Crossing her arms over her chest, Erica shielded the hurt, so she was just hostile now. When the full effect of that was coming at you, you’d need to be wary. My roommate was only five feet four, but she was a feisty five feet four. Weighing a hundred twenty-five, she might look like a book nerd with her glasses, choppy short hair, and pale skin, but her looks were deceiving. She had a reporter’s nose, intuition, and concentration that would outdo a bird dog on a bird trail. When something piqued her interest, nothing and no one had better get in the way…like I had just done.
I glanced at the phone she was clutching in her hand. “Any calls yet?”
“Why?” Suspicion formed on her face.
“Uh…”
She jerked her head back to the television. “They called thirty minutes ago.”
“I’m so sorry, Erica. You weren’t planning on going to Sids tonight, were you?”
“What?”
“Susan’s going to be there tonight.”
“How do you know that?”
Well. Shit. I glanced to the floor for a moment. My roommate was not a fan of my ex-fling-whatever-he-was. “Jake invited me to it, to the celebration.”
“Jake?” Her eyebrows pinched together. “What celebration?”
“For Susan. She got the job at the paper.” Ah, crap. I thought she knew? “You did know, right?” I touched her arm. That’s what I heard from her, wasn’t it? “That Susan got the job? I didn’t break that news to you?”
She nodded, chewing the inside of her lip. “I can’t believe her nerve. Did she ask Jake to ask you? And holy shit, Jake asked you out? After the last time you saw him? Asshole! That’s something Susan would totally do. I bet she made him ask you just to piss me off—you know, kick me when I’m down, pour salt in the wound.”
Erica was the one who helped me get over him, promising to ruin him with the power of a thousand suns. Those were her words, not mine. I knew she’d exacted some revenge on him—hacking into his school email and changing his passwords to everything in the system—but she toned it down when I told her I didn’t want to hear his name again, which included any revenge she had taken out on him.
“Or did he ask you out on his own?” She pinned me down with that question. “He humiliated you last winter.”
I moved back a step. “Well…I mean…that’s putting it dramatically.” It was true, but I glanced around. She didn’t have to broadcast it to everyone.
“You slept on your bathroom floor for an entire weekend.”
Yep, we were getting attention now. A rush of blood went to my face, and I was becoming redder as she kept talking by the minute.
“Hey, now. Can we lower this conversation just a small bit?”
“I had to buy twelve cartons of ice cream for you.”
“That’s a lie,” I told our newfound audience. “I don’t even like ice cream. It’s a complete lie. She’s making things up.”
Erica rolled her eyes but quieted her voice. “Don’t go with him—” She stopped and latched on to my arm. “Wait. Did you say they’re going to Sids tonight?” She squeezed my hand.
I winced under her hold. “Sids, I think. Yeah, Sids.”
Abruptly, she let go and turned for the doorway. “We’re going there, too, then.”
“Huh? I was never going to go with him.” I moved my hand around just to make sure I could. “Where are you going?”
She was through the first set of doors and crossing to the last set as she called over her shoulder, “Let’s go. We’re going shopping, and then we’re going to Sids tonight. I have to call Wanker.”
“Shopping?” I muttered under my breath.
Erica’s form of shopping was looking for new pens and notepads, not clothes. I shrugged.
I liked Sids. It was a popular nightclub in town. The other two colleges in town went there, too, but it would mostly be Hillcrest University students tonight since we were done with finals a week earlier than other campuses.
I hoped to convince Erica and Wanker into going to Sids anyway. This was the icing on the cake. My last exam was done, and I was officially a junior. I wouldn’t have to spend my night at the winery down a block from our apartment. That was Erica and Wanker’s favorite spot. It was small, quiet, and way too conservative for a night of celebrating—or a night of spying, in Erica’s case.
Either way, if she wanted to go shopping, then I’d go along.
I was heading behind her, knowing she’d be impatiently waiting, when someone yelled behind me, “Hey! Turn the TV up. I want to hear this.”
I dodged around a group of students, another step closer to the doors, when I heard the reporter’s voice. I couldn’t ignore it this time.
“Kian Maston, the son of billionaire investor and entrepreneur Carl Maston, has been released early after serving two years for the murder of Edmund Solario, the foster father of missing Jordan Emory.”
Kian Maston was the definition of bad boy to me. He wasn’t the type who was arrogant or would throw his money around, like he was God’s gift to women. He wasn’t that kind of bad boy, but he was dangerous. A quiet type who ruled from the shadows—that was him.
A shiver went through my spine, charging my body with a jolt of electricity, as memories flared in my mind.
We both grew up in Fosston. Compared to the city, Fosston was small potatoes with a population of six thousand, but it was big enough where people knew who the populars were, and Kian had definitely been in that crowd. He was rich and gorgeous, and he was respected. He also had the whole dark, mysterious, and brooding thing down pat, too.
I hadn’t thought much of Kian back then. I knew who he was, but I didn’t really know him, to be honest. I didn’t socialize much with anyone back then, except for a few nights when I snuck out to see my boyfriend, though he had been a bust. After a disastrous end with him, I never broke my Edmund’s strict rules again. They weren’t worth it. School, home—those were the two places I had been allowed to go. When I was at school, I heard the other girls talk about Kian a lot. In the restrooms, in the hallways, and in the locker room when we were changing for gym class, Kian was at the top of most girls’ wish lists.
That was then, and this was now.
He graduated to national stardom.
Most killers wouldn’t be idolized, but that was what had happened to him—with his face, penetrating dark eyes, black hair, chiseled high cheekbones, and lean body. When Kian killed my foster father, the news outlets all over the nation swept up the story. Add in his last name, knowing who his father was, and we had a phenomenon right there in Fosston.
And he was being released.
On the way home, I was in a daze. Erica was babbling about finding the right dress for Sids, but once we got to the apartment, I went straight for the shower. It had been my sanctuary during the trial, and I needed that privacy once more. I don’t know how long I stood in there, with my head down and letting the water pound down on me, but when someone knocked on my bathroom door, I jerked backward. I would’ve fallen and hit my head on the toilet, but I grabbed ahold of the door.
“Jo!” Erica’s shadow was under the door. “What are you doing? I thought we were going shopping.”
I was naked and wet, and there’d be a bruise on my hand in an hour.
“If you were to take a guess?” I called out, sharper than I intended, as I turned the water off and reached for a towel. Shit. This was my friend. I didn’t have to be a bitch to her. “Sorry. I was showering.”
“This whole time?” She hiccupped. “Okay. Change of plans. Instead of shopping, I’m drinking. Wanker got here a little bit ago. Actually,” I could hear the laughter from her, “I might be a little intoxicated already.” Her shadow swerved to the side. “Make that, slightly wasted.”
Wrapping myself with the towel, I sat down on the toilet and closed my eyes. Even sitting here, the old Jordan was coming back to me. I felt my spine leaving me, and all the old insecurities moving back in. I drew in a deep breath. I wasn’t back there where I couldn’t trust anyone, couldn’t even hope to believe someone. No. That was Jordan. I was Jo, and this was Erica on the other side of the door. I could trust her.