Chapter 5
Lucan
Sadie compulsively plays with the end of her long, glossy braid.
She does that when she’s nervous, which has been a lot lately.
“You saw nobody else at the scene?” asks the detective for the millionth fucking time. “Only the deceased?”
“I saw a shadow,” she says. “Someone leaving.”
“Did this shadow have any distinguishing features that you recall?” he asks.
I lean forward, my eyes trained on her face through the screen.
Her voice is barely above a whisper. “I don’t think so.”
I lean back.
“And you were familiar with the deceased?” presses the cop. “What was his name?”
A slight crease forms on her forehead, like she’s reliving the moment she found the mutilated body. “Parker Hale.”
The interrogation room has only a table and two chairs. Oh, and a camera attached to the ceiling. I’m watching a live feed on the monitors in my study.
I couldn’t miss out on staring at her uninterrupted while hearing her statement to the police. Her lips trembling while she speaks about my freshly dead cousin shouldn’t arouse me, yet here we are.
My father negotiated access to the local station’s camera feeds years ago, back when he suspected I might need the intervention.
And I did. Good old Dad.
Now and then, her gaze drifts up to the camera. When she does this, excitement kicks through my veins. It’s almost like we’re face to face.
Can she feel me watching her? Is that why she keeps looking up?
Probably wishful thinking on my behalf. More like she’s exhausted, traumatized, and unused to being on camera that she knows about.
When the Darkbloom bells tolled over the green to mark the end of the Founder’s Run, it was her screams tearing through their melody.
Sadie finding the body was unfortunate, and my fault. I chased her down that way.
It’s difficult to muster regret for that though. Not when I got to pin her against a tree and feel the rush of her blood under her silky skin.
After she started screaming, Juliette and Clara reached her first. I wasn’t far behind, though I didn’t approach her.
When Sadie’s haunting gray eyes landed on me, she murmured frantic words into Juliette’s ear. Juliette then told me to fuck all the way off.
Next came the widespread confusion and chaos over the murder.
Professors arrived, cops were called, suspicious stares were thrown.
Mainly at me.
I shouldn’t have argued with Parker right before the Run, never mind in front of half the fucking school. My cousin sent me over the edge though.
Police questioned everybody, and me only briefly.
They know the score. Hales don’t get detained. Before Sadie reached the Ember Falls police station to give a witness statement, I was already gliding in my elevator to my penthouse.
If I stand at my window when she leaves tonight, I’ll see her.
My current view is comprehensive though. Four computer monitors are mounted on the desk in my study, her beautiful face pixelated and glowing from each.
Her ivory pennant rests next to my keyboard, safe and sound.
Sipping whiskey from a tumbler, I contemplate her statement to the detective.
The situation doesn’t bode well for poor Sadie. She witnessed enough to put her in danger, but not enough to solve the case.
“Alright, Miss Marlowe, thank you.” The detective hauls himself from his seat. “We’ll give you a lift back to campus if you like.”
She nods. “I appreciate it.”
As she rises, she hugs herself. Tapping the keyboard, I zoom in on her.
A tiny stray leaf clings to Sadie’s light brown hair like a spider in a web. Dried tears have smudged dark makeup under her doe-shaped eyes. When the detective’s back turns, she shakes the tension from her hands.
The screen of my phone illuminates with an incoming message. It’s my father, letting me know he’s here. As in, inside my penthouse already.
His Italian shoes announce his purposeful march down the hallway.
Better to tell people what’s happening instead of asking, he’s always believed.
No need to wonder where I get it from.
Dad strides into my study.
“Your cousin. What a fucking waste,” he says as a greeting.
“It is,” I say.
While I stay reclined in my leather chair, he pours a hefty whiskey at the drinks cart.
“His murder hijacked the evening news.” He sighs. “We were supposed to announce an acquisition tonight. I got a fucking haircut and everything.”
The man does look sharp. His charcoal-gray suit matches his hair to a degree that can’t be coincidental. He’s broad-shouldered, but these days, not as broad as me.
Dad sounds all business, but the lines of his face look deeper than usual. It was the same when Hannah died.
He downs two gulps, then nods at the monitors. “And the girl? They’re saying she’s a witness?”
“She heard something. Maybe saw something.”
His eyes narrow. “Anything solid?”
“Remains to be discovered.”
“And you will,” he says.
“Naturally.”
I don’t mention my interest in her starting long before tonight, in case he considers it a complication.
Granted, it is. Nothing I can’t handle though.
Dad frowns into his tumbler. “Gareth’s devastated. My poor brother. He only buried Hannah last year, now Parker too.”
“Hannah’s death is looking less and less like an accident,” I say.
“Indeed. And you’re the sole remaining Hale heir.”
“Am I though?” My fingertips drum on the desk. “Uncle Gareth’s been remarried for a while. With Parker gone, his wife and stepchildren are his heirs now, aren’t they?”
“I daresay they will be. Gareth is smitten.” He grunts. “Teenie and her clever twins.”
“You don’t trust them?”
“Son, who do I trust, aside from you?” Dad places his drained tumbler on the cart. “Be glad you don’t have siblings. Step or otherwise. Being an only child is a blessing.”
“I agree,” I say mildly. “I’ve never been good at sharing.”
“Fine. I’ll leave you to manage this Marlowe girl. Find out if she knows anything she didn’t tell the police—anything we can use to find out who the fuck is killing Hales.”
“Will do.”
He knocks once on my desk before pointing at the ceiling. “And switch on some lights. You look like a serial killer, slouched here in the dark.”
“Goodnight, Dad. Sorry for your loss.”
“And you, son.”
He’s already striding from the room, tapping his phone screen.
Sitting forward, I switch between cameras on the monitors.
Sadie’s dorm bedroom is still, the lights off. The detective must be taking his sweet fucking time driving her back to Darkbloom. Probably trying to look up her skirt.
To quench my impatience, I open her social media on my phone. I browse the posts that I already know by heart, which is all of them.
Sadie reading on a picnic blanket. Sadie sitting crosslegged under a tree, smiling shyly at the ground. Sadie cradling a shiny blue beetle in the palm of her hand.
Lucky beetle.
She rarely posts, which I find endearing but also exasperating. I want more.
Almost without thinking, I navigate to another profile.
Parker’s.
Melodramatic comments about my cousin’s death flood his recent posts already. People who barely fucking knew him are trying to act like they were his best friend.
With a twitch of irritation, I scroll further down, pausing at an old photo. Me with Hannah and Parker at Christmas two years ago.
They were smiling, but I wasn’t. Maybe some eerie, unconscious facet of my mind knew that I would soon be the only one left standing.
Grief and anger coil in my gut like a serpent, ready to strike. The empty space they left behind feels like somebody punched a hole through my world. I never wanted siblings, but that was probably because I had Hannah and Parker.
Now I don’t.
Movement on the monitor makes me put aside the phone, existential dread fading in favor of my fascination with Sadie.
She’s switched on her bedside lamp, casting a fiery halo around her.
The camera I attached to her suitcase projects from the top of her wardrobe, where the luggage racks sit.
There’s no sound, only visuals. That’s fine for now. I can cope.
She silences her phone, placing it facedown on the windowsill.
My eyes drift to the time in the bottom corner of the monitor. It’s late. Past midnight. Surely she’ll sleep.
Kicking off her sneakers, she trudges to her cute little single bed.
When she pulls off her sweater, only her sports bra and leggings remain. The smoothness of her skin, even through the screen, makes me want to sink my teeth into her.
A heavy sigh racks her body, like she’s trying to decide whether to stay up and cry, or to get some sleep. She climbs into bed, pulling the covers to her waist. For a long time, she stares straight up at the ceiling.
I see her eyes moving back and forth, her brows furrowed. She’s thinking intensely. Recalling a conversation maybe, or analyzing the events of the day.
Without shifting her gaze, she reaches over to turn off the lamp. The halo dies out and I sort of prefer her like this. Kissed all over by darkness.
As I watch, she moves her hand slowly to her chest. She places her fingers in the exact spot where I touched her, moments before I claimed her ivory pennant.
Sadie keeps her hand there for a long time, blinking thoughtfully at the black ceiling while moonlight edges her features in platinum.
I murmur to her through the screen. “I’m on your mind, aren’t I? You found a corpse today, yet you’re remembering how your body ignited when I touched you.”
As if in answer, she heaves another weary, conflicted sigh. She closes her eyes, letting her hand drop away.
I smile.