Page 14 of Cold as Hell

Kendra said she’d gone back outside because the one working toilet in their residence was in use. Now I know why.

I go to pull my legs under me, and my stomach muscles protest, so I settle in awkwardly. “Tell me about the round of drinks Lynn bought. That’s the most likely source of the drugs.”

Her eyes narrow.

“What?” I say.

“I did not dose Kendra’s drink.”

I thump my head back. “You are a bundle of paranoia this morning, aren’t you? Why would I think you dosed a drink that Lynn bought?”

“Because I’m the one who picked them up from the bar.” She catches my expression. “You didn’t know that.”

“I did not. Walk me through it.”

“We were talking about drinking in college, and Lynn said something about black velvets, and Kendra had never had one and… Fuck.” She shakes her head. “I may have unintentionally pressured Kendra. I teased and prodded her into having it. So if I’m on edge, it’s because I feel guilty.”

“Kendra is an adult. If she said yes, she wanted to say yes.”

“I still feel like shit.” She exhales. “So Kendra agrees to try one, and Lynn says she’ll take one, too, and buy the round. I went to the bar and ordered with Isabel. Then…”

She shakes her head. “Reason two why I feel guilty. While I waited, I walked away to talk to Brian and Devon. It was probably five minutes before I came back, and the drink tray was waiting while Iz was in the back storage.” She meets my gaze. “I was careless. I gave someone the chance to dose Kendra’s drink.”

“No, someonetookthe opportunity. To doseadrink.”

Her brows knit at my emphasis on “a,” then her lips form a curse. “A drink. Not Kendra’s, because we all got the same thing. They had no idea which of us would drink from the dosed glass.”

“Yep, though presuming they saw who ordered it, they knew it was going to be drunk by a woman.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Yolanda agrees to help Nicole warn female residents. Up next on my list is Isabel, mostly to ensure she can also help with that. I don’t get anything new from our resident bar owner and psychologist beyond echoing Yolanda’s sense of guilt that the drink tray had gone unattended.

We’ve already become complacent in Haven’s Rock. Yes, we got off to a rocky start with Max’s kidnapping, but we’ve locked down even tighter, with new protocols and mandatory wilderness training, implementing our wish-list items faster than expected. It helps that things have been so quiet, giving us time to double down on resident safety.

Our complacency came from within. We’ve had only minor issues from the residents themselves, which reassured us that we’d fixed those problems from our Rockton days. Unlike Rockton, Haven’s Rock isn’t a refuge for criminals, not even white-collar ones willing to shell out handsomely for protection.

Émilie had decades to learn how Rockton worked and think about how she’d handle intake better, once she was freed from the council’s need for profits. Everyone coming into Haven’sRock is as much a victim as she and her husband had been when they arrived in Rockton fleeing political persecution.

Add in the fact that Haven’s Rock accepts couples and families, and the vibe has changed significantly, especially as the staff settles in. Rockton had a tension to it we could never shake. Separated from their support systems, people acted differently. For some, it was like a trip to Vegas—go wild and be whoever you wanted to be, knowing none of it would follow you home. For most, though, arriving among strangers only added to their unease and anxiety.

Haven’s Rock is different. The vibe is more wilderness-lodge getaway, which is exactly what we wanted. Or, maybe more accurately, it’s like taking a job in a remote community for a few years, accepting the isolation in return for the rewards. In this case, the reward is safety.

We’ve been aware of the possibility of sexual assault, but we lowered our guard. Since we opened, we haven’t had so much as a complaint of unwanted attention. That doesn’t mean unwanted attention hasn’t occurred, just that it seems to have been dealt with and never reached the stage requiring police intervention.

In Rockton, Isabel taught her bartenders to never leave drinks unattended. You filled it and you handed it over, and if the buyer wasn’t around, it waited on the back counter. Take no chances.

Isabel hadn’t intentionally left the drinks on the counter. She just didn’t think about it. She made them, set them out for Yolanda, and then realized she needed to grab more beers to replace the ones she just used.

Feeling guilty means Isabel has started preparing for my questions before I can ask. She already has a list of everyone she saw that night, especially those she recalls seeing between eleventhirty and midnight. It’s not a short list. It was Saturday night, and the weekends might work differently here, but people cling to those old patterns. Saturday is pub night, where you’re pretty much guaranteed to walk in and find a table of people you know.

Of the sixty-seven adults in Haven’s Rock, fifty are on Isabel’s list, having been in the Roc at some point. Of those, at least half didn’t leave until that final half hour, which means any of them could have dosed that drink. It’s also possible that Kendra’s attacker slipped in and out, and Isabel never noticed. A busy night means a busy bar.

I secure her agreement to do the rounds with Nicole and Yolanda. She wants to speak to them first, to solidify the message and include a warning about leaving drinks unattended. That’s not blaming anyone. It’s just a reminder of a rule every woman learns by the time she’s twenty.

Three interviews down, two to go. I’ve moved Gunnar to the bottom of the list. He left first, and he’s unlikely to give me anything new. Up next is my most important witness—the woman who was there when Kendra left the Roc.

It’s just past eleven when I find Lynn at work in the general store. She’s been working there for a few months, after spending some time at the restaurant. While we have some professional positions in Haven’s Rock, most of the jobs are unskilled labor, and we rotate people among them to reduce dissatisfaction.

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