Page 45 of Ice Covered Heart

He didn’t move from his position in front of her. “I didn’t want to live, Shelby.” Low. Carrying only to her.

Her brow furrowed.

Hell, had those words been too low? Voice louder, he said, “We need to talk. Alone.”

Her long lashes fluttered.

“You got me out of hell.” Truth. Grim.

“What? No, no, I didn’t.”

“You did. I was in hell. Didn’t want to fight. Guilt and grief and fury were all I knew, and then I heard about you. I saw you.” He did not want to have this conversation in the damn diner. Hunter spun around and stalked toward the counter. Rochelle glanced up at him.

“We’re gonna need those burgers to go,” he told her.

She sent a sympathetic glance toward Shelby. “Give me just a few minutes. I’ll box them up for you.”

Did he have a few minutes? Or was Shelby about to leave his ass right then and there? If she did leave, he’d chase after her.

But you can’t make her stay. You can’t make her continue her partnership with you.

He was so screwed. Maybe he should have told her everything from the beginning. But he’d been trying to avoid this very thing…her, staring at him as if he was one of the monsters in her life.

She began to brush past him.

He turned toward her. “Shelby.”

Her gaze met his.

“I can help you. I will help you, even if you walk away from me right now. I won’t stop the investigation.” He would not, but…don’t walk away. Stay. Give me a chance to explain.

Her gaze cut to the door.

He held his breath.

And…she stayed.

Yes, yes, yes! Tiffany practically flew to her destination because she was thrilled. Thrilled. This was it. What she’d been waiting for. Her major break. She was always on the lookout for fresh content, but to have the only survivor of the Sorority Seven Killer just waltz into the diner where she’d been sitting…

I am the luckiest bitch alive.

She’d been working on her criminal psych paper. Been thinking about the ways she could incorporate her latest correspondence in the research. The bell over the diner’s door had jingled, she’d glanced up, seen the handsome guy with muscles for days and thought, yep, I’d do him. But then, a bit later, when she’d realized exactly who the woman with the handsome man was…

She’d nearly fallen right out of the booth.

Sure, sure, with the anniversary coming up and the big dedication, Tiffany had known there was a chance that Shelby Carter might return to town. There had been plenty of whispers that the college admin had invited her back. How could you not invite the survivor back to the dedication? But no one had actually thought that Shelby would show up in Hathaway. She’d left town years ago. Seemingly vanished from the face of the earth. No social media—seriously, how did someone not have social media? No news stories about her at all. Just…poof.

Shelby might as well have been dead.

If Tiffany had been the one to survive, oh, wow, but she would have been everywhere. Her social media following would be huge. She would still be making the talk show rounds. She’d have written several tell-all books. Shelby had written zero books. She’d done zero big-time interviews. All the movies that had been made had been done so without her cooperation or permission.

Unauthorized. Yep. All of it.

I would have done things so differently. Some people just didn’t know what to do with fame. But Tiffany knew. Oh, she did. Bet on it.

She also knew how to perfectly follow up her last live video. Her breath heaved in and out as she parked her car and leapt from the vehicle. Her designer sneakers flew over the grass before she stopped in front of the fountain. The fountain was quiet and dark, not running now because the big dedication ceremony hadn’t happened yet.

Not for a few more days.