The Professor (17 page)

“You don’t live in Newberry?”

He shook his head. “It’s a nice town. It wouldn’t be a bad place to live. The Opera House is great. Have you been there?”

“A couple of times. I went to see Groove Lily right before school started.”

“Really? I saw them too.” He took another bite of pizza.

Is he dating someone else?
she couldn’t stop herself from wondering.

The awkward silence eased as they talked about music.

“Does Douglass have a college radio station?” he asked.

She rocked her hand. “It’s pretty lame. I mostly listen to stations I stream on the computer. There are a couple of places to go if you like local bands.”

“I used to go hear them,” he said. “But…”

He stopped. His face had the expression he wore when he was trying to decide whether to tell her something. She wondered if he realized he was being so transparent.

“Jess, the woman I used to date, didn’t like anything but pop, so I got out of the habit of going.”

“Pop? Like Britney Spears?” Hmm, the woman he
used
to date. How long ago? What happened?

He groaned. “Jess loved her. Who’re you listening to these days?”

“Let’s see.” He’d changed the subject, she noticed, but he got bonus points for not bad-mouthing Jess. “Two local bands you might like are Jump Little Children and Seven Nations. I can see where they’re playing if you’d like.”

“Do that. We’ll go hear them. Unless you already have plans, that is,” he added.

Did she just ask him out or was he asking her? “Usually a group of us goes.”

He had that look again, but his eyes were locked on his pizza. “So you aren’t dating anyone right now?”

This is your chance. It’s the perfect opening to tell him you’re involved with someone else.
“Nobody in particular.”

Brain-mouth filter, she thought as he nodded. The damn thing quit working whenever she was around him. She could see the smile on his lips behind the slice of pizza. He was going to keep calling and sending cards. “The cards were funny.”

She gave up on controlling what emerged from her mouth. “How long did it take you to pick them out?”

“Truthfully?”

“The truth is usually a good idea.”

“I read every single card on the rack. I think the clerk wanted to call the cops.”

“Let’s see, that would be you.”

He grinned. “Yeah. I could see me trying to explain this.”

She blinked, but he hurried on. “I figured the ‘I miss you desperately’ ones would freak you out and I couldn’t stomach the long, gushy ‘I’m sorry’ ones. There was one about a cell phone set to vibrate with a plea—call me, call me—that made me laugh.”

“I did wonder about the potty humor.” She took a bite from her third slice of pizza.

“It seemed safer than politics.”

She dropped the wedge on her plate and groaned.

“You don’t like politics?”

“The groan was ’cause I’m going to explode if I eat another bite. That was wonderful.”

Mick leaned back into his chair with a satisfied sigh. “Only thing missing was a beer.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Can you have one?”

“You know, for a detective you aren’t very observant.”

His grin crinkled the skin around his eyes. “On campus? Legally? Someone could end up in a fountain.”

Her chin rose a notch. “Questioning me, Detective?”

“Agent,” he corrected with a smile.

“Technically, the houses aren’t even part of the campus. And I’m not a child.”

“No, you’re not.”

She’d have paid money to know what he was thinking, but he’d closed off his face. She studied the man sitting opposite her. The overhead light emphasized the shadows under his eyes, but he’d shaved. His hair was freshly washed. He looked like a man on a date. She dropped her gaze to her fingers, which were restlessly twisting her napkin. She forced her hands open and smoothed the cloth over her knee. “What’d you want to talk about, Mick?”

He knew exactly what she was referring to. “Just talk, Meg. Like we’ve been doing tonight. You’re an attractive, intelligent woman who intrigues me. No plots. No ulterior motives. I want to get to know you. Slowly, the way most people approach a relationship.”

Not spontaneous combustion, the way they had. “Is that what we’re doing? Starting a relationship?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m conducting an investigation. Surveillance of the
scene of the crime. Observing the hotbed of revolutionaries who live there.”

He took another look around the back porch. She tried to see it through his eyes. The ceiling fans were stationary. The tables and chairs looked like they hadn’t been used recently. They were nice, a combination of cast aluminum and fabric, a step up from the wooden picnic tables the frats used, but they were hardly deluxe.

“You know,” he said, “I had more of a rich-bitch image of sorority girls.”

“There you go with that easy, stereotype problem of yours. I thought detectives were supposed to be more open-minded.”

“The good ones are.”

“And are you one of the good ones?”

“I’m very good,” he said solemnly.

The innuendo was there, just below the surface. Her eyes dropped to his mouth. Yes, he was very good. She forced her gaze away.

“At my job. I’m good at my job.”

Lighten up, woman. But her mouth had disconnected from her brain filter again. “You said you shouldn’t do…what you did, for a whole bunch of reasons. What are they?”

Mick had clearly replayed their conversation as often as she had. “I’m a cop. I met you during an investigation.”

She rolled her eyes and he grinned. “A bogus one, but dating suspects is officially frowned upon.”

“A suspect?
Moi?
” She gave him an exaggerated blameless face and he laughed.

“You admitted being at the scene of the crime.”

“An innocent bystander.”

He crossed one ankle over his knee. “You see. All sorts of reasons.”

Meg reached for his plate and stacked both dishes on the box. So, he wasn’t willing to acknowledge the incredible chemistry either. Why? His restraint this evening had been admirable. Maybe she’d underestimated him. Or maybe he was afraid he’d scare her off permanently if he let that passion out of its box again.

Maybe it scared him too.

Night noises filled the following silence. A car passed on the road behind the screening trees at the rear of the property. It reached the intersection and turned away from the college. The engine noise faded into the background nocturnal sounds.

Meg roused herself. “I have to teach a class at nine. I don’t even know when you work.”

“Until this case is finished, I work all the time.”

The murders. “Is it as bad as it feels? You seem so…sad.”

Her question appeared to surprise him as much as it did her. It was an intimate observation when she was so busy keeping him at arm’s distance.

“At times I feel useless,” he said. “I’m running after leads that go nowhere, while he’s out ahead of us, laughing.” Weariness showed plainly in his eyes. “I’ve—
enjoyed
is too mild a word, but I can’t think of a better one—this time with you. I need to remember it isn’t futile. We will catch him.”

“I know you will.”

He studied her face, and she felt warmth climb her cheeks.

“I’m not asking for anything you aren’t ready to give. I understand you don’t know what you want. From me. From yourself. I can wait.” He shrugged, self-consciously. “You remind me there’s life and laughter. That what I do matters.”

Oh, she could so fall in love with him. “It matters. You matter.”

Had those words come out of her mouth? She rose, retreating rapidly. Mick stood, as well. She carefully kept the table between them. “Would you like to take that home?” She gestured at the pizza remnants.

“I’ll get fat.”

The gleam in his eye belied the serious tone. Her stomach clenched again. He knew he’d scared her just now and was making it easy for her. “Better you than me,” she replied, equally serious.

“Palm it off on your sisters.”

In one fluid move, Mick rounded the table and took her arms. Lowering his head, he carefully, gently, kissed her. Meg locked her elbows and fisted her hands to keep from reaching for him, but her lips followed their own desires. They softened under his mouth and kissed him back. His hand lifted to the side of her neck. His thumb caressed her cheek, leaving a trail of fire. With just that brief contact, her heart moved into overdrive. Who was she kidding? She so wanted this man. Everything about him attracted her.

Mick stepped back. His face was tightly controlled, but his gaze roamed her face. She waited, suspended.

“I’ll call you. Maybe we can have lunch tomorrow.” His voice was husky and he cleared his throat.

“I’ll leave this way.” He edged to the screen door. “Good night.”

Meg stood looking into the darkness that shrouded him. Slowly, her pounding heart returned to normal. She didn’t want to like Mick O’Shaughnessy, but she did.

She’d be a fool to keep seeing him, but she knew she’d do it anyway.

She was playing with fire.

She prayed she wasn’t going to get burned.

Friday morning

Mick sat in his car outside the SLED field office. His boss’s words echoed in his mind.
Take some time for yourself. Don’t burn out.

He stared straight ahead, not seeing the morning rush hour traffic on North Street. Two double-shot lattes were barely holding his eyes open. He’d been up half the night, too wired to sleep. Was that what he was doing? Burning out?

He couldn’t keep going like this. Between Meg and the killer, he wasn’t sleeping. He barely remembered to eat.

He was losing his mind. That was the only explanation.

He’d always been able to step back and see the bigger picture. The key to being a good cop was flexibility. When he was on patrol, one minute he’d be both comforting an old lady who’d been burglarized and taking her report. The next minute, there’d be a call to break up a bar fight. After that, there might be a car wreck, which meant someone could be hurt or killed. In order to do his job, he’d quickly learned to suppress his feelings. Keep the compassion, the older cops taught him, but restrain the emotion.

Controlling his emotions was a rule he’d lived by for nearly ten years. He did it with work. Why couldn’t he do that with Meg? If he was only looking for some balance, he should keep moving and not complicate Meg’s apparently screwed-up life.

He sighed and gathered the energy to get out of the car. He unbuckled his seat belt, then sank back against the leather.

Leaving, giving up, wasn’t an option. He wanted to know everything about Meg, including the hurts she wasn’t ready to discuss. He wanted to soothe each one away with a kiss. He wanted to take her to bed and love her until she exploded with pleasure. He wanted to introduce her to his family, the swamps, and all the things in his life that were beautiful.

He just wanted to be with her.

His head sagged forward until it rested against the steering wheel.

He was losing his mind.

“I don’t know if this club thing’s gonna pan out.” Andersen’s voice grated across Mick’s ear. “It’s time-consuming as hell. You can’t just walk in, flash a badge and a picture and expect instant results.”

“I realize that.”

Andersen kept talking. “The bartender or waitress you need to see might not be working. They quit over nothing. They change shifts. Hell, half the time they flat just don’t want to get involved. I’ve got five guys making the rounds. So far we got a big zero to show for it.”

“We can put both the killer and Baldwin at the Squirrel,” Mick reminded him. “Ward found him at the Ramblin’ Rose. Cohen was going to Speakeasy—another hookup joint. We need to find them together at enough places to move it out of the coincidence column.”

“I still think it’s a waste of time.”

“You want to check cars instead? The new VIN info files just came in.”

Unexpectedly, Andersen laughed. “All of a sudden, checking out clubs sounds real attractive.”

“Asshole,” he muttered, hanging up the phone. Thank God, there were plenty of
uniforms eager to earn some overtime or a few brownie points. There was always a risk they’d miss something, but it got the cars processed.

The phone rang again. He sighed. When this was over, he was taking a vacation someplace where there were no phones.

“I made a list of every teacher in the Upstate,” Jordan began. “I’ve been going back, cross-referencing them. There are some who used to teach at one of the target schools.”

Jordan’s enthusiasm was contagious. “Why’d they move?” he asked. “Was there any bad blood?”

“Most were brand-new grads looking for a foothold. Two of them weren’t going to get tenure, so they moved on their own. There’s one guy the Music Department was evasive about. Detective Ward’s going to talk to him.”

He heard pages rustle.

“This might be more interesting.”

“What?”

“Lots of the teachers take the summer off. Some use the time for research. They need to publish to get ahead. Anyway, it looks like about twenty were guest teaching at the target schools this past summer.”

“Hang on a minute. Do you mean there’s someone who taught at all three schools?”

“Not at all three, but it proves my point that one guy could meet girls from three different schools, either teaching a class or doing research.”

“Did any of the victims take a class from a guest professor?”

“I’ll ask.”

He opened the closest file and flipped through the background reports. “I thought I remembered this. Ms. Baldwin went to summer school.” He read off the instructors’ names. “See what you can find out.”

Meg ignored the incoming-message chime. The constant barrage of e-mails was getting to her. The police officer had taken her statement and forwarded the e-mail, but no one else had contacted her and the e-mails just kept coming.

She’d been distracted since the messages started, rereading incomprehensible texts, putting the wrong dates on assignments, making mistakes in front of her class. Any time she stepped outside the office or her apartment, this phantom responded with a running commentary. She was constantly watching her back, waiting for some guy to tap her on the shoulder.

Or hit her over the head.

No, she rebelled. Scratch that. Obviously the police didn’t think this was the killer. This was just some creep getting off on trying to upset her. She wasn’t going to give in to another bully. They never left you alone if you showed them you were afraid. Defiantly, she switched to her mailbox and opened the message.

What was wrong with this guy? He couldn’t possibly know anything about her.

Meg caught her breath. This guy was vile. Sure, she’d taken a second job to make ends meet, but that hardly made her some kind of servant. And those other comments. Was that what he really thought of women? And what was this “unworthy” stuff?

He kept saying he knew, but he couldn’t, could he?

She chewed her lip uncertainly. What
would
her sisters say? The other associates and professors in her department? Her students? Would it matter to any of them?

Or did it only matter to her?

“O’Shaughnessy.” Mick tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder, his eyes on his computer screen.

Frank looked up, his own phone clasped to his ear.

“This is Greg Pollard. I’m with the Greer PD.”

He shook his head at Frank—not a cab dispatcher calling back. He flipped open the roster he kept of the Upstate police departments. There was a Greg Pollard with the Greer police department, but he’d never met him. The press wasn’t above impersonating a cop. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, I’ve been reading about these murders, and something’s been bugging me. We had a sexual assault earlier this summer. The hospital contacted us, otherwise I don’t think the vic would’ve reported it.”

“Why not?”

“It was sorta strange. I felt bad about it—she was definitely assaulted—but there was nothing to work with.”

He bit back an impatient reply. Was there a point to this? “You implied there was a connection to the murders.”

“The vic was drugged. Rohypnol. The doer tied her to her bed with duct tape. The asshole left her that way. It happened on a Friday night. It could’ve been days before anybody found her.”

The callous cruelty of it fit their killer. Mick bit back his urge to yell,
Why didn’t you call sooner?
and let the guy tell his story.

“There was one weird detail. I don’t know if you’re using this as a holdback. We would.”

“What?”

Pollard hesitated. “Doc said there was a rock in there. The doer shoved it in after he finished.”

He sat a moment in stunned silence. “Can you fax the report over?”

“Sure.” Pollard correctly read his silence. “We’ll keep sitting on that detail.”

“Thanks.”

Mick hung up the phone and turned to Frank. “You aren’t going to believe this.”

An hour later, he called Pollard back. “The crime scene report isn’t in the file.”

“Yeah.” Pollard sighed heavily. “Her roommate cut her loose and took her to the hospital. Girl was hysterical. She’d been tied up all night. The roommate got home late and went straight to bed. She wandered in about noon on Saturday to see if the vic wanted to go to the mall.”

He winced as he guessed what was coming and found himself nodding as the detective continued. “Another friend cleaned up the room, thinking it’d upset her to come back to the mess. We got the sheets before she washed them, but the tape was hopeless and all the trace evidence was gone.”

“The medical report says there was penetration, but no ejaculate.”

“That’s right.”

“No hair?”

“We couldn’t find anything. I hear those pervs shave down there.”

“Yeah, we caught one once who was bare-assed as a baboon. So, nothing on the sheets?”

“An old peter print—turned out to be her boyfriend.”

“Let me guess, solid alibi?”

“Bingo. Like I said, we had nothing. She couldn’t remember shit. She started coming around during the assault, vaguely remembers a guy being there, but those drugs totally screwed her memory. With no trace evidence and no witness—” Mick imagined the shrug, “—there wasn’t anything we could do.”

“We didn’t pick this up off VICAP.”

“We didn’t add it to the database,” Pollard said. “That’s why I called. Hope it helps.”

He replaced the receiver and relayed the story to Frank. He rested his chin on his palm, considering the implications. “It confirms what we suspected. He was raping before he killed Baldwin.”

Frank closed the file he’d been working on. “We should use the press on this.”

He raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Let’s send another request around to all the law enforcement agencies for any reports involving either date-rape drugs or bondage that didn’t get processed. If he attacked one, there might be others. If we get the press to run it—that he raped some women, but the assaults never got reported—maybe someone else will come forward.”