Page 113 of Forever Defiant
That’s why we started talking again. Well, not exactlyagain. We hadn’t officially fallen out, but after our ‘exchange,’ as I called it, Dante then told her about Dustin and me hooking up. Savannah called me the next day to ask if I wanted to meet for coffee.
Ireallyneeded to meet for coffee.
She’d let me rant, in explicit detail, and when it was over, she’d bought me a donut, and we went to the sports bar and played darts, and every arrow I threw, I imagined it was Dustin Slater’s stupid, smug face.
“I’m not talking about Dustin anymore.”
“You just reorganized all my pens because you’re angry.”
I stared at her. She stared back, completely unbothered.
“Anyway,” she continued, “where are we on theMystery of Mason Sterling and the Athletic Department of Doom?”
“We’re not calling it that.”
“It’s a working title.” Her hand sneaked into my purse and snagged another Twizzler.
“It really isn’t. Just take the bag out. I can see you, you’re not even subtle.” I gripped my ponytail, pulling the tail tight, feeling the burn in every nerve ending on my scalp. “Mary said the girl filed three drafts of the complaint. All different. All inconsistent. All deleted.”
Savannah nodded slowly. “Which screams trauma.”
“Exactly.” I resumed pacing. “And the admin deletedMary’sdraft. Twice. That’s not incompetence. That’s intentional.”
“Which means... someone higher up wanted it erased.”
“Exactly. And whoever that was, they sent Mason home before anyone could talk to him.” I thought about why they sent him away. “Do you think he knew something? Like... he wasn’t guilty but saw something else?”
Savannah sat up. “Maybe? Or,” she said, voice dropping, “someone needed a fall guy fast, and he was an easy pick.”
I paused midstep. That was the part I couldn’t shake. Something felt weird. “We know they stopped the story,” I said. “We know that might not have been the real version. So that means it’s worse? Or... they were sloppy and overreacted, and now it just looks worse, but it isn’t.”
Savannah looked at me carefully. “Hadley... I’ve been thinking. Do you... do you actually think he’s innocent? She never named him.”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my temple. “There’s so much I don’t know. That’s what annoys me.”
“And Tiffany Preacher?” she asked. “Do we reach out?”
I hesitated. Mary’s warning echoed through my head.Let it go.
But I couldn’t. If anything, the avoidance — Dustin’s silence, the department’s complete shadiness — only made everything louder in my brain.
“I’m not stopping,” I said, sharper than I meant to. “I’m not.”
She watched me for a moment, her expression softening. “This isn’t about Dustin, right?” she said gently.
“No,” I said too quickly. Savannah’s eyebrows lifted. “It’s not,” I insisted.
“Hadley.”
I exhaled hard, looking away. “Okay,” I muttered. “It’s... maybe a tiny bit about Dustin.”
Savannah let out a long breath. Not a groan of satisfaction, just the tell of someone who had been patiently waiting. “There it is.”
“But it’s mostly about the story,” I said, grabbing my laptop. “And Tiffany. And Mason. And whoever buried this and why.”
Savannah stood, crossed the room, and squeezed my shoulder. “Then let’s burn the whole thing down,” she said. “Who’s first on our hit list?”
I stared at the name on my screen. The girl who dropped out after her report vanished.
