Page 61 of Cruel Abandon (Fallen Royals 5)

The sun shines dappled light onto the forest, glints hitting my face. The sky is a dazzling shade of blue, which is unusual for late October. We’ve only got two days to go before Halloween. By now, New England is having its last few good days and slipping toward snow.

There was frost the other morning.

Winter is approaching.

So close, yet so far away. Whoever put her here almost got away with it for an entire season. She’d be buried in snow. She’d bloat and freeze, maybe animals would’ve gotten to her.

When I close my eyes—slow blinks are all I can manage—I see the flash of red against her throat. Bright blood, still shiny.

So recent, it might still hurt.

“Here,” Tarryn yells after an eternity.

I hadn’t realized she was close, maybe watching. Maybe not.

“She—they’re down there.”

“Two of them?” a man asks.

Their voices float down to me.

“Skylar was hiking with me,” Taryn answers. “She fell, that’s how—”

“Okay, easy now. You stay up here, all right? Come on, McAdams.”

Sliding, grunting, and finally, a face appears in my vision. A plainclothes detective, younger than I would’ve guessed, with a badge on his hip.

I automatically flinch and bring my hands up to my face.

“You okay?” he asks.

I sniffle, wiping under my nose with my sleeve. “Yes.”

He extends his hand and lifts me back to my feet. He doesn’t release me until I’ve caught my balance, and I don’t notice that he’s peering at my forehead until his gloved thumb touches the wound there.

I jerk back.

“You might need stitches,” he says. “But the paramedics will check you out. I’m Detective Bill Ingles. Friends call me Billy.”

“Okay,” I say. My gaze goes over his shoulder, to the detective I’m more familiar with. McAdams is at the hole—it’s a grave—squatting above Natalie.

Billy rotates us slightly, until I can’t see her anymore.

Not her. The body.

“You spoke to Whitney,” I say in a wooden voice.

“That’s right. You came to the station with her. You know her? Friends?”

“Roommate.” I try swallowing, but my throat is dry.

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asks.

“Taryn and I were heading up to the water tower for pictures. It’s part of our assignment for Environmental Economics. We have to design a clean energy plan for another country and compare it to… here.” My head throbs. I’d kill for aspirin and a water bottle.

My throat hurts like I had been screaming for the past hour.

“Whose idea was it to come out here?”