Chapter 13 - The Man at the Dorm
Mara called Nora before the text finished loading.
“Do not go outside.”
“I’m not.” Nora sounded scared. “He keeps telling the desk he just wants to talk.”
Julian was already moving.
“Rachel, stay here. Call campus security. I’ll contact Moreno.”
Mara grabbed her coat.
“You’re not going alone,” Julian said.
“I wasn’t asking.”
They reached the university in twenty-three minutes.
Police were already outside Nora’s residence hall.
Richard Ashford stood near the curb in a camel coat, speaking calmly to an officer as if he were a donor inconvenienced by bad parking.
He saw Mara and smiled.
That smile made her nineteen again.
“Mara Ellison.”
She stopped ten feet away.
“You remember me.”
“Of course.”
Julian stepped beside her.
Richard’s smile faded by one degree.
“Julian. I’m sorry your engagement dinner became a circus.”
“You came to a nineteen-year-old girl’s dorm after midnight.”
“I came to correct a misunderstanding.”
Mara laughed.
“You mean the misunderstanding where your daughter framed me twice?”
Richard sighed.
“Celeste has always been emotional.”
“Don’t do that,” Mara said.
“Do what?”
“Throw her under the bus because the cameras caught her.”
Something flashed in his eyes.
Good.
She had found the nerve.
Julian held up his phone.
“We found Box 14C.”
Richard’s face finally changed.
Only for a second.
But it changed.
Mara saw it.
Julian did too.
“You should have destroyed it,” Richard said.
The officer nearest them turned.
Richard smiled again. “Hypothetically.”
Moreno arrived from the parking lot.
“Mr. Ashford, I’d like you to come downtown voluntarily.”
“My attorney will contact you.”
“You can do that. But you are leaving this campus now.”
Richard looked at Mara.
“You think a video fixes your life?”
“No.”
“Then what do you want?”
Mara thought about every casting director who stopped returning calls. Every landlord deposit she had struggled to cover. Every night Nora pretended she wasn’t hungry so Mara would eat.
“I want the truth to cost you something.”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
Then he leaned slightly closer.
“You still don’t know what happened after the crash.”
Mara stared at him.
He nodded toward Julian.
“Ask your billionaire why the brake report was sealed.”
Julian frowned.
“What brake report?”
May you like
Richard’s smile returned.
And Mara realized the crash itself might never have been an accident.
