Driving the station wagon to campus was scandalizing.
Some girls would’ve gotten off on showing up to their university in their forbidden lover’s car but Kenna had the opposite reaction. She pocketed the keys, walked along the sidewalk, and prayed no one remembered what carDr. Merinoused to drive.
She thought her days would be lived in fear knowing that Dayton loved her. Instead, it made the ever-circulating rumors about them easier to bear. A lightness effused from her. It was exactly what she needed after last semester.
A new chapter, an opportunity to forget all of the heavy things she had seen and heard, even if it was with the man who’d been responsible for those things.
Overhead, gray clouds moved in and darkened the sky. Kenna walked at a more brisk pace as fat raindrops splattered on her clothes and clung to her lashes. She made it to Duniway Hall before it turned into a full-on downpour.
Just inside the double doors, there were a couple of girls passing out papers who weathered a storm of a different kind, and with their red-capped noses and swollen eyes, they were doing precious little to hide it. One of them handed Kenna a flier, saying meekly, “Our sister is missing. Call the number at the bottom if you see anything.”
She saw their sorority sweatshirts and understood they had not meant their literal sister. Though she stayed far away from the barbarism that was campus Greek life—thanks to Reid—she knew familial-type bonds were common among those social circles. She felt for them.
“Of course. I hope you find her.”
The girl who’d handed her the flier gave a weak smile that sent tears surging into her tired eyes.
Heading toward the staircase, she glanced at the photo and the young woman staring back at her stopped Kenna dead in her tracks.
* * *
Coincidence.
She chanted it over and over in her head throughout her classes as if it were a prayer. The flier was too horrific to be anything but.
Lacey Greene.
5’5”. Brunette. Brown eyes. 21 years old. A junior at Ponderosa and member of Phi Sigma Sigma.
Missing person.
Those bold letters printed across the header of the page incited an intense fear within Kenna, one that liquified her bones and ate through her muscles.
She was missing, not dead.
The distinction should’ve allowed for a small light of hope to remain flickering in her mind. It was pitch black. Even she could not find her way around. Nonsensical ideas leaped out at her. Illogical connections.
The knob on Dayton’s office door squeaked and she crumpled the paper, tossing it into the wastebasket beneath the desk in time with his appearance in the lobby. She smiled uneasily but it was useless.
He had seen her.
She waited with bated breath for him to retrieve the flier. He didn’t have to fish around for it. It was the lone sheet of paper in the bin, a detail that would’ve been useful to her before she’d panicked and hidden it.
Unfurling the flier, his face fell.
“You couldn’t get any more coincidental.” He eyed her with contrived curiosity. “Where did you get this?”
Appointments were slow that day.
Where was everyone? No one was penciled in for 3 o’clock and yet she wished someone would walk in and save her from his question. Beyond the windows, the street was empty.
Cold sweat jeweled on the nape of her neck. “Campus. Her sorority sisters were passing them out. Posting them everywhere.”
Dayton shook his head.
“This is no good.” The words sounded odd given the severity of the situation, like an improper reaction to a cancer diagnosis. He discarded the flier once more. “It’s equally inspiring and heartbreaking, don’t you think? The amount of effort people put in to keep some shred of hope alive.” His hollow, indifferent gaze met hers. “The missing rarely turn up alive.”
14