Chapter Nine - The Breaking-in Point

I immediately picked it, tucking it into my jacket.The photograph burned against my chest where I'd tucked it inside my jacket, the paper warm from my skin, the warning still wet in places where the red substance hadn't fully dried. I'd palmed it before Ashley could see, the motion quick and automatic, the same reflex that had kept me alive in group homes where possessions disappeared if you looked away for too long.

The room was still destroyed. Still chaos. Still a crime scene that hadn't been declared one yet.

I stood in the center of it, my hands trembling at my sides, my breath coming too fast, too shallow. The second heartbeat in my side had become a drumbeat, a countdown, a warning of its own.

STOP. THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING.

Whoever wrote that knew who I was. Knew why I was here. Knew everything. My heart skipped in a hint of fear.

That was the thought that froze the blood in my veins. Not that they had found me. Not that they had threatened me. But that they had done it so casually, so confidently, as if they knew I couldn't stop them. As if they knew something I didn't.

The fire escape creaked again. A single, metallic groan, like a joint complaining about the cold.

I turned toward the window, my hand still wrapped around the lockpick set in my pocket. The glass was dark, reflecting my own face back at me, pale and hollow-eyed and younger than I felt. Beyond the reflection, the night pressed close, black and absolute.

No silhouette now. No shadow. Just the creak of metal settling, the way old buildings always creaked, the way I was trying to convince myself that's all it was.

The door slammed open behind me.

I spun, my heart slamming against my ribs, the lockpick set sliding into my palm.

"Nova? What the hell happened?"

Ashley stood in the doorway, her face shifting from confusion to horror in the space of a single breath. Her cat socks. Her messy bun. Her hoodie with the faded Westbrook crest. She looked like she'd just stepped out of a different world, a world where rooms didn't get destroyed and photographs of dead girls didn't get left as warnings.

Behind her, the hallway was empty. But I could hear voices now, distant, curious. The commotion had drawn attention.

"The room," I said, and my voice sounded strange to my own ears, flattened and distant, like I was speaking through water. "Someone broke in."

Ashley's eyes swept the room. The overturned mattress. The scattered clothes. The cracked screen of her laptop lying facedown on the floor. Her hand flew to her mouth.

"Oh my God. Oh my God, Nova. Did you see anyone? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine. Your hands are shaking."

I looked down. She was right. My hands were shaking, the lockpick set rattling faintly against the metal picks inside. I shoved them back into my pocket and curled my fingers into fists, nails biting into palms.

"Did you see anyone?" Ashley repeated, stepping into the room, her sneakers crunching on something I couldn't see. Broken glass, maybe. Or plastic. "Coming in or out? Anything?"

"No." The lie came easily. Too easily. But I couldn't tell her about the silhouette. Couldn't tell her about the fire escape. Couldn't tell her about the photograph pressed against my heart, bleeding red warnings into my skin.

Because Ashley was still unknown to me . She was friendly, helpful and observant in ways that made my instincts itch. And had been alone in this room, maybe, before I got back.

And Ashley had said it herself: This school has secrets. And some of them are dangerous.

"You need to call campus security," Ashley said, already pulling out her phone. Her fingers hovered over the screen. "Or the police. This isn't…someone broke into our room, Nova. Our room. While we were at dinner. While you were…." She stopped. Frowned. "Where did you go, anyway? You said bathroom, but you were gone for like twenty minutes."

"I got lost."

"You got lost?"

" Bad sense of direction."

Ashley stared at me. Her dark eyes were sharp, intelligent, the same way they'd been in the dining hall when she'd watched me watch Madden Lighter. I could see the calculation happening behind them, the questions stacking up like dominoes.

"The bathroom is literally fifty feet from the dining hall," she said slowly. "You would have had to walk past it, through the kitchen, and out the loading dock to get lost."

I said nothing.

Ashley's frown deepened. But she didn't push. Instead, she looked down at her phone and started tapping.

"I'm calling security anyway. This is insane. My laptop is probably ruined. And your stuff…" She glanced at my bare mattress, my empty desk, my duffel bag still zipped but knocked on its side. "Did they take anything?"

"No."

But they'd left something worse.

The photograph in my jacket. The warning in red. The certainty that someone was watching, waiting, playing a game I hadn't known I'd entered.

Ashley's call connected. She turned away, her voice dropping as she explained the situation to whoever was on the other end. I used the moment to cross to my side of the room, to grab my duffel bag, to unzip it and check the contents.

The lockpick set I'd already removed. The burner phone, still there, still charged. A change of clothes, the ones I hadn't worn. The small leather pouch where I kept the cash I'd saved for two years, untouched.

They hadn't taken the money. Neither did they take my burner phone nor clothes.

I crossed to the window, pressing my palm against the cold glass. The parking lot was visible from here, the single streetlamp flickering, the spaces mostly empty except for a few student cars and…

A black sedan. Tinted windows. Parked beneath the broken streetlight.

The same car from the loading dock.

My breath fogged the glass. I wiped it away with my sleeve, but the sedan didn't move. The dome light was off now, but I could see the faint glow of a phone screen inside, illuminating the silhouette of a driver.

Whoever it was, they were watching the dorm.

Watching my window.

"Nova?" Ashley's voice came from behind me. "Security is sending someone. They said twenty minutes. Apparently there's been some kind of incident at the BioMed lab, so most of the night officers are tied up."

I didn't turn around. "What kind of incident?"

"They didn't say. Just that it was 'contained.'" She paused. "What are you looking at?"

I stepped back from the window, letting the thin curtain fall back into place. "Nothing. Just the dark."

Incident, what a coincidence

————-

Campus security arrived twenty-two minutes later.

Two officers joined them both young, both carrying flashlights and notepads. They introduced themselves as Officer Austin and Officer Ridley. Austin had the same mark of a removed ring on his ring finger like Detective Cross, they took statements while Ashley paced the room, gesturing at the damage.

"Someone broke in," Ashley said, her voice rising. "They destroyed my laptop. They went through our things. This isn't just vandalism, this is…"

"We understand your concern, Miss Grant," Officer Chen said. He was the taller one, with kind eyes and a calm voice. "But we don't see any signs of forced entry. No broken locks, no damaged windows. Whoever did this either had a key or was let in."

"Are you saying we did this to ourselves?"

"I'm not saying anything. I'm just stating facts."

Ashley opened her mouth to argue, but I put a hand on her arm. "It's fine," I said. "Thank you for coming."

Officer Austin nodded. He handed me a card with a number on it. "If you notice anything else missing, or if you remember anything that might help, give us a call."

They left. The door clicked shut, and the room fell into a heavy silence.

Ashley turned to me, her arms crossed. "You let them off easy."

"There's nothing they could do."

"They could investigate."

"They will. Their version of investigate." I sat down on my bare mattress, the plastic crinkling beneath me. "But they won't find anything. Whoever did this knew what they were doing."

Ashley sat down on her overturned mattress, her cat socks dangling above the floor. She looked smaller now, younger, the sharp edges of her personality softened by fear.

"Who would want to do this to us?" she asked. "You're a transfer student. I'm just... me. Nobody has a reason to break into our room."

The photograph in my jacket felt heavier than lead. The warning pulsed against my skin like a second heartbeat.

"Maybe it wasn't about us," I said carefully. "Maybe it was about whoever lived here before."

Ashley's eyes widened. "Alice?"

"I'm just saying. This was her room. Her scholarship. Maybe someone didn't want a new person poking around."

Ashley was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "You talk a lot about Alice, Nova. For someone who just got here."

My pulse quickened. "I told you. I'm a true crime writer. Her case is... interesting."

"Interesting." Ashley's voice was flat. "That's one word for it."

She stood up and started gathering her scattered clothes, folding them into neat piles. I watched her for a moment, then pulled out my burner phone.

The photograph was still in my pocket. The warning was still fresh. And somewhere out there, in a black sedan with tinted windows, the person who might have killed my sister was still watching.

I needed to talk to Detective Cross.

"I'm going for a walk," I said, standing up.

Ashley looked at me, frowning. "It's almost midnight."

"I can't sleep. Too much adrenaline."

"Want me to come with you?"

"No." The word came out too sharp. I softened my voice. "I need some air. Alone."

Ashley studied me for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Okay. But take your phone."

"I will," I said.

---

The campus at midnight was a different world.

The quad was empty, the pathways lit by old-fashioned lamps that cast more shadow than light. The library loomed in the distance, its windows dark except for a few scattered lights on the upper floors. The air smelled like fallen leaves and cold water, and somewhere in the trees, an owl called out, lonely and insistent.

I walked toward the parking lot where I'd seen the black sedan. It was gone now, the space empty, the broken streetlight flickering over bare asphalt. But tire tracks remained, fresh in the damp ground.

I crouched down, pulling out my phone to take a photo. The tracks were wide, consistent with a sedan. Recent enough that the edges hadn't dried.

Someone had been watching. And they'd left in a hurry.

My phone buzzed.

I glanced at the screen. An unknown number.

DETECTIVE CROSS : MEET ME AT THE RUSTY SPOON. 1AM. COME ALONE.