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“Just finished going through the list…” I read aloud when the next message popped up. “And now she’s writing some more.”
“Oh Jesus,” Parker groaned. “Is she one of those people who has to send a whole new message after every breath?”
“Shut up!” I hissed, even though I had no idea why I wanted everyone to be silent. I didn’t need silence to read a fucking text.
But the insistent buzzing in my brain was already making everything else muzzy. A little silence would help me think clearer.
Professor Zweifel has the first name Joshua,
Waverly wrote next.
“Professor Zweifel?” I asked, lifting my face after reading that one for the guys. “Who the fuck is Professor Zweifel?”
Keene and Foster shook their heads, utterly clueless.
But Parker winced. “Oh, hell no. He’s not that creepy chemistry guy who’s always putting up those flyers around campus, looking for test subjects for his nutty research experiments, is he?”
Oaklynn’s phone buzzed again.
And he was in the library putting up flyers right when you came in to ask me for help tracking down the killer. He would’ve heard…
The rest of the message didn’t show up on the lock screen of Oaklynn’s phone, but I’d already read enough.
“Ohrley, I think you’re right.” I glanced up at the other three and shook Oaklynn’s phone. “This is our guy.”
Holy shit. I had a name for the man who’d killed my sister. After ten years of not knowing—of looking everywhere—I finally had a name.
And he now had the love of my life in his possession without her phone.
“Jesus.” I swayed, worried I was already too late. “We gotta fucking find him.”
“Well, the chemistry building’srightthere,” Keene said helpfully.
Good point. I surged toward it, heading straight through the trees to reach the building.
“If this is the test subject flyer dude we’re talking about,” Foster said, dogging my heels. “I know a guy on the team who went to him for some extra cash. Said the professor did most of his experiments and shit in the basement.”
The basement. Check. I could find the basement.
At the edge of the building, I spotted a backdoor that was obscured by a bunch of tall bushes and had a loud air conditioning unit running next to it.
I hurried to it and pulled on the handle. But it was locked. So I started to turn away, only for Keene to grab my arm and jerk me back.
“Dude, is that blood?” he called over the noise.
When he bent down and wiped his finger over the concrete pad in front of the door, he stood and showed me a drop of red coating his skin.
“Still wet.”
“Motherfucker,” I breathed before whirling away and taking off running until I found a door into the building that wasn’t locked.
Inside, the others piled after me, and we all went in separate directions until I heard Parker shout, “Found the stairs going down.”
I did an about-face and rushed that way, grabbing onto the banister so I could leap down three stairs at once.
“Jesus, man,” Parker warned as I passed him by. “Don’t break your damn neck before we find her.”
Ignoring him, I glanced both ways down a concrete-lined, echoing hall.
