Page 86 of Vacancy

“You don’t have to explain—” I started.

But she lifted a hand, stalling me. “Yes, I do. I was going through your personal shit, Damien.”

I shrugged, more concerned about hernotleaving than caring about her curiosity.

But she admitted, “I was looking for the missing picture.”

I furrowed my brow, utterly confused. “What picture?”

She pointed across the room to the shelf where there was an obvious blank space next to Thalia’s senior picture, and I immediately cringed.

Damn.

Busted.

“There’s a blank space on your shelf,” Oaklynn told me. “And there’s no dust in a small section there, where it looks as if a picture frame was recently sitting. Which means, you must’ve taken it down right before I came in. You didn’t want me to see whatever was in that picture.”

I swerved my attention back to her and stared in half-frozen horror and half-frozen awe. But she’d figured that outwaytoo easily.

“So…” She went on without waiting for me to scramble up some kind of bullshit answer. “I couldn’t help but wonder,what is he hiding? Because everything with you was going way too well. I mean, last night was…perfect.”

Heat filled my face because it’d been perfect for me too. So perfect, in fact, that the idea of losing her scared the fuck out of me.

“Which, by the laws of nature, means there has to be some kind of dark, awful, twisted secret you’re keeping from me,” she concluded.

I huffed out a laugh, half-full of amusement, half-full of guilt. “I don’t know if it’s that twisted,” I couldn’t help but admit. “Although it’s definitely not bright and happy.”

When Oaklynn merely lifted her eyebrows, awaiting more of an explanation than that, I pressed a hand to my forehead and glanced at her regretfully. “It’s…”

God. I should just tell her.

So I did.

“Someone close to me was murdered.”

Oaklynn blinked and then furrowed her brow in confusion. “Okay,” she said slowly because that probably only left her with more questions and no answers.

I nodded, letting her know I would keep talking. “Yeah. And I…I’m the one who found the body.”

“Oh my God,” she breathed, blinking at me once before shaking her head. “Are you serious?”

I shifted my head up and down silently as memories assailed me. The blood, the panic, the total devastation. The fear of not knowing what to do.

The loss.

“Damn, Damien,” Oaklynn murmured sympathetically. All fear gone, she crawled toward me to pull me into her arms for a hug. “That’s awful. When?”

Resting my head on her shoulder for a moment, I ignored the question, and soaked in this closeness before I lifted my face and added, “The murderer was never arrested, and that…” Letting out a harsh sound of regret, I shuddered. “That has bothered me for years.”

She nodded, totally understanding. “Of course. It would bother me too. And now I get why you’re majoring in Forensic Psychology,” she realized. “You want to catch the killer.”

I gave a jerky nod. “I mean, yeah… I wouldloveto catch the son of a bitch. And itwasthe driving force behind my decision in majors. But I know the likelihood of solving a cold case like that is basically zero. I just… I don’t know. I’d like to do for another grieving family what couldn’t be done for mine, you know. I want to give them answers and closure and justice. And I want to get as many of those monsters off the street as possible so they can’t destroy another life again.”

“Oh, Damien,” she breathed. She stroked a hand over my hair, and I shuddered. “You have such a good heart.”

“I’m really sorry for scaring you,” I promised, watching her face carefully to make sure she was no longer afraid. “That is the last thing I would ever want to do. Okay? I would put myself in harm’s way before letting you get hurt.”

Her expression fell, and guilt clouded her features. “I’m sorry that I thought you could possibly be—”

---