“I don’t know.” I set my bags down on the counter and cradled the phone on my shoulder as I undid the straps of my wedges. “He’s the one paying for school and you know he wants all of us to work in one of his businesses, so he’ll probably scream at me, but what’s he going to do? March over here and make me quit the school newspaper?”
“Are you asking? Because I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Lincoln.” I sighed. “I’m trying to think of what else has happened since I’ve been here. Oh. I bumped into some guy today. He was really mean about it.”
“Want me to go beat him up?”
“Would you come back here to do that for me?”
“I wouldn’t go back there for anything.”
His words stung even though I tried not to let them. I stayed quiet for a moment, hoping he’d add to that statement, wishing I hadn’t been so stubborn and followed a boyfriend to another state instead of attending here with my brother. He would’ve finished a year ahead of me, but that would have been okay. At least I would know what happened to him and maybe help him somehow.
“How was your day at the psychologist’s office?”
“Same.”
“You need to talk about it, Linc,” I said, finally. “If you won’t speak to a professional, at least tell me. I’m supposed to be your best friend.”
“If I could talk to anyone about it, it would be you. Just stay out of trouble. I have to go.”
“Okay, I—”
He hung up before I could tell him I loved him. My shoulder slumped. Whatever happened to him here had turned him into a different person and I refused to let it go until I found out what it was.
Chapter 2
“So you made a fool of yourself in front of a hot guy on day one of your arrival?” my new roommate Celia asked, looking at me like I was some kind of alien she wasn’t sure she wanted to associate with.
“I don’t think I made a fool of myself,” I muttered. “I tripped. Big freaking deal. And I didn’t say he was hot.”
“You didn’t have to.” She laughed. “I can tell that from the way you flushed while you were telling the story.”
“I didn’t flush.” I frowned. “I don’t flush.”
“If you say so.” She looked around. “So, your parent’s own this place?”
“They do. All my brothers have lived here. Two in this apartment.”
“That’s cool. So you have family ties to this place.” Celia rummaged through the box she’d brought into the kitchen, pausing to look at me. “Thank you for letting me rent the room on such short notice and for such a short amount of time. I didn’t think I’d ever find someone who would lease on a month-to-month basis.”
“It’s not a problem.” I waved her off. “I’ve never had a roommate before, to be honest, but it’ll be fun.”
“You’ve never lived with a roommate?” She stopped fiddling with the kitchen. “Like ever?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I never needed or wanted one.” I shrugged. “But this is a two-bedroom and my mother insisted, and I agreed because you know, with the whole Lana Ly situation still ongoing I figured it wouldn’t hurt.”
“You know about that and you still came?”
“Yep.”
“Hm.” She eyed me suspiciously, as if there was a chance I had anything to do with her disappearance. “Where are your things?”
“They’re being sent here.” I looked at my phone. “They should be here in the morning.”
“You had all of your things shipped?”
“Most of them.”
I didn’t really want to explain the fact that my mother insisted on having everything white-glove packed and delivered for me for the same reason I didn’t want to explain that my father owned the entire building, not just the one apartment. Dating Travis for the last couple of years of my life opened me up to new experiences and made me realize that my life was anything but ordinary, and because I’d been walking on eggshells for so long, I wasn’t sure what was boastful and what was just a statement I could make and shrug off without looking like a spoiled brat, which ultimately meant that I was a spoiled brat nonetheless. It was something I knew and accepted, but not something I wanted people to think I was proud of.
I turned away from her and walked toward one of the two bay windows the apartment had. The other was in the bedroom I’d already claimed as mine. When my parents showed me the place last week, my father told me to take that room because of the view. The bay window in there had a reading nook, complete with bookshelves surrounding it. It was a lot like the one in my childhood bedroom, and one of my favorite parts of the otherwise sterile, luxurious apartment.
“When I was looking for a temp place, I definitely did not envision myself living in Millionaire’s Row, I’ll tell you that.”
I let out a laugh. I’d heard that was what locals called this block. After my father announced to his friends that he was having this building designed and built, they all decided to do the same, contributing to one of the most expensive zip codes in the area.
“I guess I shouldn’t make fun of you about the roommate thing,” Celia said. “Before this, I had the same roommate since freshman year, but she transferred out after what happened last year. Lana lived in the building right next to ours.”
“I expected vigils and posters everywhere, but so far you’re the second person to talk to me about it. Where’s the outrage? The concern? The nightly searches?” I asked. “I looked online and the last one I found happened like two months ago.”
“Yeah.” Celia walked over to the living room and sat down on the couch. I sat across from her, knee bouncing as I waited for her to give me the inside scoop. Normally students talked more than staff, so I was sure she had her own take on what happened. “Honestly, people are still looking, but it’s more on the downlow now. I think we’re all scared, you know? Like, maybe if we don’t talk about it, it never actually happened?”
“But it did happen. And a missing student isn’t really something people should forget.”
A missing rich, beautiful, female student that the news talked about on loop was even less likely to forget, so why try? Why not look for her?
“The media is saying she ran away. It’s happened before, from this very campus. Girls have run off with bad-boy boyfriends, some pregnant, some not. Guys have run off with boyfriends because they knew they wouldn’t be accepted by their families. It’s not uncommon.”
“That’s not Lana though.” I shook my head.
Celia frowned. “Did you know her?”
“Sort of. She and I went to the same high school. She was a year ahead, but we had shared interests, worked for the paper together before she graduated.”
She stared at me for a beat. “Will you be okay when I move out? Do you want me to help you find another roommate?”
“I’ll be fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know. I’m terrified of living alone after what happened.”