Page 32 of Happily Never After

- Consult with S&G on gala

- Bake laxative brownies for all of ESA

The lockon the hotel door beeped and flashed green. Claire elbowed her way into the room and nudged her bags inside. Luke had insisted that it wasn’t safe to stay at home, so now here she was. Completely alone in a Holiday Inn Express one block from the West Haven police department. No dogs, no boyfriend. Only her laptop and the file box full of binders she had lugged to the fifth floor would keep her company.

Out of habit, she dropped to her knees and peeked under the bed. No murderers. A pass with the RF signal detector Jack had given her found no bugs or hidden cameras. She really was alone. She flopped onto the bed with a dramatic sigh and immediately leapt off. What about bedbugs?

After searching all soft surfaces and declaring them bug-free, she opened her laptop. Her background popped up—a picture of her and Luke at the beach in Florida. They had visited Alice for Christmas. One of his eyebrows was cocked. She was nestled under his chin, the blue-green waters of the Atlantic behind them. Her heart fisted. Now he was in danger again just by being associated with her. Strangers had infiltrated his land, damaged his property. Something in her core told her it was only a matter of time before they hurt someone she loved. And there was nothing she could do about it.

She needed a distraction. Shallow breaths whistled past her nose as she opened the master list for Brad’s proposal. The cursor blinked. Numbers stared back at her, but nothing sank in. She rolled her shoulders, pressed her palms to her eyes, and tried again. A knot formed in her stomach. How was she supposed to focus on a proposal when madmen had just filled Luke’s pool with blood and threatened her? Again?

She strode over to the window and snapped the curtains open. Maybe something outside would distract her. Shoppers littered the sidewalks of Main Street. A woman in spandex yammered into a phone while pushing a toddler in a stroller. A donut was closed in his meaty little fist. Three young men crowded around a phone and erupted into cheers. Girls in Venor University sweatshirts passed out flyers. None of this was helpful.

A sign caught her eye. An office supply store. She rarely went there because they weren’t dog friendly. Her fingers twitched. If she couldn’t focus on work, maybe she could focus on something else. Revenge.

Forty minutes later, she burst back into the hotel room laden with half a dozen bags. She chucked them on the floor and went back into the hallway. A new rolling whiteboard slid smoothlyover the hotel carpet. Much better. She uncapped a new marker and frowned at the blank canvas in front of her.

It was time to take back her life. Putting Barney away and shutting down the West Haven branch of ESA was a step in the right direction, but it was nowhere near enough. She wasn’t going to stop until she found them all. There had to be a way. But how?

FIND PROFESSOR TAYLOR.

The first bullet on this particular To Do list was the most important. The only person she could definitively tie to ESA was still on the run. But with the advent of the internet, the world had gotten smaller. He couldn’t hide forever.

A knock came from her door, and she gasped. The marker fell from her hand and thunked to the floor. She dove behind the bed and shoved both hands in her bag. A can of bear mace—a gift from Alice—tumbled out, and she clutched it like a lifeline. Was it ESA? Had they come for her?

“Claire?” a voice called at the door.

She crossed the room and wrenched the door open. “Mindy! You gave me a heart attack.”

Mindy sidestepped into the room and tossed an overnight bag on the second bed. “I texted you like five times. I had to use the watch app to figure out where you were.” She gestured at the GPS watch Claire wore, which Mindy had given her after she’d been abducted the previous year.

Claire peeked into the hallway, then snapped the door shut. “I’m sorry. Luke and Jack kept my phone. They wanted to sweep everything for bugs. I had to smuggle my computer out.”

Mindy hopped onto the bed. “I see you’ve started without me.” She pulled her laptop out of her bag and settled back against the pillows.

Claire crossed her arms. “You’re not helping. It’ll only put you in danger.”

“Shut your stupid, beautiful face. I’m obviously going to help you. I see we have a ‘To Do’ list started. Now how do we find the professor?” Mindy twisted her hair into a bun and looked expectantly at Claire.

Claire sighed. Mindy was going to help no matter what she did, so she might as well lean into it. “Well, he’s already on the Most Wanted list. But I don’t know if that’s enough visibility.”

Mindy nodded. “Not everyone checks the list every week like us.”

Claire slapped the marker against her palm. “Right. So I was thinking about that Web Detectives site. What if we posted some of his pictures there and asked people to watch out for him? They tracked down the Milton Murderer in three days flat.”

“He probably changed his appearance, but it’s worth a shot. That saggy ball sack can’t hide forever. I’ll get on that right now.”

“Perfect. Can you go through the cache of the Venor websites and post all the pictures you can find?”

Mindy cracked her fingers. Keys clattered with ferocity.

Claire stood back and looked at the board again. She scrawled another item.

WILLIAM HICKORY.

If she was already going to be amateur sleuthing, she might as well solve Barney’s riddle as well. Lord knew the FBI wasn’t about to.

“List of all ESA chapters” and “Missing Women” were added next. They knew that ESA was organized by fraternities and they had a pathological hate for high-profile women. If they could study enough cases, maybe they could figure out who would be targeted next. If they could save even one person, it would be worth it.

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