Page 62 of Good Girls Lie

This can’t be happening, and yet it is.

Ford’s phone rings. It’s Asolo.

“Ash is in her room. She was asleep, sound asleep. Smells like she’s been drinking, she’s a little giggly, too. I heard some goings-on earlier, I think there was a tap tonight.”

“Ivy Bound?”

“If I had to guess, yes. It’s the right time in the term.”

“Oh, just what we need. How many of our students were out of bed tonight? Damn it all,” Ford exclaims. “Sober her up. Fast. The sheriff is going to want to talk to her and we can hardly afford to have them questioning her if she’s drunk.”

“I wonder if Camille was a part of the tap and it went wrong?”

“Don’t even say it. Get Becca Curtis, too. I don’t know if she’s running Ivy Bound, but it stands to reason she’d inherit the title. She’s my bet. Get both of them to my attic office and keep them there until I arrive. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Dean. I’m on it.” The phone goes dead. Out of the corner of her eye, Ford sees Rumi, standing nearly behind a tree. The look on his face is one of horror, the blue-and-white flashing of the sheriff’s light bar washing him out. He looks like a ghost. A wraith. And then she blinks, and he is gone, disappearing back into the woods.

She feels disloyal even thinking it.

Where was he when Camille fell?

40

THE PIECES

“Dean Westhaven?”

Sheriff Anthony Wood is waving to her. Ford drags her eyes away from the blank spot where her young lover stood, straightens.

“Sheriff.” She can barely speak the word.

“Do you know what happened?”

“I don’t. I was in my cabin working when I heard the scream. By the time I got here, she was gone.”

“Have you been drinking, Dean?”

“Are there laws against it?”

“I suppose you know we’re going to have to have a chat.”

“We should, yes. My office? Right now? I need to wash my hands.”

Camille’s blood is on her hands, her phone. God knows where else. She can’t wait to get away from the body. She needs to get her shit together, stall the sheriff long enough to get Ash sober—Becca, too, probably.

The woman in plainclothes joins them, glances at the sheet-covered body dispassionately. “Who’s the deceased?”

Ford deliberately ignores her. “Sheriff, let’s go inside.”

“Dean, this is Kate Wood. My niece. She’s here visiting.”

“Oh. I thought—”

“I’m with Charlottesville PD. Homicide.”

“How are you enjoying Marchburg?” Ford sounds inane, and hiccups back a tiny sob. “I’m sorry. This is all so terrible. To lose a student like this... Truly, Sheriff, may we?” She points to the back door of Main Hall, and he nods, following her up the back steps.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” his niece says. Those dark eyes are cool, shrewd, and Ford squirms a bit under her attention. They’re probably the same age, but Ford has the distinct feeling she is being judged and found lacking. She draws herself up to her full five feet six, squares her shoulders. Their footsteps echo on the tiles.