Other voices and she screamed.
I started running, and Jonas was right with me.
Two
JONAS
Dancing Goats was the closest coffee shop. It was also the one KC favored. Ramsey didn’t jog down the path past the damaged dorm toward the dining hall where the shop was. He ran.
I was right behind him as he yanked the door open. The sun was up, the air was cool, and it looked like the beginnings of a perfect day.
Not that it could be perfect.
Not with KC missing. She hadn’t really spoken to me since the video of Gibs playing my song. She did, but it was always just perfect politeness and distance. We weren’t friends or friendly.
Not anymore.
She couldn’t be more distant if she’d moved out of the dorm and into another building. I didn’t know where Gibs even got the song or why he thought I wrote it for him.
I’d left him several messages but hadn’t heard back from him. If he was in his studio and testing material in a few appearances, I might not.
I could call Mom…
I didn’t want to.
Ramsey strode past the other people in line right up to the front. Some of the other students protested, but Ramsey ignored them. One idiot went to grab him and I glared. Bo wasn’t a bad guy, but he was a jackass.
I’d also kicked his ass three times during Freshman year. He avoided fights with me now.
Chicken shit.
One look from me and Bo raised his hands, backing off immediately.
Good, I didn’t have time for him.
“Fucking whackjob,” Bo muttered.
I ignored him, focusing on Ramsey, who flattened his hands on the counter. “Tadeo, did Kaitlin Crosse come in and get coffee this morning?”
The kid working the register blinked at Ramsey from behind his glasses. His dad was some kind of diplomat, Guatemalan maybe? Tadeo had more or less grown up here at the school, like we did.
“Kaitlin—I don’t know a Kaitlin.” He probably didn’t. Tadeo was a hardcore gamer and if it didn’t happen in the MMPORG he was addicted to, he didn’t really pay that much attention.
“KC,” I supplied, then held up a hand to my cheekbone. “This high, blue hair.”
“Oh, yeah, she was here,” Tadeo said with a grin. “But the line was long so she went across campus.”
Ramsey was already shoving away from the counter and I was right behind him, then hesitated a second and glanced back. “Thanks, Tadeo.”
“Asshole,” Bo muttered as I passed him. I could have punched him. But KC was more important. I’d punch Bo later.
Ramsey was already racing ahead and I had to push it to catch up. He had his phone out—calling Lachlan. Who knew? I didn’t care, unless Lachlan found her.
That—I hoped he found her. I didn’t care if he would gloat. I was panting when Ramsey slowed abruptly and I saw why a split-second later.
Lachlan stood near the gravel end of the running path where it met the parking lot. We were still a good five-to-six-minute brisk walk from the dorms. I slid to a halt.
“That’s the coffee?” Ramsey’s question jerked me out of my reverie. I’d been searching for a sign of blue hair, but now I was looking at the ground near Lachlan’s feet.
There were a couple of discarded coffee cups. Another one lay at the edge of the grass, crushed, and there were flies humming around the grass. Three cups—there should be four, right?
I wasn’t the only one looking around. Lachlan glared at the grass, at the paths, and then at the building that housed the Pit Stop. The doors didn’t face this way but—the campus had cameras, right?
“There should be four cups,” Ramsey said, his tone flat. Like us, he was glancing around.
There was a small car park allowed for temporary parking only, no longer than thirty minutes, just for customers. You didn’t need a school parking permit ‘cause this coffee shop was actually closer to the administration buildings and the road.
Locals could come in to get coffee. They didn’t, but they could. Or maybe they did, I didn’t care.
No one was here now.
“Found it,” Lachlan said, and I jogged over to where he stood. Another coffee cup, but this one was flattened—like someone ran over it. “That’s four cups and there’s no other trash out here. Going inside…”
Then he was striding away and I stared at the cup, then back to the other cups. Ramsey still had his phone out.
“What are you doing?” Who was he calling?
“Campus security has to be notified,” he told me. “Administration too. If she’s missing—”
“If,” I stressed and then curled my hands into fists. “We don’t know she’s missing.”
“She’s missing,” Ramsey said flatly. “She isn’t answering her phone. She isn’t where she said she would be. She left a message and we heard her scream.”
Screamed.
I turned in a circle. “Why aren’t there cameras here?”
Ramsey sighed, then shook his head. “I don’t know, there are usually cameras on all the lots. They definitely beefed them up by the dorms.”
Not that those stopped the fire.
“Someone broke into our suite.”
“I know,” Ramsey said, his knuckles white where he held the phone.
“They hurt her.”
That got me a glare. “Why do you think I want to call campus security?”
“You haven’t called them yet?” I didn’t want to call them. Calling them meant something was seriously wrong with KC. We weren’t here. She was going to call me, but she ended up calling Lachlan first.
And she had sex with Ramsey.
I glared at him as he dropped his chin and blew out a breath.
That was why he didn’t want to call. The minute he admitted what happened, he was going to lose his job. A door slammed in the distance, and we both twisted to see a furious Lachlan stalking toward us.
“She was here.”
My heart sank.
“She bought four coffees and left. They didn’t see her after that.” Anger radiated off of Lachlan like heat shimmered off a desert road.
Coffees from the building. Talking to Lachlan’s voicemail. “Give me your phone,” I said to Lachlan and he stared at me.
“Excuse me?”
“Phone. I want to hear her message again.”
He and Ramsey both stared at me, making me roll my eyes.
“Just pull up the damn message and walk with me if you have to.”
Lachlan didn’t hand over his phone, the dick, but he did play the message and followed me as I headed toward the building.
“Hey…” She sounded raspy, and rough. Like she’d been singing all night—or maybe crying. I didn’t like it. “Right, I thought you’d answer…” We were at the building now. The back had no windows. There was an enclosure around their garbage area, a door that accessed it, and a little gate. Otherwise, you couldn’t see anything from in there.
They had a camera—pointed at their door.
Yeah, that didn’t help.
I moved toward the side, closer to the front door as she talked about how maybe we should have spoken the previous year. Then the coffees were ready.