Determined: To Love: (Part 2 of the Determined Trilogy) by Elizabeth Brown Page A

required. Still, I took the white toothbrush he’d given me out of the holder and put my red one in. It was a small gesture, but it was symbolic. I left the rest of my toiletry bag in a cupboard under the sink.
    Back in the bedroom, I dragged my duffle and suitcase to my closet. Inside, I flicked on the lights and surveyed the room, which was large enough to rival my studio cottage. The closet was already partially full of the clothing David had bought for me, beautiful expensive pieces that were more than a step above what I was accustomed to wearing. Still, I got a thrill out of hanging up my clothes. I filled up a rack along the back wall and took the suitcase and duffle bag back to the bedroom.
    I had planned on stuffing the luggage under the bed, as I normally did at home. But when I went to push the two items under the bed, the suitcase wouldn’t fit. It went part of the way, and hit something. I pulled it back out and took a quick look under the bed. It was wide open, totally clear. I didn’t understand why the bags wouldn’t fit. And then off to the side, caught in the shadow, I saw something. I reached under the bed, extending my arm as far as it would go. My fingers hit something rectangular. It felt like cardboard. I adjusted myself and reached further. My fingers curled around the edge of a box. A shoebox. Instinctively, I pawed at it, and managed to drag it out from under the bed.
    It was a shoebox, indeed. An Allen Edmonds shoe box. But it was light. I could tell it didn’t have shoes inside. I glanced around and listened. I couldn’t hear Hilde. Even so, I got up and closed the door of the bedroom.
    Sitting back down, I stared at the box. I knew I should have been more concerned about David’s personal space, after all, we had only just moved in together, but something was plying me on. I couldn’t fathom David keeping anything worth a darn in a shoebox. So I opened it.
    Inside were a bunch of papers. Clippings. Newspaper mostly, but also some magazine articles. And a few photos. I shuffled through them, trying to make sense of my find.
    The articles seemed to center around the death of a girl at UC Berkeley, nine or ten years ago. I was surprised I hadn’t heard about it, since it was apparently front page news at the time. A sophomore named Sara Goldstein had been found dead in the lobby of one of the buildings on campus. I started to read the articles.
    Suddenly I gasped.
    David’s name was right there in black and white. I read it again.
    “several people have been questioned, including her fiancé—David Keith.”
    I put the article down and said the word out loud. “Fiancé?”

11
    The floor fell out from under me.
    As long as I had known him, he had always said he never dated seriously. And the hordes of bitter women I had encountered seemed to back this up. All of them seemed to doubt his ability to commit. He had even told me he’d never brought anyone home to meet his family. Had it all been just a line? Because right here in black and white, was evidence to the contrary. Evidence that there had been someone else. And not just anyone. A fiancé—an engagement.
    My gut wrenched.
    I thumbed through the contents of the box, trying to make sense of it all. I came to a set of photos. One was of a pretty girl, young, probably eighteen or nineteen. She was brunette and pale, and had on a UC Berkeley sweatshirt. I realized it was the same photo that was plastered all over the newspaper clippings. The other was of the same girl, but with a young guy. David. He had longer hair and was quite a bit thinner, but it was him all right. He looked… happy. My stomach twisted into knots.
    I read on.
    According to the articles, Sara had been an undergrad in the computer science division at UC Berkeley. One morning a custodian found her at the base of the stairs in the Computer Sciences building. It looked like she had fallen down the stairs, and her skull was crushed. The police said she had died