Page 84 of Vicious Intentions

Hunter shook his head. “He’s got it bad for her.”

“Just like we do.”

I was the first one in, taking a deep breath. Her perfume lingered in the air, the delicate yet exotic scent floating into my nostrils. I could bury my face in her neck for hours, enjoying the closeness and nothing else.

“If she left, her computer wasn’t important enough to take with her,” Hunter said in passing.

He moved past me, quickly looking in other rooms while I moved towards the laptop that remained on the coffee table.

As I sat down, I noticed she’d written notes on a piece of paper meant for writing songs. As I pulled it into my hands, a knot formed in my stomach. I didn’t need to try and break her code for her computer. It was obvious she was searching about the night of the tragedy and anything else she could find on us, including about the university.

Parties? Was I at a party?

Black clothes. They wore them all the time. Like Cristiano?

Kelly. Was she my roommate?

Prince Albert piercing. I’ve experienced one before. Or have I?

Did someone die?

Is my father an assassin? Cain’s brother.

“Shit.” Where had she been given the idea that her father was a killer? She’d obviously spent a significant amount of time researching every scrap of information she’d managed to find. It sounded as if it was a recent revelation, not something she’d carried with her for months or years.

And there was one line even more troubling and telling.

Is it true what the anonymous person said, that they are killers?

I’d bet everything I owned on the fact that she’d been played just like we had. That meant someone else suspected who she was.

It was obvious she had more questions than answers. There was no structured path in the information she’d found, the notes random. There had to be at least twenty more of them. That didn’t seem like the activity of a criminal mastermind, but a girl fearful that she didn’t know what she’d dropped in the middle of.

Hunter returned to the room. I noticed his expression had become grimmer than before. “She didn’t take a suitcase, but it’s obvious she left in a hurry.”

I inhaled, wanting to process what I’d read before mentioning it to him. “She knows about Cain’s brother.”

“Fuck. If Rose is Sage, then she has to be terrified of us already.”

“Do you blame her?”

“No. Goddamn Cain and his bullshit.”

“This is what the perpetrator wants to happen. They’re leaving breadcrumbs for her to find.”

“So she can expose what happened. They won’t need to finish the deed,” Hunter snarled, fisting his hand.

“We can’t sit around waiting for that to happen. Check her drawers, the closet, everywhere she could be hiding something else.” She was desperate for answers, although at this point, she didn’t seem to be worried if we found out what she’d learned.

“Do you think she’s really Sage?”

“The jury is still out but I’m beginning to believe it’s possible. It’s also possible she was caught up in a horrible game. We need to make certain one way or the other. But the nightmares she mentioned. With people experiencing head trauma, sometimes it takes years for memories to return, if ever.”

“Which means her parents had the opportunity to insert a new life in replacement of the old.”

“Yeah.”

Hunter exhaled. “This is some fucked up shit. You know Cain is likely not to care even if we can find proof of her innocence.”

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