“I’m in Bend.”
“Oh.”
When she didn’t say anything else, I got worried.
“Morgan?”
“You didn’t have to come here,” she said slowly. “I’m pretty sure my sister’s going to be pissed if she knows you did.”
“I’m here for you,” I said simply. “Where are you?”
“But I’m here for my sister,” she said, not quite an argument, but close enough.
“Morgan, where are you?”
Surprisingly, she didn’t hesitate when she rattled off her sister’s building name and room number, and as soon as I got off the phone I headed in that direction. Bend is a growing town, but it isn’t very big. However, it’s pretty spread out. It took me about twenty minutes to get to the university’s campus, but only five to find Miranda’s building and charm my way inside.
Their security was shit. All I’d had to do was ask someone to hold the door for me as I’d pretended to look for something in my pockets, and I’d been let inside without a thought. I knew most colleges were that way. I’d visited Kate at school years ago and it had been the same in her dorm building, and it had bothered me then just as much as it bothered me now.
I found Miranda’s room easily, and before I’d even knocked I could hear Etta chattering inside.
“Who are you?” a girl who looked almost exactly like Morgan asked as soon as she answered the door. Her hair was cut short on the sides and she had an eyebrow ring. She also had puffy dark half-circles under her eyes.
“Twevo!” Etta yelled, running past Miranda. “You heah!”
“Hey, baby girl,” I responded, swinging her up as she reached me. “I missed you.”
“Me missed you!” she tightened her arms around my neck and pressed her cheek to mine as I met Miranda’s eyes.
“I should have known she’d call you,” she said in resignation. “Come on in.”
The room was small, but tidy. There was a desk and chair, a bed, and a tall dresser, but nothing that shouted someone with a personality actually lived there. Everything was—blank. Like a clean slate.
“I’m not much of a decorator,” Miranda said with a shrug when she noticed my perusal.
“Me either,” I confessed. “But I’m pretty sure I’m better at it than you.”
Miranda smiled, but I didn’t get the chuckle I was hoping for. Instead, she glanced at the woman lying with her back to us, her body wrapped in a sweater on top of a bare mattress.
“Morgan just finally passed out,” she said quietly. “She was up all night.”
“Did you get some sleep?” I asked gently, staying where I was by the door.
I was a big man, and I’d been a big man since I was about sixteen years old. And in that small dorm room, with a girl who’d just been terrorized and couldn’t even remember it, I probably seemed even bigger. I wasn’t about to move any closer.
“I got some,” she answered, smiling wanly. “Probably still dealing with some aftereffects.”
She said it so calmly that I had a hard time controlling my expression.
“You should tell someone,” I said, leaning over to set Etta on the floor when she started to wiggle.
“Who?” Miranda asked, shrugging one shoulder. “The police? I don’t know anything. I can’t even remember what happened after I walked out that door.” She pointed to the door at my back. “I’m pretty sure I waited too long for any blood test to tell us what I took, and I’m sure as hell not letting any doctor feel me up in the off chance that they’ll find a hair that’s not mine.”
“You have a pretty cynical view of the system,” I replied calmly.
“Oh, come on, man,” she replied with a scoff. “You know it’s true. Plus, you know what everyone will think. That girl shouldn’t have gone out alone. She should have been more careful. Why does she think we can help her, when she doesn’t have any fucking clue what happened? Maybe she’s making it up. Maybe she drank too much and now she’s trying to play it off like she doesn’t remember.”
“Bullshit,” I said, finally cutting off her diatribe. “I haven’t thought a single one of those things.”
“You’re not a cop.”
“Why the fuck does that matter?”
“Because, it does,” she ground out. “Cops look at women like me, and they see trash.”
“No one could look at you and see trash,” I countered, shaking my head. “Not a single person.”
“Oh, yeah?” she said. “You know how many times my social worker looked the other way when I was in the system? Do you know how many times I called the cops that year and they looked the other way?”
“Cops are just like any other group of people,” I argued. I knew that as much as anyone. It sucked but it was the truth. “You’ve got bad ones and good ones. Shitbags and heroes.”