by Kate Anders
“So not in the apartment?” I question.
“No.”
“She wasn’t held there then?” I ask.
“It doesn’t appear that way, no.”
“Then he obviously had somewhere else. A second location he took her to. Who’s to say evidence of a partner isn’t there?” I say with a slightly mocking tone.
“Kenzie, I’m not saying we aren’t going to look into the possibility, and if evidence comes up to support your theory—”
“It’s not a theory,” I seethe.
“We will, of course, certainly investigate any evidence that points us to anyone else involved in the crime.” He sounds like a robot, just giving me the canned answer.
“I’m evidence! I’m a witness. I’m telling you, there is a partner.”
“Again, we have nothing to go on in regards to a partner—”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me. Even you have to admit we never figured out showed up at the registrar’s office to withdrawal Clara, the supposed uncle. What if that’s the partner?” I let go of Will’s hand to throw my hands up in the air.
“Looking at the surveillance footage, there is no way to tell if the man claiming to be Clara’s uncle is Jonathan Nash or not. There’s no reason to think it isn’t. Kenzie, I promise, I am going to look into every avenue that comes up, I swear it to you,” Joe finally pipes in.
“Joe. You don’t even know where she is. She’s out there somewhere and even if you are right and there isn’t a partner, he’s dead. He’s not going to be keeping her alive. She’s on a clock,” I implore.
Joe looks down and takes a deep breath. And that’s when I know the ground is about to drop out from beneath me.
“Honey, I’m sorry, but right now, we don’t think Clara is alive. We think most likely he knew people were starting to get closer, especially you, and he was cleaning up loose ends.” Joe explains slowly with sadness in his voice.
“Why? Why do you think that?” I whisper.
I know he wouldn’t be saying this if he didn’t believe it. He wouldn’t just tell me that he believes my friend is dead without having something to back it up.
“We found Jenny.”
I start shaking my head.
“No.” I won’t believe it. I can’t. “No.”
“I’m sorry. She hadn’t been dead for very long, probably only a few hours before he went after you. We are searching areas all around where we found her to look for Clara, but right now there’s no reason not to believe he followed the same pattern with Clara as he did with Jenny.”
“You’re wrong. I know you’re wrong. I would know. I would know if she were gone. He said. He said the partner was going to take—” My voice breaks, and I can’t hold back the tears.
Will wraps his arms around me gingerly, clearly avoiding my injuries. I don’t want to lean on him. I don’t want to accept this. I can’t.
Looking at Joe, he looks crushed.
“I really am so sorry, Kenzie,” Joe says quietly. “We are going to follow every clue we find. I will chase down everything myself if I need to, so we can bring you the closure I know you need.”
Closure.
Closure doesn’t exist.
After what seems like forever, Will and I are finally leaving the police station. I’m in a daze. I can’t believe after everything; this is where we are.
That they are all just giving up.
I don’t believe any of it.
Clara is alive.
I know it with every fiber of my body.
But as much as I know it to be true, reluctantly I have to admit I kind of understand why they would believe that she isn’t. Finding Jenny was surprising, and honestly not a good sign of Clara’s fate.
I’m even more ashamed I forgot about Jenny. During the past twelve hours, all I was thinking about was Clara. When Jonathan and I were in the parking lot, I never even considered Jenny. I never asked about her. I never wondered what was happening to her.
I had tunnel vision.
Clara was my only thought.
And I feel horrible.
Jenny had a family. One who loved her.
Friends who were on campus passing out flyers trying to find her, just like I was trying to find Clara.
And I didn’t even try. I don’t have anything to share with them about Jenny.
“Come on, let’s get you back to my house,” Will says quietly when I stop moving toward the parking lot.
I shake my head. I can’t.
“No. I want to go home.” My voice is monotone. Like there is no room for emotion left in me.
“Kenzie, I promise I will take you back to your apartment tomorrow if you want, but not tonight. You need rest and someone with you,” he explains softly.
“No. I want to be closer to Clara. And you all insist the threat is over. I want to go home. The last place I knew for sure she was.” My voice is still monotone but tears leak from my eyes.
There’s a pause. Like he’s weighing his options.
“Okay.”
And with that, we start moving again.
Arriving back at my apartment is soul crushing. Every single square inch of my apartment is filled with memories.
Conversations about nothing.
Tears shed over our pasts.
Hours of advice about boys.
Countless movie nights with ice cream and popcorn.
The endless attempts by Clara to get me to understand her life’s passion.
And every other small mundane moment in between.
“I’m going to stay here with you tonight if it’s okay. Just in case you need anything,” Will says.
I nod.
“I’ll take the couch.”
And that’s when the phrase that has been repeating in my head over and over again all night long finally makes its way out.
“What comes next?” I ask.
“Anything you need,” he replies simply.
“No. Really. What comes next? Literally.”
His eyes search my face for a while before he answers.
“Well, I’m sure there will be more questions. Memorials and funerals, probably some on campus. It won’t be easy. It will take time. But eventually, life will keep moving. You’ll go to class, graduate, start your life. You’ll carry this with you always, but life keeps moving, even when we don’t want it to,” he says gently.
“I don’t think I can,” I confess.
Will walks me over to the couch and sits down next to me before taking hold of my hand again.
“I know you don’t, but you can, you will.”
“No. You don’t understand. I don’t want to. I don’t want to go back to class. I don’t want to graduate. I don’t want to be on campus. I don’t want any of it. None of it matters anymore.”
“That’s okay, you can take a break, step back, figure out what comes next, it’s normal. You’ve been through something horrible, it’s completely okay to reassess what you want to do now.”
The thing is I don’t know what I want, I only know what I don’t want. And I don’t ever want to be on campus again. I don’t care about graduating anymore. I don’t want to teach. I don’t want to apply to graduate school. I don’t want any of this life of academia that Clara loves so much.
But Will is right about one thing. Life keeps going. Bills still need to be paid. I still need to eat. The world keeps turning.
“I can’t afford it,” I whisper.
“Can’t afford what?”
“Time,” I say simply. “I won’t be able to make rent or pay my bills.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” I look around the apartment. “I won’t be able to stay here.” My voice cracks.
“Come work for me,” Will blurts out.
“What?” I must not have heard him right.
“You said you don’t know what you’re going to do next, but you need time. I can give you time. You can help me get the office together just like we talked about. You have good instinc
ts and I could use someone who will push back against my stubborn ass. Plus, I can help you while you heal.”
I know he’s talking about more than just the injuries on my body.
“Will, you don’t have to do that.” I meet his eyes and they look so sincere. Not an ounce of pity in them.
“I know. I want to. I can teach you what I know, and you can stay for a long or short as you want, but at least you can get back on your feet,” he explains.
“Will,” I start.
“Plus, it would be nice to have you around. We could get to know each other. Maybe we could help each other.” His eyes search mine.
The idea is beyond tempting. Will is the only person in the world right now who brings me any sense of safety and security. But more than that, he calms my broken heart.
I think about the people he works for; I think about the cases that might come across his desk. I think about the friends and families who must come to him for help. Exactly like how I came to him for help. I never want any of those people to feel like I do in this moment.
But more than that, I still believe Clara is out there. I believe there is a partner. I don’t care what anyone says. Will made way more progress than the police did. And if he can teach me how to investigate, maybe, just maybe, I have a shot at finding Clara, when clearly no one else is going to be looking for anything more than a body.
“Yes,” I say with conviction.
“Yes?” A look of hope crosses his face.
“Yes. I want to work with you.”
He smiles at me softly, and I know then my life is going down a path I never suspected.
But I know it’s the one I was meant for.
EPILOGUE
“GOODBYE, DEAR FRIEND” BY DEER TICK
Will is right about one thing.
Life keeps going.
The days keep passing.
Sometimes it feels like someone pushed the fast-forward button on the world but I was still standing still.
Sometimes it feels like I am rushing through it all but I can’t keep up.
Time is constant. But perception is the fickle part.
Weeks have passed, and the flurry of activity has begun to settle.
At first there were questions.
Questions all the time.
Police. Reporters. Neighbors. Students. Friends of the missing.
Everyone had questions.
I answered those from the police. And those of the loved ones.
To everyone else, it was a sideshow. A car wreck that you slow down to look at on the highway.
I didn’t entertain those questions.
Answers came too. Not enough answers.
Police did their jobs, and Joe kept me updated every step of the way.
They tore apart the life of Jonathan Nash. As unremarkable as it was.
Everyone had a theory about why he did what he did.
But he was dead and some answers we would just never get.
They did manage to find where he kept the missing women.
Most nights, I wish I didn’t get the answers to the questions I had about that.
The description of the room.
Where they went to the bathroom.
What he mostly did to them.
The pieces of themselves they left behind.
It’s the kind of thing nightmares are made of.
But there were no bodies.
Just Jenny.
She left this earth with his hands wrapped around her neck. Apparently, the same way the first woman was found.
The terror she must have felt as she felt her body start to slip away, only able to see his face above her own.
Police believe at this time that all of the women are dead. Even if no other bodies have been recovered. That the night he went after me in the woods, he must have panicked and started getting rid of loose ends.
I never want to hear women described as ‘loose ends’ ever again.
I avoided campus as much as possible.
Never going back to class.
I withdrew from the university. My adviser and the administration were very kind. After all, I was the almost victim of a serial killer. No one knew what to say though. Just a simple “we’re here for whatever you need,” and of course, that I could come back whenever I was ready.
I would never be ready.
I knew that.
Which brings us to now.
The sky looks like my soul. Gray and overcast, rain leaking from the sky, much like my tears do at night when I’m alone.
The weather is warmer. Further proof that time keeps moving forward, no matter how unready I am.
Today is the day I have been dreading. The last time I will need to be on campus.
It’s the day of the memorial.
They waited. I suppose, hoping that more women would be found and more closure could be brought to those who knew them. Eventually though, people wanted closure, even if it wasn’t really real.
Everyone holds white candles in their hands, by some miracle, they stay lit even against the drizzle falling from the sky.
People go up to the dais and talk about how loved these women were.
Clara’s professors talk about how smart she was, how much promise she had, how they will always remember her as one of their best and brightest students. The kind of student that makes them love being a teacher.
I listen to it all.
I resist the urge to scream out that she’s still alive.
I’ve seen how people respond to that over the past few weeks. I can’t stand the looks of pity and the whispers about how sad it is that I just can’t accept reality.
So instead I just stand in the back and listen to people remember. My hands in my pockets, the rain on my skin. My fingertips rest just on top of the metal that means everything.
As everyone bows their head in a moment of silence, I pull out Clara’s locket from my pocket and place it around my neck. While everyone else is praying for those they have lost, I’m making a vow.
A vow to find her.
No matter how long it takes.
I will never give up.
And I will carry this locket next to my heart until I can put it around her neck once more, where it belonged all along.
WANT MORE KENZIE SHARP
Continue the search for Clara with Kenzie while she learns how to become a private investigator alongside Will. Can they work together to find the answers she needs?
SHARP BETRAYAL
Coming June 2022
Preorder Now
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kate was born and raised in Texas, and after almost a decade as an army wife, settled in North Carolina. She lives with her husband and their four dogs: Anders, Khaleesi, Patrick, and Charlie. Kate spends a great deal of her time reading new books from all over the romance genre, binge watching TV, practicing cooking, and obsessing about all things nerdy.
SEASON OF JUSTICE
In 2020 alone more than 540,000 people went missing, with more than 340,000 of those being children. So many of these cases will never get any media coverage. Many of these families will go without answers.
Like many people during the pandem
ic, I started listening to podcasts. One of my favorites has been Crime Junkie, a podcast that talks about a variety of cases, some that are even decades old. While I was listening to this podcast an overwhelming theme that kept coming up was people just disappearing one day. Sometimes families knew right away, sometimes it took days or weeks. Sometimes the police were invested right from the start, in other cases it would take months. But the overwhelming consensus seems to be the sooner the better.
I have always wanted to write a book, and this is where I had my moment of inspiration. What happens if no one believes the person in question is missing? What if that person has no family to propel the investigation forward? Would that person ever be found? Would anyone even look?
I know I am one of the lucky ones. If I ever went missing, my husband and parents would move to mountains to find me. But not everyone has that. I want to highlight organizations that help with real life versions of the events in my book. So for this book I picked Season of Justice. It’s the non-profit organization started by the people who make Crime Junkie. The goal of this organization is to help law enforcement and families help solve cold cases. So if you are so inclined, please consider donating to Season of Justice.
Season of Justice
www.seasonofjustice.org
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, thank you to my husband. He has been my biggest cheerleader for our entire marriage. I could wake up tomorrow and tell him I wanted to go to space and he would be like, let’s figure out how to do that. So when I said I wanted to write a book he was like let’s plot it out. He checks in on my progress everyday, texts me all the time while he’s at work that he’s proud of me, and he takes an interest in a genre that isn’t his thing. Without him I am certain I would have never pushed through to write the book let alone publish it.
Next, is my mom. There has never been a time in my life where books did not play a major role, and that is 100% because of my mom. There was never a time when I didn’t have access to as many books as I wanted, no matter what else was going on in our lives. She fostered my love of books right from the beginning. I have carried that with me through my entire childhood, into college, and now with pursuing my dream of being an author. Without my mom I know I would never have written this book.
