Page 60 of I'm Not Done with You Yet

“Do you remember what she said to you that made you think she invited you there?”

That made methinkshe invited me there? Beneath the table, my hands are wringing each other, my fingers writhing like snakes, pinching and strangling. “Um. She said, ‘Come with me to this writers retreat.’ ”

“In those exact words?”

I stare at her. “No, I don’t know, that was days ago. Of course I don’t remember her exact words, but I remember the gist of it, and it’s that she invited me.”Careful, Jane.I’m letting my temper overwhelm me again. Again, I remind myself it’s not my temper, but my fear. But it’s really not actually helpful at all in this moment.

Detective Howe nods, and it’s clear she doesn’t believe me. “Is there anyone that can corroborate this?”

I claw at my memories and come up with nothing. “No.”

“Hmm. Okay. Can we talk for a moment about how you know Thalia? You said you guys were friends in college.”

You guys.She’s trying to put me at ease—look, Jane, I’m just a pal!I nod. “Yeah. Well, not college. Grad school.”

“Ah yes, of course. In Oxford, right? That’s pretty fancy. So you two were classmates?”

We were much more than just classmates, I almost tell her, but I don’t. “Yeah. Like I said, we were friends.”

“But you mentioned that you lost touch after the first semester there. Would that have anything to do with what happenedto...” She makes a big show of glancing at her notes. “Antoine Deveraux?”

My mouth snaps shut. I don’t know why this surprises me. It shouldn’t; I should’ve known the moment she brought up Oxford that she would’ve done her homework and that she must’ve known about Antoine. But I guess I’m not as cunning as I thought I was, because damn, that catches me off guard, and now I don’t know what to say. “Yeah, well. What happened was—you know, it was very traumatic. Thalia left the program and didn’t come back. I don’t like to talk about it. Hell, I haven’t even told my husband about it,” I say with a small laugh.

She doesn’t return the laugh. “What happened then? Can you fill me in?”

“The Oxford police didn’t give you any details?” God, I’m way too acerbic. I need to be more pliant, more pleasant.

“They gave me a summary of what happened. Let’s see...” Another glance at her notes, which I’m sure she’s actually got memorized. “They said Antoine had stolen into the college and hid in Thalia’s room, and when she went up halfway through the ball, he attacked her. Fortunately, you came into her room and were able to save her by”—she clears her throat—“stabbing him with a letter opener. Is that accurate?”

I look down at my hands. That awful night flashes through my head. Me going inside Thalia’s room and finding Antoine covered in blood. Me, the besotted idiot, coming to Thalia’s rescue. Offering to take the blame. God, I was so fucking stupid. Fleetingly, I wonder if I should tell Detective Howe the truth about what happened. But that would just come off crazy. She’d think I was making it up, and she’d probably become even more suspicious.

“Yeah.” My voice comes out as a whisper.

“Can you walk me through how that happened? Because theangle seemed a bit... off.” She mimes grabbing someone with her hands. “If you were to grab him from the back and throw him off, then he would’ve been at this angle.”

“There was a lot of struggling involved,” I say quickly. “Thalia was there and she was fighting him, too, and he was just kind of, you know, fighting both of us.”

“Sure, yeah, of course. Huh.” She refers to her notes again. “Okay... And the Oxford police, did they do any sort of investigation?”

“I’m not sure? I mean, they interviewed everyone there. They reviewed the security tapes at the common areas, I think? But I also know that the university was keen to shut it down. There were a lot of whispers in the dorm afterward about how the university basically got the cops to close the case.”

Detective Howe nods slowly. “Uh-huh. I can see that. A wealthy, powerful college like that, they wouldn’t want the bad press. Especially since this guy stole in and nearly raped one of their students.”

I nod, keeping my eyes on my lap.

“And ever since then, you never heard from Thalia?”

“Yeah, she kind of just went off the radar.”

“Not even social media?”

I shake my head.

“Don’t you think that’s strange? I mean, we’re on everything nowadays. Hell, I’m on TikTok. You know TikTok?”

“Sure.” A lot of authors are on TikTok, doing all sorts of videos to convince people to BUY MY BOOK, GUYS!

“So you never tried looking for her on social media?”

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