Adrienne doesn’t tear her eyes away from the scene down in the parking lot as she whispers, “He was hit by a car last night. He died almost instantly.”
“He… he’s dead?” Surprised sadness builds inside me. Professor Rook may have been a terrible person, but he didn’t deserve to die so abruptly. On its heels, relief seeps in. If Professor Rook is dead, my former bad habit is safe. Aside from the professor, my stepsister is the only one who knows, and she would never rat me out. A wave of guilt hits. What kind of monster am I that I feel relief at another person’s demise?
Turning from Adrienne, I watch the scene playing out on the street. Two police officers are standing there, talking. Right where the accident happened.
Adrienne nods. “It was a hit and run. Whoever it was didn’t stop. They left him in the middle of the road. He was out there when the storm hit.” Her voice breaks, and she covers her mouth to hide the revulsion coursing over her features.
Indignation courses through me. What kind of selfish ignoramus would hit a person with their car and leave them there alone to die?
Wait.
He was killed before the storm hit?
Something in my gut clenches, hardening into dread. It creeps into my chest and curls its sharp, piercing fingers around my heart.
My eyes won’t look away from the black car I now understand probably belongs to the morgue. Where they’ll take the body to examine it for clues, to see if they can identify the driver who hit Professor Rook. His killer.
I try to gulp down the bile rising in my throat. Rub my fingers along my neck in an effort to slow my pulse. “Do they know what time he was hit?”
Adrienne’s auburn curls brush her shoulders as she shakes her head. “I don’t know. Before the storm, sometime? They haven’t said anything official yet. The police.”
But I already know what time it was when Professor Rook was hit. It was 11:17, right before the rain started.
My stomach heaves, but I force it to quell its rocking.
How do I know? Because that discarded tire? It had to be him.
I killed Professor Rook.
4
I’m a murderer.
5
My stomach won’t stop doing summersaults, and I must be turning green because Adrienne is watching me with a sympathetic expression. “I’m so sorry about this,” she says. “You must have been close to him, despite everything, and hearing that he’s dead… It’s hard.”
I don’t correct her. Better for her to believe I’m sad over Professor Rook’s death than for her to find out I’m the one who killed him. If I tell her, she’ll insist I come forward. Admit to what I’ve done. But if I do that, I’ll be arrested. Charged with manslaughter, at least. It wouldn’t take much for the police to discover I’d had a drink before I got behind the wheel, which would add another charge to the list.
If it came out that Professor Rook was selling drugs, it would lead to even more questions. If anyone found out I had bought from him, they’d never believe his death was an accident.
I’ve seen how public opinion can be swayed by journalists after something like this happens. It would only take one article with less-than-flattering wording, and everyone in the country would think I got rid of Professor Rook to cover my tracks. I’d be tried and condemned in the public eye by the end of the hour. Even if by some miracle I wasn’t convicted of a crime in a court of law, in the eyes of the public, I’d be guilty. A cold-blooded murderer.
Something like that will follow me for the rest of my life. My privacy, gone. My future at Georgetown, gone. My career in politics, gone. Along with any hope I have of helping our country improve for everyone who lives here.
I can’t let that happen.
A muffled buzzing hits the shell of my ear. My phone.
I’m tempted to ignore it, my frazzled nerves making me jittery.
The buzzing doesn’t stop, and my sister bends over to retrieve the device from where I left it in my clutch purse last night. Her face blanches when she sees the screen. “It’s your mom.”
My heart freefalls with a clang into my feet. I cannot talk to my mom right now. She’ll know the second she hears my voice that something is wrong. But if I don’t answer… She’d be arriving at