Page 72 of Ice Covered Heart

“I heard it was a copycat.” Another throat clearing from Kimber. Her voice raised as she declared, “I heard it was a⁠—”

“I got you the first time.” Shelby pulled back her hair and tapped her right ear. “I have my aid in place. You don’t have to shout.”

Kimber squinted as she stared at the hearing aid.

“No need to shout, but you do need to let us in.” Hunter edged closer to the door. “Don’t want to keep Jonah waiting longer, do we?”

“Oh, no. No, I suppose we don’t.” Kimber pulled out her phone and swiped it near an electric pad on the side of the door.

Shelby frowned at the pad. That pad had certainly not been in place seven years ago. “That’s new.”

“Security upgrades. After the, um, well, incidents all those years ago, campus security launched a complete rebrand, you could say.” Kimber wiggled her phone. “Only registered students or administrators can get in and out of residence halls.”

“Nate was a registered student,” Shelby pointed out.

Kimber stopped wiggling her phone. “Right.” She turned and shoved open the—apparently—now unlocked door. “Come this way. Jonah—uh, Detective Campbell—is on the second floor. That’s where Tiffany’s room is. Or, was. That was her room.” A soft exhale.

Hunter and Shelby followed her inside.

“I was just on my way to meet him, too,” Kimber explained. Her heels tapped on the floor. “Wanted to talk about mitigation strategies that we could use so that our families understand this is an isolated incident.” Kimber turned to the right and began to climb the staircase. “We certainly want them to feel comfortable having their students return to⁠—”

“How do you know it’s an isolated incident?” Hunter’s voice rang out, seeming to echo around them.

Kimber turned toward them. She kept one hand on the banister. “What else could it have been? Probably some sort of lover’s quarrel. Tiffany must have been meeting someone at the fountain. A date, perhaps. They fought. In a moment of passion, he killed her.”

Well, that was actually an option that Shelby had not considered. “You really think that’s what happened?” A crime of passion?

“What else could it be?” Once again, Kimber headed up the stairs.

Shelby started to follow her.

But Hunter threw out a hand, wrapping it around her waist and stopping her. He bent near her left ear and whispered, “What’s gonna happen when Jonah says he had no idea we were coming here today? Think Kimber will kick us out?”

She eased out a slow breath. “He’s not going to say that.” Her head turned toward Hunter.

“Oh?”

Deliberately, she stared at him, raised her hand…and crooked her finger. “You said this would work.”

“You said it wouldn’t.”

“Yes, well, I’m hoping you were the one who was right in that argument.”

“Are you coming?” Kimber called out.

They hurried up the stairs. Only to the second floor. Not to the top floor, where Shelby had once lived. They stopped on the second floor, turned to the left, went down three doors, and Kimber nearly slammed straight into Jonah when he came rushing out of room two-oh-eight.

He did a double-take when he saw Shelby and Hunter behind Kimber. Okay, really, she was not going to crook her finger because that would be embarrassing and would not work, but she could talk quickly, and she could say, “Jonah, listen⁠—”

He surged around Kimber and grabbed Shelby’s wrist in a tight, fierce grip.

Hunter growled. A deep sound of menace.

Jonah immediately let her go. “I was just about to call you. I need you to see something,” he told her. His face appeared extra grim. His gaze cut to Hunter. “Both of you.” He spun around and marched back into the dorm room.

Shelby followed him, with Hunter right on her heels.

“Uh, me, too?” Kimber called after them. Her heels clattered. “Do you want to show me, too? When he called me, the college president told me to stay close and monitor—oh, dear God, what is this?” She’d rushed into the room, too.