Chapter 15 Another Missing Girl
At first, no one noticed she was missing.
It was a Tuesday morning, bright, cold, and ordinary. The air outside the philosophy building smelled faintly of rain and burnt espresso from the courtyard café. Students moved in lazy clusters, complaining about quizzes and deadlines, backpacks bumping into each other. Life went on as though the past deaths had been swallowed by rumor and time.
Until the whispers began.
“Amber didn’t come back to the dorm last night.”
“Who?”
“Amber Vale. The redhead from Mercer’s class.”
“Oh God! Not again.”
The words spread like infection, whisper to whisper, dorm to dorm. Within an hour, everyone on campus knew.
Lila heard it between lectures, a stray comment from two students near the vending machines. She froze mid-sip of her coffee. Her stomach twisted into something cold and heavy.
Another red-haired female student from Mercer’s class.
Just like before?
By noon, missing posters were already printed. The university’s email alert came next: MISSING STUDENT: AMBER VALE. LAST SEEN NEAR THE ART BUILDING, 8:47 PM.
Lila sat on a bench near the philosophy courtyard, rereading the message over and over until the words blurred. The phone trembled slightly in her hand. She didn’t even realize she was shaking.
Asher found her there, his expression pale, his usual sarcasm stripped away.
“She’s from my dorm,” he said quietly. “They’re saying she never made it back after Mercer’s evening lecture.”
Lila looked up. “Mercer?”
“Yeah. He says she left early to develop photos by the lake.”
The lake?
That word hit her chest like a hammer. Her sister Serena had shot her last project by that same lake. Lila’s throat tightened. “She….she dyed her hair again two weeks ago,” she murmured. “Amber, I heard she used to be blonde.”
Asher rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe she just..”
He stopped when he saw Lila’s eyes.
There was no maybe. They both knew how this story usually ended.
By late afternoon, the campus looked like a crime scene wrapped in sunlight. Police tape fluttered around the photography building. Officers moved between classrooms, asking the same questions over and over, last seen, what time? Did she say where she was going? Did anyone follow her?
Professor Mercer stood near the entrance, talking to a detective. His usually calm, smiling face looked tight around the eyes. When he saw Lila in the crowd, his expression softened immediately, almost protective.
“Miss Rowan,” he called. “You shouldn’t be here. Go back to your dorm.”
Lila hesitated. “I just want to help. I…she was in your class, right?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes. She was talented, brave, even. But you need to stay safe. Whoever’s doing this seems to target people like you.”
The words felt wrong. Too heavy, too specific. People like you..Red-haired. Curious and alive.
Before she could respond, a shout came from the crowd, someone had found Amber’s camera bag near the art building entrance. Lila’s breath caught. She wanted to run toward it, to see if there was something, anything inside. But Asher grabbed her wrist gently.
“Lila, don’t.”
She turned to him, eyes wide and unfocused. “I can’t just stand here.”
“You can. Because if something happens to you…” He stopped himself. His voice cracked slightly. “Just stay with me, okay?”
Behind them, Professor Beckett watched from the top of the philosophy steps. His eyes didn’t move from Lila. For a moment, they locked gazes, and Lila felt her pulse spike. There was something in his expression, not guilt exactly, but recognition. As though he’d been expecting this.
Then he turned away, and the feeling vanished like smoke.
Soon it was night and everyone returned to their dorm. The rain started just after midnight, thin, freezing, and relentless. It soaked through the leaves and pooled along the cobblestone paths. Flashlights moved through the trees like will-o’-wisps as search teams combed the lakefront.
Lila couldn’t sleep. Her room felt too quiet. Every sound outside made her heart race the wind, footsteps, the metallic groan of the pipes. She sat curled by the window, phone in hand, scrolling through news updates she didn’t want to see.
Her mind replayed the details again and again.Mercer’s class, the lake, the color red. The roses, the pattern, Serena’s warning in her last dream, about the roses her killer sent her.
What if this wasn’t random? What if every piece connected back to the same man?
She typed a message to Asher..”Are you awake?”
No reply.
She typed again. “Something’s wrong.”
Still nothing.
Then her phone buzzed, a new message. But not from Asher.
It was from Roy.
“They found something near the lake. Stay in your dorm, Lila. I mean it.”
Her heart skipped. She was already reaching for her coat before she could think.
By the time she reached the lake, the path was slick and glowing with red and blue police lights. A thin fog rolled over the water, swallowing the trees. Students huddled near the cordon, whispering in hushed disbelief.
Lila pushed through until she could see past the tape.
Officers were wading knee-deep in the shallows, their flashlights cutting through the mist.
Then someone shouted. “Here!”
Everyone fell silent.
The world seemed to move in slow motion. The officers knelt, and when they stood again, the crowd gasped.
Amber’s body emerged from the water, pale and still, her red hair plastered to her face. Her hands were curled around two roses, bright, perfect, and unblemished by the cold.
Lila’s breath broke. Her knees almost gave out.
The sound of camera shutters and radios faded to nothing. Only the rain remained, soft and endless.
Somewhere beside her, Asher murmured, “It’s her. Oh God. Lila, it’s her.”
But Lila couldn’t speak. She could only stare at the roses, the same color as the ones she’d found in her locker, her bag, and her bed. The same roses Serena had once mentioned in that half-whispered dream.
The search teams spread outward from the lake, combing every inch of mud and grass for evidence. The dean arrived, his umbrella trembling in the wind. Reporters circled like vultures, snapping photos, asking questions no one wanted to answer.
Mercer stood apart from them, coat soaked. His expression was unreadable. He spoke quietly to one of the detectives, gesturing toward the art building, his tone calm and precise. To anyone watching, he looked like a man trying to help. But his eyes Lila noticed kept darting toward Beckett, who stood by the perimeter, hands in his pockets, face like stone.
The tension between them was almost physical.
Asher leaned closer to Lila. “Why is Mercer looking at Beckett like that?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Maybe he thinks..”
But her sentence faded as an officer shouted from the trees.
“Over here! I found something!”