly clear to him now that she’d been coping with Tanya’s death by hanging on to her theory.And then it had all been pulled away.

It was physically painful that he couldn’t reach back in time and console her.And that feeling was enough to drive him to his feet again, off the hard stone wall outside St John’s College and back onto the paved street.

Trinity College is just next door,he thought.Surely you can at least find this man she left with if you make them show you the CCTV.James sounded totally sure about him.So find him.

He slid Anna’s phone back into his jacket and began to walk the few dozen yards along the pavement to Trinity College.The entrance was oddly similar: a near-carbon copy of the turreted brick-and-stone gateway that he’d been through to get into St John’s.

A few yards from the little pedestrian gate he faltered as another thought hit him.

Maybe the reason they couldn’t find her on CCTV was that she didn’t leave last night.What if she went to a room in the college?Or was taken to one?

He made his way into the porters’ lodge with more determination, and pulled his badge out to show the female porter on duty.

‘DI Reid Murray,’ he said.‘I think it was you I spoke to on the phone?Trish, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Trish said, tucking her short blonde hair behind her ears.‘I’m still going through the CCTV for you, double-checking, but I haven’t found her leaving.I did go back and find her arriving, if you want to see.’

Reid knew that this wasn’t the priority, but the thought of seeing Anna as she had been only last night was impossible to resist.

‘Sure,’ he said, trying to sound as though it meant nothing more than any other missing persons case.

Trish let him through a flap in the counter into the porters’ area, which was largely taken up by a couple of office chairs, the computer, and an assortment of packages that were presumably waiting to be picked up by students or fellows.

---