Page 30 of Betray Me
He staggers away, looking for a tissue or hand sanitizer or a smoke. Something, anything. I don’t pay attention. I’ve done my part. I’ve got what I came for, and I located the blind spots I can use to walk around the campus undetected.
Mission accomplished.
Maybe I should have some self-respect. Maybe I should feel ashamed. But shame isn’t what keeps me alive. Survival is the only thing that matters, and if that means laying with a man, so be it.
“I better go,” I say, not looking at him. “My roommate’s going to be wondering what happened to me.”
“Wait,” he calls after me. “Do you… want to stay for a moment?”
No.
“Maybe for a minute,” I say.
It takes longer than a minute, but finally, Jaden dozes in the security chair, giving me the opportunity to slip into the records room with practiced stealth without raising his suspicions. The filing cabinets are labeled by year and case type, and I quickly locate the section containing David Stone’s investigation materials. My hands shake as I flip through folder after folder, searching for anything related to my family or the Wilson case.
When I find it, my blood turns to ice.
The file is thick—dozens of pages documenting financial transactions, witness testimonies, surveillance photos. My name appears throughout, sometimes as “Belle Gallagher” and sometimes as “Subject B.” There are photos of me at parties Idon’t remember attending, conversations I supposedly had but can’t recall, movements tracked and documented with scientific precision.
But it’s the DNA report that makes my legs give out.
Blood sample recovered from the crime scene: Female, approximate age 15-18, genetic markers consistent with Gallagher family lineage. 99.7% probability of relation to Richard and Olivia Gallagher. Note: Sample shows traces of Rohypnol and unknown psychoactive compounds.
But it's the timeline reconstruction that makes everything click into place. Two sets of evidence—early evening and late night. My presence confirmed until 11:30 PM, then nothing. As if I simply vanished from the party while the worst was yet to come.
They let me see enough to feel responsible. Let me participate enough to be implicated. Then erased my memories of being taken away before Janet's actual murder.
The perfect scapegoat—guilty enough to stay silent, innocent enough to avoid life in prison.
I stare at the words until they blur, my chest tight with panic. My blood was at the scene where Janet Wilson was murdered. My drugged, years old blood, evidence of my presence at a crime I can’t remember witnessing, let alone committing.
The file includes crime scene photos that make bile rise in my throat. Janet Wilson’s body, found in a shallow grave three years after her disappearance. I’ve never seen these images before. I didn’t even know her body was found, but these… these show every brutal detail. The way her hands were positioned.The symbols carved into her skin. The gold bracelet on her wrist that I recognize with sick certainty.
It’s the same bracelet I was wearing in the photos I found in my father’s safe. The ones showing Luna and me unconscious on that velvet couch.
My phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number:Stop digging, or you’ll end up like Janet. Some secrets are meant to stay buried.
I delete the message with trembling fingers, but the words burn in my memory. Someone knows I’m here, knows what I’m discovering. The same someone who’s been sending warnings about Janet Wilson for weeks.
I photograph every page of the file with my phone, my hands steadier now that I have a mission. Whatever happened that night, whatever role I played in Janet’s death, I need to understand the truth. The blood evidence could mean I was a victim who fought back, a witness who was injured, or—the thought makes me sick—an unwilling participant in something unspeakable.
A sound from the outer office makes me freeze. Jaden is stirring, mumbling something in his sleep. I quickly close the files and slip back into the main room, settling into the chair beside his desk as if I’ve been there the whole time.
“Belle?” He blinks awake, confused. “Did I fall asleep?”
“Just for a few minutes,” I lie smoothly. “I was enjoying the quiet. It feels safe here with you.”
He smiles, still drowsy but pleased. “I’m glad. Listen, about what just happened…”
“It was perfect,” I interrupt before he can voice any regrets. “Exactly what I needed.”
The truth is more complicated. What I needed was information, and I got it. But the cost—using my body as currency again, manipulating this kind man who only wanted to help—sits heavy in my stomach.
As I walk back to Pemberton Hall through the pre-dawn darkness, my mind races through the implications of what I’ve learned. The DNA evidence places me at a murder scene during one of my blackouts. But the presence of drugs in my system suggests I was as much a victim as Janet was. The question is: who drugged us? Who orchestrated that night? And why was Janet killed while Luna and I were spared?
The photos on my phone feel like grenades in my pocket—evidence that could destroy what’s left of my life or finally reveal the truth about that lost night. Either way, there’s no going back. I’ve crossed another line tonight, used another person to get what I needed.
But as I slip into my dorm room and hide the phone in my secret compartment, I realize something has changed. For the first time in my life, I chose my manipulation instead of having it chosen for me. I’m not my father’s spy anymore, gathering intelligence to protect his interests.
