Livia Lone

48-THEN

Back at her dorm, she examined herself in the mirror. Her hands were shaking. Thank God she’d moved into a single for sophomore year; it would have been bad to have to explain her obvious distress to a roommate.

No scratches she could see. So presumably, no skin under his nails. And she’d thought to push him off the bed and roll up the bed cover, which she’d left in front of a homeless encampment on the way back to campus. The police wouldn’t find it. Or, if they did, hopefully it would be contaminated with the DNA of the last thousand guests who had stayed at the hotel, and of the homeless who were using it now, too.

She’d been right about a knife-a folder, clipped inside his right jeans pocket. In plain sight, if she’d thought to look for it before he’d belted her. All right, a good lesson, thankfully learned at little cost. She hadn’t touched it-better to let the police find it. It would make him look like more of a bad guy.

Still, there were a dozen things, a hundred, she knew from her forensics classes that she hadn’t had the presence of mind to consider at the time. She hadn’t planned things properly. She hadn’t prepared. She’d always known that one of these encounters could get out of control, but she hadn’t anticipated something happening so… suddenly. With someone who gave no warning, but just instantly flipped a switch to violence and rape. Not as a way of getting something else he wanted, but because violence and rape were what he wanted.

She breathed deeply, in and out, calming herself. Her left eye was beginning to swell, and she put ice on it. That would be explainable, at least. She must have taken a shot to the eye at practice without realizing at the time. It had swelled up afterward. It happened. And it would hardly be the first time she’d been marked by bruises and abrasions. Judo was a contact sport.

What if someone had seen her? She hadn’t gone to the front desk with him, so she was safe that way, at least. But what if the police knew she’d met him at the bar, and asked witnesses for a description? And the marks on his neck-would they know someone had used a judo strangle? That could lead them to the SJSU team. They would see her eye, and ask where she was when the guy was killed. Studying in my room, she would tell them, but would that hold up?

She paced back and forth, naked. She’d tossed the panties in a sewer. Wouldn’t want to have to explain how they’d gotten torn that way. She had marks on her left outer and right inner thigh. That made sense-the guy had been right-handed, and had ripped the panties off right to left. The elastic around the leg holes must have held for a moment and cut her before giving way. Again, explainable as a minor judo injury. Or at least, she hoped, not provable otherwise.

Worst case, she would explain what happened. Claim self-defense. Which is what it had been, of course. At least up to a point. She’d say she hadn’t meant to kill him, but when she’d released the strangle-which she’d been forced to use to save her own life-she couldn’t revive him. She panicked and fled. Not good, but maybe good enough. But even if she avoided prison, the thought of being some sort of campus tabloid fodder was horrifying. People would ask questions. Her past, at least parts of it, would be revealed. Maybe people would even wonder what had really happened to her revered adopted father, whether she was suffering from PTSD. And what would all of it mean for her career prospects as a cop?

She considered every angle she could think of. Maybe she should have taken his wallet, to make it look like a robbery? She hadn’t thought of it at the time-she wanted to touch as little as possible, disturb the scene as little as possible, something she knew about from her classes. She wasn’t sure now which would have been the better course, but she hadn’t considered it when it mattered.

Eventually, her exhaustion and the post-adrenaline backlash began to overwhelm her. Overall, she thought there was a better-than-even chance the body wouldn’t lead back to her. But she couldn’t be sure. She should have been more careful.

Well, next time, she would be.