Page 51 of By the Time You Read This

Like when you pulled off a highway during a traffic jam and took a much longer route, but at least you were driving.

A white Tucson pulled to the curb a moment later, the license plate matching the information on the rideshare app.

The man behind the wheel was the quiet type, and Raisa continued her basic search for Declan O’Brien as they traveled through the darkened streets.

She pulled up a map of the small campus just on the outskirts of town, and when she got dropped at the main hall, she easily navigated her way to the psychology wing of the social sciences building. Then she simply wandered until she found O’Brien’s office.

Her knees gave out then and she slid down the wall beside the door. At the hospital, she hadn’t let herself close her eyes because all she could see in the darkness was Kilkenny’s body, crumpled on the pavement.

He shouldn’t have broken like he did. The car must have hit him just right. Or wrong.

Whatever.

She gulped in air, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes so the tears gathering there wouldn’t escape. She’d never once cried on the job and she wasn’t about to start now.

“Hello?”

Raisa glanced up to find an extraordinarily handsome man hovering over her. Black hair, blue eyes. Emily Logan’s professor.

The perv, if the girl was to be believed.

“Do you need help?” he asked, and she remembered just then that she was still wearing the borrowed scrubs.

She scrambled to her feet and held out her hand. “I’m Raisa Susanto. I’m an agent with the FBI.”

He didn’t flinch the way people who were guilty tended to when she introduced herself unexpectedly.

O’Brien slipped his palm into hers. “Dr. Declan O’Brien, though I assume you know that.”

“I do,” Raisa said with a nod. “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

He glanced at his watch, and sighed. But then he stepped around her to open his office door. “This is about Emily Logan?”

“Yes,” Raisa said, almost surprised he’d been able to guess, but she supposed she shouldn’t have been. It was a small town, and no matter what Gabriela Cruz thought, homicides weren’t exactly common in a place this size.

“I don’t know how much I’ll be able to help you, but I’ll try,” he said, waving at her to take a seat in one of the chairs across from his desk. The office was cozy in a way she hadn’t been expecting, with warm artwork, more than a dozen plants, and a soft, colorful rug he’d obviously brought in himself. There was a messy air to the random stacks of books, loose paper piled up on the desk and personal photographs scattered throughout the room.

“Emily was in your class about the relationship between celebrities and their fans, correct?” Raisa asked.

“Yes,” O’Brien confirmed. “It was a six-week summer class that has become quite popular in recent years.”

“What was she like as a student?”

“Engaged and eager, though she didn’t have the highest grades in the class,” he said, considering. “She didn’t seem to make any friends, but that’s not unusual with older students like her.”

“She was only twenty-three,” Raisa pointed out.

“Which is five years older than your average freshman,” O’Brien said. “I’m certainly not saying she was long in the tooth, only that I didn’t find her behavior odd or off-putting.”

But what about LC?

“Was there someone in the same class with the initials LC?” Raisa asked. “She was remote.”

“Ah, yes, now that you mention it, they did pair up on a few projects,” O’Brien said. “That would be Lindsey Cousins.”

Raisa had suspected as much, but she hadn’t wanted to leap to conclusions, seeing patterns where none existed. “Were you aware that she died two months ago?”

What looked like genuine surprise flashed into his expression, and he sat back in his chair. “Ah, that’s a shame.”

---