Guilty Conscious by Oliver Davies (best ereader for students .txt) 📗

taking on the different ends of the building. I headed to the library, leaving him to search the common area and café.

It was an old library, and walking inside, the doors shut behind me and sealed out the noise. Only the rustling of pages, the occasional sniff, the gentle patter of a keyboard or the scratch of a pen filled the room. Dark wooden shelves lined the walls, creating paths that sectioned off genres, tables squeezed into the gaps with students bent over them. A few were outright asleep, using their books as pillows, the hypnotic ticking of the old clock on the wall having lulled them to sleep. I walked in, flashed my warrant card to the old librarian who looked surprised, but let me through. I walked up and down the rows of books, looking for the familiar face, glancing at the students that paid me no mind. No such luck. I was getting annoyed, restless when I spotted a face scanning the shelves. Not Freya, but Fiona.

She turned and spotted me, looking alarmed when I approached her. I kept my hands out and gave her a polite smile, hoping she’d relax.

“Hello, Fiona,” I said quietly. “Have you seen Freya?”

“Freya?” She frowned. “She was in my lecture, but she left straight after.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

Fiona shook her head. “I wasn’t invited,” she told me.

My chest panged slightly, and I gave her another smile.

“Is she in trouble?” Fiona asked. “I could try to call her?”

“Good idea,” I praised her. She nodded and placed the book back on the shelf, walking over to the library doors and stepping out, the sudden noise jarring. I’d thought about calling her myself, but I doubted she’d answer. At least if it was Fiona, she might take the call.

“Did something happen?” Fiona asked in a normal voice. “About Edward?”

“Along those lines,” I replied.

“You can’t tell me?” she guessed, and I shook my head. Fiona shrugged, pulled her phone from her pocket and pulled up Freya’s contact, putting the phone on speaker and holding it between us. I decided that I liked Fiona. Maybe she and Billie could reconnect when this was all said and done.

The phone rang, on and on, until it went to a standard voicemail. Fiona looked down at her phone and grimaced.

“I can try again?” she offered.

“That’s alright. Thanks anyway, Fiona. Where does she normally go after her lectures?”

Fiona put her phone away and sighed. “She used to hang out with Edward. Sometimes she came to the library with me, but not often. She might have gone for coffee,” she said quickly, “especially because of the rain.”

I nodded, hoping that if she had, Mills would spot her there.

“Did you—?” Fiona paused, tugging at her sleeve. “Did you speak to Billie?”

“We’ve spoken to her.” I didn’t want to stay with her and have this conversation. We needed to find Freya, but I didn’t have the heart to just walk away, and Fiona might offer something of interest.

“How was she?” she asked with genuine concern.

“She’s… struggling, naturally. She works in a café not far from here, actually,” I told her. “You should go and see her.”

Fiona shook her head, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I don’t think she wants to see me.”

“I think you should let her be the judge of that,” I answered.

Fiona gave a dry smile, her eyes looking past me, settling on someone who came hurrying over. Mills stopped by my arm and gave a faint shake of the head.

“Not in the café,” he said.

“She’s a bit of a caffeine fiend,” Fiona told us. “I’m sure you’ll find her in one of them, especially after that lecture.” She rolled her eyes slightly.

I smiled at her. “Thanks, Fiona. We’ll let you get back to work.”

She nodded, giving us a small wave before stepping back into the seclusion of the library.

“No luck?” Mills asked once she’d gone.

“Nope. Fiona tried to give her a call for us, but it went straight to voicemail.”

Mills frowned, scratching his chin. “Because she doesn’t want anyone to find her, or because none of that group is particularly good friends to Fiona?”

“A bit of both, I’d wager. Checking the coffee shops might be a good idea. There’s a chance someone else might have seen her.”

Mills nodded, and we walked through the building out onto the campus, trying to navigate our way around and spot anyone who looked vaguely familiar. As we walked towards the student union, Mills pointed to someone over on a bench, huddled beneath an umbrella.

“Claude,” he said. We walked over, and I tapped the young man on the arm, the music pouring through his headphones loud enough for me to hear from where I stood away from him. He jumped and looked up, taking the buds from his ears and smiling.

“Hello, police officers,” he said politely. “Can I help?”

“Hello again, Claude. We hope so. Have you seen Freya recently? In the last twenty minutes or so?”

“She ‘ad a class,” he said, across the campus to the building we just left. “With Fiona. We saw her as she left, but she didn’t want a drink, said she was going ‘ome.”

“Whose we?”

“Me, Vanessa, and Charlie,” he told us succinctly. Freya had been invited, but not Fiona, very nice. I ignored that and looked down at Claude.

“She said she was going home?” I checked, and he nodded.

“Who? Freya?” another voice joined us as Vanessa and Charlie walked up. Vanessa had spoken, and she looked at us as she sat down beside Claude, taking shelter under the umbrella. Charlie didn’t seem to mind, standing behind them both, letting the rain soak his hair, clutching a steaming cup of coffee on his hands.

“We’re trying to find her.”

“She didn’t want to get a coffee,” Vanessa reiterated what Claude had told us. “I think it might have been too much, too soon,” she said sympathetically. “Said she wanted to go home.”

“I see. Thank you,” I said, blinking the rain from my eyes.

“Is something wrong?” Charlie asked. “With Freya?”

“We