"I mean, you can try, but you seem a little spent. Maybe you need to work on your stamina," she teases, and I lightly spank her ass.
"Oh, pretty little Vixen. You have no idea how high my stamina is, keep prodding and you might just find out."
"That isn’t exactly the deterrent you think it is," she says with a small laugh before gently biting my chest, eliciting another groan from me.
"You’re playing with fire, Vixen."
She turns to face me, her dark hair splayed over my chest, her eyes bright as the smile on her face. "Maybe I like to get burned."
* * *
I finally feel like I am getting somewhere with Briar and we seem to be coming on leaps and bounds since the other day when she finally opened up to me. I’ve been riding that high ever since.
So when my phone rings and Wes’s name appears on the screen, my heart sinks a little.
I answer the phone regardless, waiting for what is potentially the worst news of my week, considering our last conversation.
"Cole, I have news," Wes says, and my stomach twists further.
"Okay, hit me with it."
"So, I finished digging up that stuff for your dad. Someone will be dropping a file off to you this afternoon. If you need anything else regarding that particular thing, just let me know. We also have a new person of interest alongside the professor that you were keeping tabs on." He pauses for a beat before continuing. "With the murders, DNA was found on the latest body which has been confirmed now as an exact match to the professor you had me digging up information on. Almost everybody is assuming it’s a mistake on his part and that he finally slipped up, but there are some people who are suspicious of evidence just turning up like it did when we were starting to lose hope of ever finding a trace."
"Get to the point, Wes," I mutter, scrubbing a hand down my face.
He makes a weird noise, but I don’t care if I’ve pissed him off. I want to know the point of his fucking call and he’s dawdling.
"There are some people who think the evidence was planted, especially since nobody's seen or heard from the professor since before Christmas."
"Right," I say, trying to sound as unaffected and calm as I can. "What about it?"
"Well if it was planted, that raises some more suspicion. One of the rookies was looking at other people who were in places in and around both locations both before and after the summer, and it seems that your friend's name popped up in his search."
"My friend?" I ask, curiously.
"Yeah," he responds. "A Briar Moore’s name has been linked to the investigation. She was in the City before the summer when the first murders happened, not too far from where she was residing at the time. The murders stopped over summer and we believe that she was away during that time. They restarted in Serenity Falls after she was enrolled at Saints U. It raises some questions."
His words are so matter-of-fact, and if it was anyone but Briar, I’d be suspicious as fuck too, but it is her, and all I have is panic.
My heart hammers in my chest at the thought of Briar being questioned about all of this. Because while I know she isn't the one committing those murders, she has something else to hide and I'm not sure how well she'll hold up under the pressure of being questioned by the police if it comes to that.
"So what about it? She's just a kid," I say to him as nonchalantly as I can.
"It still raises questions about how she happens to have been in the right place at the time of the murders, and why they stopped while she was away."
"You really think a teenage girl is capable of doing these things?" I ask. "Especially when you already have DNA evidence pointing to somebody else."
"Don’t shoot the messenger, kid. I’m just telling you what I've heard, which is what you pay me to do," he responds. "Got to say, this is the weirdest thing you and your dad have had me look at though."
I swallow against a lump in my throat. "You're right, it's fine. Thank you for letting me know. Keep me updated if anything else happens."
I end the call, my hands shaking. I rush from my room, pounding on Travis's bedroom door when I reach it.
He rips it open, half asleep and half dressed.
"Where's the fucking fire?" he asks, rubbing his eyes before taking in my appearance properly. "What the fuck happened?"
I tell him about the conversation I just had. I can physically see his body tightening with every word that falls from my mouth.