This is the introductory novella in the series, A Student Has Drowned.
For Book 1, read the first chapter of A Rockstar Has Exploded.
For Book 2, read the first chapter of An Actress is Missing.
For Book 3, read the first chapter of A Fiancé Has Flatlined.
Chapter One
Luce
Rain roared against the lecture hall, lashing at the windows and thumping the doors like a rabid dog trying to get inside. Luce felt as if the weather gods had it out for them. It was meant to be summertime—they were meant to be frolicking at the beach and enjoying frozen margaritas.
She stood up on her seat and peered through the cheap, slatted windows.
“I think I saw a blue flashing light,” she said. “Huds? I saw a blue flashing light.”
Curtains of hazy water turned her vision into a big brown smoosh, the glow of university streetlights barely visible in the gloom. A breeze surprised her, throwing spits of rain through the cracks in the window against her cheeks.
“Ugh! Rain facial!”
Luce slumped down in her chair and pushed her laptop aside. She grabbed the bottom of Huds’s shirt from his stomach and rubbed her face dry with it.
Huds, demonstrating his angelic patience, held his phone up so he could type without interruption.
Luce surveyed her best friend.
“Did you hear me? I think the cops are here. Huds? Cops. Here at the university, Huds. Why?”
Huds finished typing. He turned his attention to Luce and seemed to wake up.
“Huh?”
Luce kicked at him. “Is it that Tarryn girl? Is that who you’re messaging?”
“It’s none of your business who I’m messaging.”
“It is so! We’re meant to be working on Seen in Silverbridge!”
As Luce’s voice echoed in the empty lecture hall, a squall of wind shook the building, making her yelp. The storm had driven most of the students home, leaving Luce and Huds with the place to themselves. Well, there was the storm; the other reason was the lateness of the hour. It was past ten p.m., and Luce and Huds had been working on their gossip magazine for most of the day, trawling through social media for the latest upsets with their classmates, probing their peers for details about who was cheating on who, and writing titillating headlines. On Luce’s laptop, she was almost finished with her masterpiece: which professor has the most Daddy energy?
“What’s she saying?” Luce asked, nodding at Huds’s phone.
Huds shook his head, forcing nonchalance and tucking his phone back into his pocket.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?”
“Where were we?”
Huds infuriated her when he did this. She told him everything about her dating exploits—admittedly, sometimes too much—yet in return he held his cards maddeningly close to his chest. Not that there’d be much to tell, Luce knew. Huds’s romantic life was G rated. He probably hadn’t even made out with this punk girl from last week’s party. This Tarryn. This hussy.
“I know Tarryn from my geographical anthropology lectures, you know,” Luce said. “She’s a bit of a tart.”
“Wouldn’t people say that you’re a bit of a tart?”
“Maybe. And they’d be right.”
“And what does that prove?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“Exactly. Gossip is meaningless.”
“And yet we’re trying to start a gossip magazine.”
“We’ve already started a gossip magazine. We’re trying to grow a gossip magazine.”
“It’s hard,” Luce moaned. “I wish it were as easy as growing a plant…or a wart.”
Huds screwed up his face. “A wart? How easy is it to grow a wart? Last I knew, it wasn’t possible to choose to grow a wa— Is that a red light?!”
Now it was Huds’s turn to scramble onto his chair and peer through the window. He had to stand on the tips of his toes because he was half a head shorter than Luce. Luce watched as he effortlessly pulled himself up on the sill for a better view, his thick arms bulging and his back muscles swelling against the fabric of his shirt.
“You’re right,” he said. “Cops. Here at the university.”
“I told you so!” Luce said. She stood back on her chair next to him.
Through the rain, two uniformed officers wearing plastic ponchos walked from the police car and hurried inside the cafeteria.
“We need to find out what’s happening,” Luce said.
She ran down the lecture hall steps, jumping three at a time, not bothering to wait for Huds before snatching her umbrella from beside the door and stepping out into the deluge.
In four steps, her shoes were soaked through. Rivers of warm water snaked across the concrete. She strode through them, not caring about her expensive sneakers, knowing her parents’ allowance could afford to buy another pair in an instant. Two new pairs, if she wanted. The whole store, if she really wanted.
Behind her, Huds yelled at her to wait, but the rain’s incessant sibilation swallowed his voice. She powered on, hungry and determined for a story. By the time she arrived at the quadrangle, her bare legs were dotted and streaked with silt and dirty water, and her fringe stuck to her forehead with humidity, but her umbrella had protected her from getting drenched.
“Excuse me, Mister Constable, sir?” she said, shaking the rain from her umbrella.
The constable looked up from his work wrapping a “Danger Do Not Cross” tape around a stanchion. His brow eased when he saw Luce, and a familiar twinkle appeared in his eye. Though she had grown used to eliciting such a reaction in men, she had yet to grow bored of it.
“Obviously I can’t come through that way,” she said, pointing at the bright yellow tape with a dainty finger. “I don’t want to interrupt you when you’re working. But could you tell me if I’m allowed to go behind the Politics block?”
She stood on one leg and pouted her lips. The constable—he must have only been in his mid-twenties—looked suddenly bashful.
“I’m not familiar with the layout of the university—”
“Could you walk me through?” Luce held up one arm for him to hook his own through it.
The constable paused. He peered inside, perhaps looking for directions from a superior. When he looked back at her, Luce knew she’d hooked him. He smiled.
“Come on, then. Quickly.”
Luce ducked under the cordon, and together they walked through the cafeteria. They passed a small group of students clustered around a table, all of them pale-faced. An older officer scribbled in a pad as one of the students spoke—she recognised him as Calvin Parks, a timid boy with a shy smile from her Democracy in Theory and Practice lectures. He looked terrible: rambling and blotchy-faced, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy. Luce walked close and attempted to eavesdrop, but the pounding rain on the tin roof overpowered all sounds. The constable escorting her led her deliberately away from the students.
“However whatever happened happened, do you think it’s suspicious?” Luce asked, stabbing in the dark. She didn’t have a clue what had happened, but judging by the stricken students and police cordon, it wasn’t the mischief of trick-or-treaters.
The constable pressed his lips together but didn’t answer.
Luce had to press her luck if she wanted to be a real journalist. She had to be manipulative.
“I mean, I’m a bit worried it could happen to me. Am I safe?”
Typically, the older man couldn’t refuse a damsel in distress and her pleas of assurance. He shook his head confidently.
“At this stage, it’s most certainly an accident. A tragic case of someone slipping and hitting their head. It was just bad luck that it happened to be during this storm so the river was higher than usual.”
He’d played into her hands perfectly. As Luce had hoped, the constable had assumed she knew what had happened and had given her information.
Someone had slipped. Someone had hit their head. The river was high… Had someone drowned? How else could she get information? She didn’t want to assume the victim’s gender or if they were a professor or student.
“Aw, that poor thing,” Luce said. “But also poor you. It can’t be easy dealing with the aftermath.”
The constable looked pained. Then his features hardened as he donned a mask of bravery, like he’d pressed a button and a shield had constructed itself on his face.
“All part of the job,” he said. “But I won’t lie to you, I’m not looking forward to the night ahead. The girl’s parents will be here soon, and we have to explain their little girl is no more, so…yeah. Are you able to find your way from here?”
They’d made it to the other side of the quad, signalling the end of her short interview with the constable.
“Thank you. And good luck tonight. Kia kaha.”
“Cheers.” The constable nodded gratefully at Luce’s urging for strength in the Māori language. He turned to leave, then paused—Luce worried he was about to ask for her number.
“It might pay to head home early tonight,” he said. “But call a friend. Don’t go anywhere alone. Okay?”
The constable waited for her to nod. She did. Satisfied she understood, he walked back toward the quad, leaving Luce alone.
Luce stood under the awning, her gaze wandering over the driving rain, grainy like TV static. As she was watching, the storm grew in intensity, enclosing Silverbridge University in a snow globe. Somewhere out there, a girl had died. Drowned. And the authorities, despite claiming it was almost certainly an accident, didn’t want anyone going anywhere alone.
Something wasn’t right.
Luce rubbed at the goose bumps that appeared on her arms. Out of the summer rain, a chill had emerged.
