My mind ran over my every action from last night. Although it hadn’t been planned, the murder had been perfectly executed. No way would the cops think beyond the obvious. They never did. I made sure of it.

So why had they let her go?

I grimaced. Perhaps those footprints had raised questions after all. Perhaps the cops hadn’t assumed it was the dead guy going for a walk earlier in the day but, instead, a third person who might have been involved in the murder. But to release her from custody…?

My hands gripped the steering wheel harder in frustration.

It was dark as I drove past Darby’s apartment building. The press were camped out in droves, like flies over a corpse in the height of summer.

No way was I risking going inside that building with all those cameras pointed at it, and all eyes on the woman who appeared—for now—to have gotten away with murder.

The lights in her apartment were off. Was she even in there? I doubted it. More likely she was curled into a fetal ball, crying alone in the dark in some seedy anonymous motel. Needing help, needing support, reliving all the terrible pain of her arrest and suffering from memories of her abduction last summer, as if she was the only person ever to be abused.

I turned up the heater, wondering why the hell I stayed in this godforsaken state when the winters were so brutal. Obviously, I was a masochist.

Should I call her? Offer my support? I wanted to but couldn’t risk it.

She’d seemed out of it last night but what if she hadn’t been completely unconscious? What if she remembered something? As much as I hated the idea, I either had to get rid of her or discredit her in no uncertain terms. I didn’t want to be arrested and spend the rest of my life in prison. I’d rather die. Putting the blame on Darby, who’d probably get out in less than ten years with good behavior seemed like a much better plan. Plus, it might be the perfect opportunity to strengthen our bonds of friendship…

I continued past her building, heading instead toward campus.

She’d brought it all on herself anyway. She’d looked like she’d been having such a good time last night. Smiling. Laughing. Dancing.

That wasn’t how she was supposed to act, as if she were recovering and moving on from her trauma. The sight of her had triggered that part of me I’d been successfully controlling for months. Even the memory had anger once again rising sharply inside me, my teeth fusing together against all the rampaging emotions.

I forced myself to breathe in and out slowly. Containing the rage that was only assuaged by killing. Martin Carstairs’s death hadn’t been very satisfying. He’d been drunk and barely registered my beloved knife in his chest.

God, I hated having to leave that knife behind, but in order to teach Darby a lesson I’d needed to make the sacrifice.