Page 2 of Ruthless Riches
The doctor stepped away, leaving me alone with my thoughts again. I furrowed my brows and leaned forward, resting my forehead against one palm. The blood-daubed message on the bathroom mirror kept flashing in my mind.
This is your final warning.
Clearly, the knife slipping between two organs wasn’t a mistake. The attacker didn’t want to kill Alexis. He only wanted to give her a terrifying and painful warning to stop her from doing any more digging into Avalon Island’s sordid underbelly.
But why her? Why not me? Was Alexis just an easier target because she was smaller, or was there something else going on?
As the questions filled my mind, guilt and regret set in, seeping coldly through my veins. I should’ve known all the shit wasn’t over yet. Should’ve realized there was still someone out there who wanted to hurt Alexis.
It was this fucking island. It was too tainted, too corrupt, too toxic. It looked like a postcard from the outside, but it was rotting on the inside.
My phone buzzed in my jacket a little before two in the morning. It was Ruby with an update on the situation at the Skulls house. Apparently no one had been allowed to leave except me, so all of the party guests were still there, giving statements to the police one by one.
Ruby had also heard that three guys tried to go after the attacker when they saw what was happening in the bathroom earlier. They assumed he’d gone out the window and into the woods after stabbing Alexis, so they’d gone in the same direction. Unfortunately, when they returned to the house, they had nothing to report. One of them claimed to have seen a dark figure slipping into the shadows near a massive cedar tree, but when they searched the area, there was no one there. Police officers were currently combing the area to double-check, but no one was optimistic. The attacker was like a ghost.
I thanked Ruby for the update and let her know that Alexis was going to be fine. She texted me back again with a barrage of theories that she and Laurel had come up with about the identity of Alexis’s attacker.
I skimmed their ideas but didn’t put any stock in them. I already knew who attacked Alexis. It was the copycat Butcher. I just didn’t know who he or she was.
When I finally put my phone away and looked up, I saw two detectives standing by the reception desk near the waiting room.
One of them spotted me and nudged her partner. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her.
“Nate Lockwood?” she said, eyeing the bloodstains on my shirt as she stepped closer.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’m Detective Fernandez, and this is Detective Rader. Would you mind coming with us for a chat?” she asked.
“Sure.” I tossed my cup in the trash and followed the detectives down the hall. They directed me into a small private waiting room with a low coffee table and two couches.
Fernandez gave me a faint smile as she took a seat across from me. “Just so you know, you aren’t in any trouble, Nate. At least twenty-five people at the fraternity house saw you trying to break down the bathroom door while the attack was happening, so you’ve already been cleared of all suspicion. We’re just here to get a statement from you while everything is fresh in your mind.”
“We have a few questions for you, too,” Rader added.
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Could you run us through what happened at the party tonight?” he asked, pulling a pen out of his pocket. “The more detail, the better.”
I nodded and told them what I’d seen, what I’d heard, and what I’d done. I told them about the message on Alexis’s phone, too, as well as the one on the mirror.
“Could we see that text message?” Rader asked, brows knitting.
I pulled Alexis’s phone out of my pocket, unlocked it, and showed him the threatening message from earlier in the night. The mere sight of it made my skin crawl.
“We’ll need to take that. It’s evidence,” Fernandez said, gesturing for me to pass the phone to her.
I handed it over. She slipped it into a plastic evidence bag.
“How do you think this guy knew Alexis was in that exact bathroom?” I asked, looking at both detectives in turn. “I’ve been thinking about it all night. It doesn’t make sense.”
Rader scratched his chin. “Someone in the house could’ve followed her down that hall and made her let them in before escaping out the window. Or they could’ve been lurking outside the house, keeping an eye on her through the windows and doors. When they saw her head down the hall, they figured she was going to the bathroom alone and sneaked in through the window.”
I furrowed my brows as I considered the situation from the attacker’s point of view. Waiting for Alexis to use the bathroom made sense. It was an opportune time to strike because she’d be alone and vulnerable. She wouldn’t see it coming, either, because who the hell would ever expect to see someone sneak through the window with a knife while they were on the toilet, washing their hands, or touching up their lipstick?
A painful lump appeared in my throat as I pictured the terror on Alexis’s face as she realized what was happening. I wished I could slip into that moment and take her place. Steal all her pain for myself. She’d already been through enough. She didn’t deserve this shit on top of everything else.
Rader leaned forward. “Do you need a minute?” he asked.
