She needed to contact him but right now he was in the wilderness checking traplines. No point worrying him when he couldn’t do anything to help her anyway. He relied on the money his trapping brought in to survive.

He’d find out soon enough.

Haley had once asked Darby if she could help her dad financially, but he was a proud man who would never accept charity. He was self-sufficient to a fault.

Exhaustion made Darby want to lie down on the hard uncomfortable cot, but she fought it. Once she lay down, she would be accepting her fate and she wasn’t ready to do that yet. Elliot Byrne had told her he’d be back first thing in the morning and not to talk to anyone without him in the meantime. She had a feeling he was as cut up about the fact she was apparently guilty as she was, although probably for different reasons.

What the heck had happened?

Had she and Martin started making out and she’d flashed back to her assault?

The idea was traumatic on so many levels. Poor Martin. Had he done something that inadvertently scared her and she’d panicked? Is that why she couldn’t remember anything? Because her brain recognized a catastrophic turning point in her life and didn’t want to acknowledge it?

Or had he taken advantage of her while she was drunk and she’d reacted and fought back? That seemed so unlike the guy she thought she’d known. With either scenario, how had she ended up downstairs, tucked in, asleep on the couch?

It didn’t fit.

How could she ever face her colleagues again? Her advisor? Her friends? Jacqui, Davis, Stef, Mohammed? What would they think of her? Pity? Hatred? Fear?

A sharp pain twisted in her chest. None of it mattered.

Her research career was over.

She wouldn’t be allowed to continue her doctorate. How could she study a force of nature from inside a prison cell? Her life had ended as effectively as Martin’s.

Shame engulfed her.

Her hands shook.

She was still breathing.

What about Martin and his Ph.D.? What about his brilliant mind? He’d been an amazing geologist and computer programmer, and now Darby was the reason he didn’t get to finish his work or live his life. The world had lost a great scientist, a good man, because of her. She was a monster. She was a murderer. Locking her up made perfect sense. Protect other innocent people from her level of psychosis.

How could she live with what she’d done?

She squeezed her eyes closed. She’d killed a man. A man who had always been kind and friendly toward her. A man she’d laughed and danced with and had once contemplated kissing.

She held her hands out in front of her and stared at them in disbelief. How could she have done it? Killed someone in cold blood and managed to freak herself so badly she’d blocked the memory from her mind?

It felt as if an alien had inhabited her body and wiped her memories. Was this insanity? Was she genuinely mentally ill? All those hours of therapy. All the “progress” nothing but wishful thinking.