Chapter Ten - The Rusty Spoon

I stared at the screen for a long moment, the words blurring and refocusing as my tired eyes struggled to keep up.

MEET ME AT THE RUSTY SPOON. 1AM. COME ALONE.

Detective Cross. Calling a meeting in the middle of the night.

I typed back: I DON'T HAVE A CAR.

A pause. Three dots appeared, vanished, and appeared again.

THERE'S A BUS. NORTH GATE. 12:17. BE ON IT.

I looked at the time on my phone. 12:09. Eight minutes.

No time to go back to the dorm. No time to explain anything to Ashley. No time to do anything except walk fast toward the north gate.

The campus blurred past me, the old-fashioned lamps casting long shadows that stretched and twisted like reaching hands. My boots crunched on the gravel path, too loud in the silence, and every step echoed off the buildings like a warning.

---

The bus was late.

I stood at the north gate, alone, the wind cutting through my jacket like it wasn't even there. The streetlights here were older, spaced farther apart, casting pools of weak orange light on the damp pavement. Beyond the gate, the road curved toward the highway, disappearing into a tunnel of trees.

The photograph was still in my pocket. The warning was still fresh. And somewhere behind me, hidden in the shadows of the campus, someone was probably still watching.

The bus arrived at 12:23. Six minutes late. I climbed aboard, paid my fare with coins from my pocket, and took a seat near the back, away from the only other passenger: a man in a baseball cap who smelled like whiskey and regret.

The bus lurched forward, and I pressed my forehead against the cold glass, watching Westbrook disappear behind me.

---

The Rusty Spoon looked exactly like every other twenty-four-hour diner I'd ever seen.

Fluorescent lights that buzzed in a frequency designed to cause headaches. Booths with cracked vinyl seats held together with duct tape. A counter lined with stools that had seen better decades, probably the 1980s, if the peeling laminate was any indication. The air smelled like stale coffee and burning grease and the faint, sweet ghost of desperation.

It was the kind of place where truckers stopped to sleep and cops stopped to trade information and people like me stopped to pretend they weren't falling apart.

Detective Cross was already there.

She sat in a booth near the back, facing the door, her hands wrapped around a mug that had probably been empty for hours. The positioning was deliberate,she could see everyone who walked in, everyone who walked out, every exit in the room.

Cop training. Or survivor instinct. Maybe both.

She looked older than she had at the police station, the lines around her eyes deeper, the shadows beneath them darker. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and she wasn't wearing any makeup. She looked like someone who hadn't slept in days.

She looked like me.

I slid into the booth across from her. The vinyl squeaked beneath me, and the table wobbled when I put my elbows on it.

"Alexa, You look like hell," Detective Cross said.

"Thanks."

"I mean it. When's the last time you slept?"

I thought about it. The motel room, the night before last. Thin mattress. Bleach smell. The water stain on the ceiling shaped like a lung.

"I don't remember."

She sighed, pushing a mug of coffee toward me. I wrapped my hands around it, letting the warmth seep into my fingers. I didn't drink it. I just held it.

"The break-in," she said. "Talk."

I did. I told her everything,the destroyed room, the missing items, the photograph of Alice face-down in the lake. I told her about the warning on the back, written in something that smelled like copper and looked like rust. I told her about the silhouette on the fire escape, the way it had raised a hand and waved before disappearing.

I didn't tell her about the black sedan. Not yet. I wanted to see what she knew first.

Detective Cross listened without interrupting. Her face remained neutral, professional, but her eyes..her eyes betrayed her. They darkened as I spoke, hardened into something sharp and cold.

When I finished, she reached into her briefcase and pulled out a manila folder. Thick. Heavy. The kind of folder that held more than paper.

"Alice's case file," she said, sliding it across the table. "Unofficial. If anyone finds out I gave you this, I loose my badge."

"So why are you giving it to me?"

"Because you're the only one who cares enough to find the truth." She leaned back, her arms crossed. "And because I can't do this alone."

I opened the folder.

The first page was a photograph of Alice. Alive. Smiling. The same smile I'd seen a thousand times..the one that crinkled her nose and showed her slightly crooked canine and made everyone around her feel like they mattered.

The same smile that had held my hand during thunderstorms.

The same smile that had promised we'd get a bigger apartment someday.

The same smile that was now just ash and memory.

My throat tightened. I swallowed the grief which tasted like bile..and kept reading.

Sometimes I wonder how I haven't cried yet.

The file was organized by date. The initial report. The witness statements. The forensic analysis. The autopsy results. I flipped past the pages I'd already seen, the details I'd already memorized, and focused on the notes Detective Cross had added in the margins.

No witnesses. No weapon. No physical evidence linking anyone to the scene.

Phone records show three calls to an unknown number in the week before her death. Number is a burner. Untraceable.

Boyfriend (Myles Clay) has alibi. Was at a party. Twenty+ witnesses.

Roommate (Ashley Grant) was on campus and claimed to be in the library. Security footage confirms it.

Lab partner (Madden Lighter) has no alibi. Refuses to cooperate. History of conflict with the victim.

Professor Vance (BioMed lab director) was on campus that night. Claims to have been working alone in his office. No witnesses.

Helena Vance (graduate assistant) was also on campus. Claims to have been in the lab. Security footage confirms it.

I looked up. "Was all these confirmed, how do you know they weren’t lying.

"I don't have any evidence that says otherwise." Detective Cross's jaw tightened. "The security footage from the lake path was mysteriously corrupted. The only witness who came forward recanted two days later, said she 'must have been mistaken.' And the medical examiner's office has been stonewalling my requests for a second autopsy."

"Someone is covering this up."

"Someone with power, yes." She leaned back, her eyes tired. "Westbrook University has deep pockets and deeper secrets. I've been a detective for twenty-two years. I've never seen a case on the verge of shutting down so fast."

"What about the black sedan?"

Detective Cross's eyebrows rose. "What black sedan?"

I told her. The loading dock. The parking lot outside my dorm. The tinted windows. The dome light. The silhouette of a driver watching, waiting.

She listened, her expression growing darker with each word.

"That's not in any of the reports," she said when I finished.

"Because I didn't report it. I'm reporting it to you."

She pulled out her phone and typed a note. "Make and model?"

"I don't know about cars. Sedan. Black. Tinted windows. Late model."

"License plate?"

"Too dark."

She nodded, still typing. "I'll look into it. In the meantime, you check in with me every day. You see something, you call. Not text. Call."

"I will."

"And Alexa?" She looked up, her eyes boring into mine. "There's something else. Something I found today."

She reached into her briefcase again and pulled out a second folder. Thinner than the first. Newer. The label on the tab read VASQUEZ, NATALIE.

"Natalie Vasquez," I said.

"Second-year student. Research assistant in Professor Vance's lab. Same as Alice. Same as Madden Lighter. Same as Helena Vance." Detective Cross opened the folder, revealing a photograph of a girl with dark hair and dark eyes and a smile that didn't quite reach her face. "She disappeared two years ago. And no one knows her whereabouts.”

"Well that’s a first." I said observing the picture.

“The family sued. Settled out of court. Non-disclosure agreement."

"What do you think happened?"

"I think she was murdered. Same as your sister." Detective Cross closed the folder. "And I think whoever killed her is still on campus. Still in that lab. Still protected by the people who run this university."

I stared at the photograph of Natalie Vasquez. A girl I'd never met. A girl who'd disappeared before I ever knew her name. A girl who might have held the key to everything.

"Madden Lighter," I said. "Ashley mentioned her. Said she and Alice were close. And then they had a falling out. A month before Alice died."

"Madden Lighter was Natalie’s girlfriend."

The words landed like stones.

"She and Natalie were together for two years. When Natalie died, Madden fell apart. Dropped out of classes. Stopped talking to everyone. And then, somehow, she ended up in that same lab. Working for the same professor." Detective Cross shook her head. "Either she's the bravest person I've ever met, or she's looking for something."

"Or someone killed Natalie, and Madden knows who."

"That's my theory."

I looked back at the folder. At Natalie's photograph. At the timeline of her short, tragic life.

"Three research assistants," I said slowly. "Natalie. Alice. Madden. One disappeared . One murdered. One who won't talk."

"And one more," Detective Cross said. "Helena Vance. The professor's daughter. She was in that lab too. She's still in that lab. And she's not talking either."

I closed the folder and tucked it into my jacket, next to the photograph of Alice. The weight of both pressed against my chest like stones.

"What do you need me to do?"

Detective Cross studied me for a long moment. Her eyes were tired, but they were also sharp, assessing, weighing something I couldn't see.

"I need you to get close to Madden Lighter. She won't talk to me. Won't talk to any cop. But you're a student. You're her age. You have a connection to Alice, even if Madden doesn't know it yet." She leaned forward. "Find out what she knows. Find out what happened in that lab. Find out why she's still there."

"And if she won't talk?"

"Make her."

The words hung in the air between us, cold and final.

I thought about the photograph. The warning. The silhouette on the fire escape. The black sedan in the parking lot. And the clock ticking somewhere in the dark.

"Okay," I said.

Detective Cross nodded. She stood up, pulling a few bills from her wallet and dropping them on the table.

"The bus leaves at 2:15. Don't miss it." She paused, her hand on the back of the booth. "Goodnight Alexa.”

And then she was gone.

---

I sat alone in the booth, the folders heavy against my chest. The fluorescent lights buzzed. The counter stools creaked as a trucker shifted his weight. The clock on the wall ticked toward 1:47.

Outside, the parking lot was empty except for a few semi-trucks and a single, familiar shape.

Black sedan. Tinted windows. Parked beneath the broken streetlight.