Page 37 of The Killer She Knew

One minute. She had to make a choice. Go back to Ford, tell her what she’d found. Or risk running out of air. But who knew when they would have this opportunity again? By the time the pumps did their jobs, their unsub could be long gone. She couldn’t risk it.

Leigh released the flashlight. The beam hit the floor and carved off to one side but still managed to provide enough light for her to make out the shelf. She closed the distance between her and the shelf, hauling it up. Her lungs screamed to exhale, and she lost another few precious seconds of air. The shelf lifted away, and she guided it over the porcelain tub a few feet away. But her luck was running out.

She wrenched the doorknob. The door refused to budge. Setting her feet against the edge of the tub, Leigh pressed her shoulder into the swollen wood door and shoved.

The wood splintered and swung inward.

A water-logged, bloated face lunged at her.

Her scream was absorbed by the surrounding depths. Water infiltrated her mouth and throat and pushed out the last remnants of air from her chest. The body escaped the confines of the closet and floated toward the ceiling. Dark clothing, pale skin, and purple bruising would haunt her nightmares until the end of her days.

She grabbed for the body’s collar and dragged it behind her. Desperation threw logic out the window. She kicked with everything she had to get back into the hallway. To Ford. To air. The drag increased the ache in her muscles with every kick and sweep. Ten feet. Five. She was almost there. Leigh could just make out the shape of the doorframe ahead. She was going to make it.

Gloved hands wrapped around her neck.

Twisting, she released her hold on the body. Clawing at the pressure around her throat.

But she’d already used up the last of her oxygen. Leigh reached for the ceiling.

As the attacker dragged her down.

TWENTY-THREE

Durham, New Hampshire

Sunday, September 10, 2006

9:06 p.m.

She couldn’t move.

Leigh pressed herself closer to the man next to her, her back to his front. Her muscles ached in the best way possible. Her lungs had caught fire. She could feel Dean’s heartbeat pounding into her spine. Rhythmic and soothing. This. This is what she’d been craving for so long. The warmth of another person. The… acceptance he offered. In this moment, in this bed, trauma and anger and loss and suspicion couldn’t reach them. She wanted to stay forever. Right here. With him. This was where she belonged. “That was?—”

Dean grasped her chin, turning her mouth into his. His lips slanted over hers in a claiming and punishing tide. As though he could somehow climb inside her and never leave. She could live with that. Dark eyes met hers as he secured one hand around her waist, drawing her closer. “Yeah.”

They had a lot of moments like this. Where they didn’t have to use their words. There was an understanding, bone deep and soul baring. Like they’d been together for years rather than a few weeks. How had they gone from strangers to… this in the blink of an eye? Dean had consumed her thoughts since the moment she’d met him in the stairwell. Then more so since he’d asked her out. Since she’d offered him her virginity. Since she’d exposed her family’s history. All of it had led to this moment. To… what was this? Lust? Infatuation?

Love?

Leigh set her head back into the hollow of his shoulder. Her chest tightened. She registered the moment he noticed the change.

“What’s wrong?” Dean pressed a kiss into her temple, securing both arms around her. As though she was something precious. Worth holding on to. Protecting.

“Professor Morrow asked me to look into the case of that murdered student. Teshia Elborne.” Now it was his turn to tense. Leigh dug her fingertips into the backs of his hands. Trying to keep him here as long as possible, but it was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? Everyone she cared about was taken sooner or later. Why did she think Dean would be any different? But she had to know. She had to know the truth. “The police showed up here a few days ago. Looking to question you about her murder. You knew her, didn’t you?”

His exhale fluttered across her bare shoulder. And the bubble they’d created to block out everything but these four walls popped. Dean extracted his hold from around her ribcage. He rolled from the too-small twin bed, taking the top sheet with him. Leaving her cold. Empty. Confused. “If you read the file, then you know I gave a statement. And that I ended everything between me and Teshia before I met you.”

Leigh’s insides soured as she dragged the comforter smelling of him to cover herself. “You claimed she cheated on you with her high school boyfriend. Another student said she heard you argue with Teshia a few weeks before her death. The police… They think you had something to do with what happened.”

Stillness unlike anything she’d seen before flooded through him limb by limb. In that moment, she wasn’t sure she knew him as well as she thought she did. If she’d been wrong all this time. “Are you asking me if I killed my ex-girlfriend, Leigh?”

“Did you?” she asked.

Dean melted then. He threaded both legs into a pair of sweatpants and arched a T-shirt over his head. Inch by inch, he closed the distance between them. He framed one side of her face with a calloused palm. The warmth was back in his eyes. Focused solely on her, and she couldn’t help but want to stay in it. To be the center of his entire world again. “You’re going to make an excellent criminologist one day, little rabbit.”

His dorm room door shuddered under three hard pounds. The assault from the outside world electrified her nerves. “Dean Groves, we have a warrant for your arrest in connection to the murder of Teshia Elborne. Open up!”

No. They were supposed to have more time. Leigh latched on to his wrist with both hands. Wanting him to stay. Memories of watching her father cuffed in the middle of the living room while her mother shouted and cried charged into the present.

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