To the family.
“How’re things with Miss Holland?”
Oscar’s voice had me turning to face him. I lifted my chin at him. “It’s Cora.”
His brows screwed up. “But we don’t—”
“I know.” I nodded. “She wants to be called by her first name, so that’s how we’ll be addressing her.”
“Oh.” Oscar shrugged. “Okay.” He went back to tapping for two seconds before his head popped up again. “How’s it all going anyway?”
Without realising, I felt the corner of my mouth turn up. Not big enough to be a smirk, but impactful enough that Oscar noticed. “Good?”
I nodded. “Better.”
And that was the truth.
Things were still a little awkward, naturally, but she wasn’t being the defiant little creature she’d shown me she could be when we first met. She was listening, and after we made a game plan on how both of us could survive without killing each other, things had been going smoothly.
We still had a long way to go. She didn’t fully trust me. But she listened when I told her that keeping tabs on her via the spy software I laced her phone with was better than me waiting outside her classes. I got regular updates on her location, and if she went anywhere the software hadn’t noticed before, I’d get a text telling me exactly where she was.
As though it could hear my thoughts, my phone buzzed, and I whipped it out of my pocket. My screen lit up with anotification that she was on the move, the little moon icon that symbolised her moving between the halls in the Liberty Grove campus.
“That her?” Oscar asked, and after watching the moon stop at her last class of the day, I slipped my phone back into my pocket and set my eyes back on him.
“Just the tracking system. She’s fine.”
As I stretched my arms over my head with a yawn, he let me watch him click a few times before I felt his eyes on me. “Has she had any more texts?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
He clearly clocked the sour mood that invaded my face. “That’s a good thing, right?”
I shrugged. “I guess. It’s just…” I leaned back. “It’s stupid to waste our time wondering if this could be anyone else other than Radcliffe, right?”
Oscar bunched his sleeves up at his elbows as he mirrored me. “It doesn’t make sense for it to be anyone else but him, but I thought he wasn’t allowed to contact her. Surely he’s not that stupid to ignore a restraining order that could risk him never working again.”
“Didn’t stop him from fucking up the first time.” I raked my hands through my thick strands. “If he was obsessed with her, a restraining order won’t keep him away.”
Before I knew it, I felt myself slipping into that ancient hole I’d fallen into once before. This was the only part of the job that I didn’t like. The obsessing. The guessing. Spending hours trying to crack cases that were colder than the surface of themoon. But something about this thing with Cora was pulling me deeper than the others had.
Perhaps because it was so close to home. So close that I’m sure Oscar was thinking the exact same things I was.
And I knew I was right the second I let my eyes drift up, and I saw his cursor hovering over Lana’s files.
Not today.
“Coffee?” I asked abruptly, standing up from my chair and stalking towards the door.
Clearing his throat, Oscar swivelled around in his chair. “Um… yeah. I’d love some. Thanks.”
I tightly smiled at him as I watched him turn back around, and as he did, my eyes flew to his screen, now back to the usual background.
“Sure thing,” The words slipped from under my breath as I stalked back out of the room, both hands pushing at the doors.
It was easy to think back to Lana when dealing with a case like Cora’s, but that didn’t mean it was easy letting go of the memories that came with it. But still, I tried every single day to right the wrongs I did during that time in our lives.
And trusting Cora when she said she felt uneasy with this mystery stalker was just one of them.
