Page 62 of Cruel Riches

Her brows wrinkled. “What do you mean?”

I told the girls about the incident from my first night at Redstone Hall—the noises I heard from Claire’s dorm, and the weird way she spoke to me when I went to check on her.

“I left her there,” I said, wiping away more tears. “I assumed it was her Tinder match with her, and I thought she was just acting weirdly because she was embarrassed. But what if it was actually the killer with her? What if he was holding a knife to her back and making her say stuff to get rid of me?”

“Don’t beat yourself up. You couldn’t have known,” Ruby said. “Honestly, if I were in that situation, I would’ve assumed she had a guy over too.”

“Me too,” Laurel added. “How could you have possibly known that there was some psycho in there with her? If that’s even what happened to her.”

“It’s really not your fault.” Ruby squeezed my left hand.

Laurel frowned and tilted her head slightly to one side. “Hold on… you said you heard a knock on her door, right? A while before the other sounds.”

“Yes.”

“And there hasn’t been any sign of a break-in at her dorm, has there?”

“No.”

“That means she knew her killer. She let them in when they knocked. She might’ve even left with them without too much of a struggle, thinking she could talk her way out of it.”

“Holy shit. You’re right,” I said, sitting up straight. “Even if she didn’t know them, she must’ve at least seen them as someone she could trust.”

“Exactly. Why else would she open her door to someone knocking in the middle of the night?”

“So… what you’re saying is, the killer could actually be the guy she was talking to on Tinder?” Ruby asked, forehead wrinkling.

“Maybe, but not necessarily.” Laurel looked at me again. “You need to tell the police about this. It could be really important.”

I bit the inside of my cheek as I considered it.

If I went and spoke to the police about everything I’d seen and heard that night, they’d want to interview me about it. Then they’d probably dig into my background afterwards, just to see who I was, and that would reveal my true identity as Peter Covington’s daughter. Once that happened, I would probably become the number one suspect. After all, I was supposedly the daughter of the Blackthorne Butcher.

On the other hand, like Laurel said, my information could help the case. It could give the police a suspect to pursue—like Claire’s Tinder match, for example—or help them establish a precise timeframe of her abduction.

I couldn’t neglect that just to save my own ass when it might end up making the difference between the police solving Claire’s murder and not solving it. That would make me a selfish asshole of epic proportions.

I took a deep breath and decided on a compromise. I could call in all of my information on an anonymous tip. Tell them I lived somewhere on the floor above, and that I was frightened about coming forward properly in case the killer decided to come after me next. That way the police would get their information, and I’d get to keep my identity safe.

“You’re right,” I said. “Is there some sort of tip line I can call?”

Laurel nodded. “I’ll get the number for you.”

“Thanks. My phone is almost dead, so I’ll use one of the payphones in the lobby downstairs,” I said. My phone wasn’t dead, but I didn’t want to risk having my number traced.

“While you do that, we’ll go and get some coffee,” Ruby said. “Do you want one?”

“Sure. I’ll have whatever you have,” I said.

The girls left my dorm to head to the nearest café. I went down to the lobby on the ground floor of Redstone Hall and made a beeline to the payphones they kept on one side for students who didn’t have access to a cellphone.

Twenty minutes later, my tip had been called in, and the girls were back with giant takeout cups of coffee. We went back up to my room to drink them and make a plan for the rest of the day.

“Even though classes are canceled, we should still study,” Laurel said. “We have that exam coming up next week for Intro to Critical Thinking.”

Ruby made a face. “Ugh, please don’t remind me.”

“She’s right,” I said. “It sucks, but we really should study. Is the library open?”

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