Page 33 of You Belong Here

“Look,” Paul said, opening his empty hands, “we don’t believe in a surveillance state here.

No one likes to feel they’re being watched all the time.

There are generally cameras positioned outside the buildings, in case of property damage.

And like Amanda said, at the blue-light phones, so we can see who’s calling.

Other than that, there’s no way we can account for every entrance or egress on campus. ”

I turned then to face Fred Mayhew, who had remained silent till this point. I realized he had been only listening. Observing.

At the moment, I didn’t care what Mayhew thought of me—whether he was an ally or a skeptic—but I knew he would understand. He would understand that, in this town, there might be something dangerous and unspoken about my daughter’s last name.

“I don’t think she’s on campus,” I said to him. “I think she’s somewhere in the woods.” Their jurisdiction. Not the school’s. It was probably why the township police were here at all.

“What makes you think that?” Mayhew asked, readjusting in his seat. He opened a notebook but looked directly into my eyes. The rest of the room had fallen silent.

“She called me last night. Around two a.m. She didn’t speak, but I could hear the outside.”

He stared back, unblinking. “What did you hear, ma’am?”

Ma’am, he’d said, like he was putting on an act for the others in this room. As if he hadn’t used my first name a hundred times before. Beckett, stop protecting her and give it to me straight—

“The wind,” I said. “And then the call dropped.”

“Okay, look. This is what we’re gonna do,” Paul Signs said, trying to get on top of the meeting again.

“We’re gonna start here, canvass the school, knock on doors.

Talk to more students, see if anyone knew her plans.

” Then he gestured to Mayhew at the other end of the table.

“The Wyatt Valley PD will check around town. They’ll ask the owners of shops or restaurants to check their cameras from last night, see if they can spot her. ”

I knew there were cameras around downtown, but not many—the deli didn’t even take credit cards. There might be some doorbell cameras in residential areas. Still, I thought they were starting in the wrong place.

“We could use your help to get a couple recent photos. We have her school ID, but it’s best to have some candid shots,” Paul Signs said.

Finally the reason we were here. This I could do. I opened my phone, scrolled back to orientation, showed him the photo of Delilah standing in front of Beckett Hall, her arms spread wide. “How’s this?” I asked.

“Perfect. And if you have one with her hair pulled back. You’d be surprised how much that can matter in an identification.”

I scrolled back further in time, to our backpacking trip from the summer.

He nodded again, taking out his own phone. “Yes. Please airdrop both of those to me. I’ll circulate them among the group.”

“She’s a hiker,” Mayhew said.

“Not at midnight,” I snapped, sharing the photos with the other devices in the room. She might’ve been young and reckless, but she was smart. She knew the dangers.

Paul Signs stood suddenly. “We’ll ask the students. Check to see if there was some sort of trip planned.” He gestured between me and the detective. “Just to cover our bases.”

Cliff adjusted his blazer as he stood. “Can either of you think of anywhere else she might’ve gone?”

“My parents’ house,” I said. “But it was the first place I checked.” I shook my head. “They’re away for the semester, but I think someone else has been in there.”

“Delilah?” Fred Mayhew asked. He was staring at me in a way that unsettled me.

I paused before answering. “I don’t know.” Yes, Delilah. But someone else, too. Someone who wrote threatening notes on the walls. Who chased her from the dorm. Scared her from her family home. Who might still be after her—

I needed to keep them from viewing me as a paranoid parent seeing the danger around every corner the first time their child left home. “Her roommate made it seem like she wasn’t staying in her room anymore,” I added. “Delilah has mentioned a girl named Sierra. Maybe check the registry?”

Amanda took a deep breath, then typed the name in her laptop. “No Sierra,” she said, as if I were the one who was mistaken. Maybe it was a nickname. A middle name.

I pulled out my phone for evidence. “There’s another girl. An upperclassman. Gen with a G. I don’t know her last name, but here.” I turned the screen to face Amanda with Gen’s profile picture. It was a place for them to start.

“That would be Genevieve Ryan,” Amanda said, softening. “Third year, theater major.” As if this were Amanda’s main role—to know the names and details of every student.

Paul nodded. “Wouldn’t hurt for you to ask around near your parents’ place. Knock on some doors. Make sure we’re not missing something obvious.”

It wasn’t a bad idea. Cliff had mentioned noticing the lights on. Maybe one of the neighbors had spoken to her.

As head of security, Paul made sure to exchange contact numbers with everyone. “I’ll be the central point of contact,” he said. “Call if you think of anything at all. We’ll be in touch with any updates.”

Trevor and I left the building together, though the rest of the group seemed to be waiting inside. Dissecting the meeting, perhaps. Deciding what they really thought, sharing their opinions of the case—or us. We entered his car in silence.

Trevor looked over at me, and I could see it in his eyes: He wanted to believe them. He wanted to trust them. “Beckett, it’s going to be okay,” he said, as if this were the one thing he could do.

I nodded, but I couldn’t say anything back. I feared he’d be able to hear it in my voice: the uncertainty; the fear, growing with every passing moment.

“You’ve done a really good job,” he said. “They know where to look, how to begin.” Trevor started the car, staring back through the window for a moment. I saw his throat move, like it had finally become real for him. “They’re moving fast.”

I knew this was a good thing, but it didn’t do anything to ease my fears.

A weight had settled deep in my gut the moment we stepped into the room. The moment I saw everyone gathered around that table.

They were moving fast because they somehow understood—even in the absence of evidence—that something was very wrong here.