The Professor (18 page)

Friday evening

The need had him by the throat. The Professor couldn’t wait on Meg. With the rain, she’d get a ride home from the restaurant. It would have to be Allison. He’d watched her slip out of her apartment and steal away. She must be headed to the Depot. She hadn’t been there since Emily died. Her need must be gnawing at her, as well.

He grinned, a wolfish twist of lips. The intersection of their desires was an inevitable confrontation. He had something special planned for Allison—a new fantasy he’d harbored all week. He imagined the police’s reaction when they found her. Anticipation quickened his step.

He strode down the corridor toward his office, his smile fading. The battle of wills with the police was exhilarating, but he’d allowed it to distract him. This unacceptable trip onto campus was an obvious example of his forgetfulness. Normally, leaving his supplies secreted in his desk was a prudent strategy. He’d never forgotten them before. Late on a Friday, there was little chance someone would see him in his clubbing outfit, but it was an unnecessary risk.

What would he say if someone saw him? A party of some sort? A disguise? He smirked and straightened his cuffs. “Always tell the truth,” he murmured.

Lights in the building burned brightly. The cleaning crew must not have finished. His eyes scanned the classrooms opening off the corridor ahead, alert for activity. He could hear the buffer on an upper floor, but the janitor could be removing trash from any room. He reached the history department office unobserved. A strip of fluorescents lit the central lobby. The dim light reflected off the individual office doors. Breathing easier, he fished for his keys.

“Tim?”

He froze. His keys slipped from his fingers with a jangling clatter. Forcing his shoulders down, he glanced over his shoulder. “Paula. What are you doing here?”

The department secretary stood in the head’s doorway, an incredulous expression on her face. The lamp on the head’s desk backlit her shape.

Slowly, she took in his outfit. The slacks and shirt were expensive, well-cut and subtly flashy. His hair, which usually hung in a limp fringe, was gelled and spiked. A smile lifted the corners of Paula’s mouth and the same calculating assessment he’d seen on countless other women flickered in her eyes. “Wow. You look completely different. You have a hot date?”

Pulling out his glasses, he turned to face her. Fear and anger, fraternal twins, rippled along his nerves. He stooped, stalling as he groped for his keys, frantically trying to decide what to do. His intellect pushed through the panic.
Control it. Act normal.

Normal
; his lips curled around the word.
By whose standards? Hers?

The thoughts steadied him.
Act like the worm she’s used to seeing.
Shrugging his shoulders, he tried to look sheepish. “Well, I don’t know about ‘hot.’ But I left her phone number on my desk.”

“You look good.”

Her gaze crawled down his face to his chest, and his lips curled in distaste. He turned and unlocked his door, hiding his reaction.

“Who’s the lucky lady?”

“You don’t know her. She lives in Spartanburg.” He edged into his office,
wondering what to do next. This was too unexpected. He hadn’t made a plan. He couldn’t keep improvising. What if he made a mistake? “I don’t mean to be rude—”

“But you need to run. Okay. Have fun.” She looked at the pile of papers on the department head’s desk and sighed. “This is pathetic,” she mumbled. “Everybody has a social life except me. Damn. It’s Friday night and I’m doing
paperwork
.”

She turned toward the office, still grumbling.

Tim quickly entered his office, and sent an assessing glance after Paula. She’d paused in the doorway.

She was looking at him. Studying him.

A hot fist of rage tightened around his throat. She would remember him dressed like this. She was going to ruin everything, all his carefully laid plans. It had taken him years to learn this disguise, this method.

Shit, shit,
shit
. He dropped into the chair behind his desk.
Assess your position. Control the damage.
He searched for a way to turn the encounter to his advantage.

Responding to instinct, he rose and quietly approached the door. Paula sat hunched over the computer on her desk, typing. He recognized the e-mail program. He
knew
it.

The rage in his chest burned hotter. She was telling someone about him. He couldn’t allow that.

The marble bookend was right beside him. It was fated—this was supposed to happen. The cool marble fit perfectly into his hand. The polished oval arced smoothly as he raised it. It made a satisfying thud as it connected with the back of Paula’s head.

She sprawled across the keyboard, as graceless as a used tissue. He stared at her limp form until his pulse slowed. Now what?

He gave the secretary another irritated glare. He couldn’t leave her here. Killing her here wasn’t an option. There’d be too much mess to clean up.

Savagely, he kicked her sprawled leg. This was all her fault.

He shot an angry glower around the departmental lobby. His gaze settled on Tucker’s office door. The guy never locked up anything.

Tucker was a complete slob—his research methodology was unacceptable—but he’d returned from a field study two weeks ago. His gear was probably still in the corner where he dumped it.

The Professor crossed the lobby and returned with Tucker’s duffel. With rough, irritated movements, he stuffed Paula into it. She groaned softly. Without hesitating, he slammed the bookend against her temple. Her head lolled in the tight confines of the duffel. Satisfied, he dropped the bookend inside and zipped the heavy, canvas bag.

Quickly, he returned to his office and opened his desk drawer. Reaching into the back, he removed a Rohypnol tablet and dropped it into his pocket.

The Professor left his office, carefully locking the door behind him. The janitor was on this floor now, but around the corner in the front hallway. Fear batted at his stomach, but excitement surged through his veins. This was as good as his fantasies. He could control everything. He was growing, stretching himself, handling emergencies. All he had to do was pay attention and use his superior intellect.

He grasped the handles of the duffel and heaved it to his shoulder. The bitch weighed a ton, but he didn’t dare drag the bag. The janitor might hear it over his polishing machine and investigate.

Sweating and swearing silently, he made it to the stairwell. With a sigh, he dropped the load and rested until his pounding heart settled. Dragging the bag, less worried about noise, he thudded down the stairs to the rear loading dock, where he’d left the Camaro.

Straining, he lifted the duffel and dumped it into the trunk. He turned and examined both the small parking area and the darkness beyond it. He saw no one, heard only muted traffic in the distance. Easing open the duffel, he applied a strip of tape to Paula’s mouth and bound her wrists. That should hold her.

Settling into the driver’s seat, he cranked the engine and felt the powerful machine come to life. Buffed to a high gloss, the Camaro looked distinctive in a well-lit parking lot, but the low, black shadow was nearly invisible in the dark. He eased onto the side road behind the college.

What to do with Paula?
His fingers played across the steering wheel. He could drop her in the lake, but what if she didn’t drown?
No. There was too much risk in that. The roads across the lake were too heavily traveled. Even if no one saw him dump her, someone might see the duffel if it floated for a while.

He glanced at his watch. He really didn’t have time to deal with Paula tonight, not if he wanted to make his rendezvous with Allison.

Allison
. He caught himself before he drifted into fantasy.
Damn Paula for interfering
. She deserved whatever he decided to do with her. He straightened in the seat as an idea took hold. He could leave her at the cabin. He could even make her watch when he brought Allison there.

He considered the possibility. Allison wouldn’t get to the Depot until ten at the earliest. If he hurried he could drive through Spartanburg, stop at Rumors and make sure the bouncer saw him for an alibi, before moving on. If everything went according to plan, Allison would share a drink with him before midnight. By then, the bar would be throbbing with alcohol, lust and music as the hunters and the hunted circled each other. One more drunken couple slipping out to indulge their hormones in mindless rutting would pass unremarked.

Allison would spend the last days of her life lashed to a bed at his cottage. The experience with Emily had shown him the advantage of drawing out the process. And Paula would be his terrified audience.

He slid a CD into the player and cranked the bass. The first surge of anticipation lit a glow in his belly. Allison was ripe, skittish. Trolling the bars for action was her dirty, little secret. She acted prim and proper in Clinton, but she cut loose in the Greenville bars, slamming shots, dirty dancing, prick-teasing until she selected the night’s lucky winner.

Adrenaline kicked his heart rate up another notch.

He’d be the winner tonight.

“I am sorry to take so much time to return your telephone call.” The cab dispatcher had the lilting, singsong tone of an Indian transplant. “It is after all Friday evening and our most busiest time. Please excuse me.”

Mick was suddenly listening to dead air as the dispatcher routed another cab before continuing.

“You wish to know about our services provided on Monday, October the third?”

“That’s right.” He named the apartment complex.

“We had one request, very late that night. It was not to that specific location, but rather to a convenience store. Would that be of interest?”

“Where?”

“The facility was less than two blocks away from the apartment location.”

“Where did you take the passenger?”

The dispatcher read the address—the Waffle House near the Squirrel.

“Could we talk to the driver?”

“I am sorry to report that may prove rather complicated.”

He tensed.
Working? Fired? Moved?

“He is not scheduled to work this particular weekend. I believe he planned to go away for relaxation.”

“Do you have a number where we can reach him?”

“I am afraid I do not have that information. He is, however, scheduled to work on Monday. Please excuse me.”

When the dispatcher returned, Mick obtained the driver’s personal information. “I will ensure the driver makes contact with you when he returns.”

“Thanks,” he said into the abruptly dead phone. The dispatcher was already gone.

Where was she? The Professor circled the bar twice and finally asked the bartender. The man shook his head. “Allison hasn’t been in tonight.”

The Professor hid his frustration. How dare she disappoint him? It was after eleven. If she was coming, she’d be here.

The need was choking him. He glared at the other women. They were drunken cows, bitches in heat, useless for his purposes.

He stalked from the bar to his car.

Damn Allison! Where was she? He swept down 385, rage pushing the accelerator. He rounded a curve. Lights pulsed on the shoulder up ahead. Smokey Bear had some schmuck pulled over. He glanced down. His speedometer read eighty-five. Cursing, he slowed to seventy. He didn’t need a ticket to cap this fucked-up night. At least he didn’t have Paula in the trunk anymore. Wouldn’t
that
have been a bitch to explain?

A few minutes later, he took the Clinton exit, heading toward the cluster of student apartments bordering the campus. Slowing to a crawl, he cruised past Allison’s building. Several of the old houses on the street were ablaze with lights and music. Friday night parties were still going strong.

Allison’s windows were dark. Her car wasn’t in the small parking lot. Where in the hell was she?

He prowled the surrounding streets. Cruising the bars that were still open would be futile. She wouldn’t be there. She saved her wanton behavior for the venues far from Clinton.

Nearly blind with anger and need, he turned toward the apartment on the north side of campus. Meg’s second-floor windows were dark, but he knew she was there.

He envisioned her asleep in her bed, saw the tumbled curls, the rise and fall of her chest. He closed his eyes, playing a silent, private movie.
The window, already raised a few inches, silently yielded to his insistent pressure. The sash opened, obligingly providing entry. The drapes billowed in the breeze, but she didn’t stir. A dark
figure slipped through the window and approached her sleeping form…

He smiled as the fantasy unwound. It would hold the need at bay, while he made his plans. He knew exactly where Meg would be Saturday night. His smile widened.

And where she’d be Sunday morning.

In the meanwhile, there was Paula.

Saturday morning

Wear something casual. What does that mean?
Meg adjusted the mirror mounted on her bedroom door and studied her reflection. Was Mick going to show up in jeans or slacks and another gorgeous sports coat? She’d split the difference with a pair of black jeans—the ones that made her butt look nice, instead of huge—a thin silk turtleneck, and a sapphire blue sweater that showed off her hair.

“You look great,” Lisa said.

She smiled. “Compared to how you look, that’s not saying much.”

Lisa sprawled across Meg’s bed, wearing fuchsia toe socks, ratty sweatpants, an old Mickey Mouse T-shirt and the dorky glasses she reserved for late nights and weekend mornings. She punched the pillows into a more comfortable nest. “I can’t believe you’re dating a cop.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think he’s going to arrest me if I burp or get food stuck in my teeth. Besides, aren’t you the one who keeps telling me to go out with him?”

“He
is
hot. Why is it the cops who pull me over are like forty, with a big gut?”

She tugged at the sweater. “Is this too clingy? Maybe I should wear something looser.” She slid the closet door open.

“Don’t change again,” Lisa groaned. “That’s the third outfit you’ve tried on.”

“I don’t know what to wear.”

“If you didn’t like him, you wouldn’t care,” Lisa pointed out. “I’ve never seen you do the girly indecision routine.”

She closed the closet door and picked up her brush, smoothing the flyaway hairs the sweater had displaced. With a sigh, she said. “I do like him. It’s scary.”

Lisa patted the bed beside her and Meg slid onto it. “You can’t keep pushing everybody away if they try to get close. Not everybody’s as persistent as me.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s just spooky. I mean, there’s this connection between us. It’s like I can see right into his brain and tell what he’s thinking and feeling.”

“That’s called being in love, sweetie.”

“But I barely know him. Besides, he can go into cop mode and,
wham
, everything closes.”

“It’s what he does. It’s part of the package. Can you handle it?”

“I don’t know.” She made a face. “’Course the other piece of it is, he can see into me. And I can’t block him.”

“It’s not like you have any deep, dark secrets.”

Meg looked away, nervously twirling a lock of hair around her finger. “Everybody has secrets, things they don’t want anybody to know.”

“Some guy dumping on you doesn’t count. I mean, it’s not like, a crime. You didn’t rob a bank to pay for school, did you?”

“Only my piggy bank.” It was so much more than Steven dumping on her. Deep down, part of her still believed all the things her parents said when her world fell apart. She’d never told Lisa the whole story. Or how severely the betrayal had scarred her.

“Well, there you go. You’ll get, what? Ten years for that? Maybe he’ll let you out early for good behavior.”

Meg smiled and released her hair. “I don’t think Mick does that part.”

“Then you don’t have anything to worry about.”

If you only knew. She rose and fiddled with her hairbrush, wondering if she should say more. The intercom buzzer saved her. She crossed the room and pressed the Talk button. “Yes?”

“It’s Mick.”

“Be right down.”

“Just have fun,” Lisa said. “Remember, you don’t have to marry him.”

“Well, Paula, what am I going to do with you?”

The secretary flailed against the bindings securing her to the bed. Her eyes bulged above the piece of tape covering her mouth.

“Nothing to say? You usually have an opinion on everything.”

The Professor stared at the woman, faintly repulsed. There was nothing sexually attractive about her, but he enjoyed her fear. She’d always been a little contemptuous of him. And because of her, he didn’t have Allison or Meg.

Slowly, he smiled. He’d have Meg by this evening, though. For a moment, he transposed her luscious body over Paula’s. Auburn curls, milky skin; the fantasy took him until he throbbed with need.

Noise intruded.

His eyes fluttered open and focused on Paula rather than Meg. For a moment, he blinked, confused by Paula’s presence. Then a cruel smile twisted his features. He needed release and she was here. It was her fault he was in this predicament.

Casually, he reached over and picked up his knife. Twisting it, letting the light glitter up and down its haft, he watched Paula’s eyes dart from the blade to his face. Violently shaking her head, she jerked at her bonds.

Carefully, aiming for the straightest possible line, he ran the knife down the front of her blouse. The fabric separated and a thin line of red appeared on her chest. “Why, Paula,” he said. “I never realized you had such nice breasts. Let’s see what else you have.”

She cringed, trying to evade his knife as tears slid down her face. The power of his control over her was affecting him, adding to his thundering need. He flicked a glance at her face, easily transferring Meg’s features. “You wanted me. You’ve wanted me all along. You’re mine now, to do with as I please.”

He had new ideas, things he planned to do with Allison and Meg.

He spent the rest of the day testing them with Paula, and found they were very good ideas.

The trees on Greenville’s Main Street had just started changing color, Meg noticed. Occasionally, a leaf let go and spun lazily toward the wide brick sidewalk. The downtown shops and cafés were doing a brisk business. She and Mick strolled past couples clad in urban chic, dawdling over coffee.

Mick had been holding her hand since he opened the BMW’s door. His fingers were warm, his grip tight enough to send constant reminders of his proximity pinging through her nerves. She hadn’t let anyone touch her like this in years. It made her vaguely self-conscious. The other strollers weren’t paying any attention to them, though. And Mick had apparently decided to ignore her reaction as long as she didn’t retract her hand.

“These guys do the best brunch.” He steered her into Tronco’s and after a short conversation, the hostess seated them at a small table on the patio.

“When did they do all this?” Her glance included the shops and the streetscape.

Mick looked at her, surprised. “Years ago. The whole West End’s been redone.”

“I don’t come to Greenville often. If we drive up from Douglass, it’s to go to a concert or the mall. How did you know this was here?”

“I live here.”

She laughed, even as a blush warmed her cheeks. “You know, I hadn’t thought about that—where you live. You’re always down in Clinton or talking about Newberry. I thought you were a local.”

“You practically got my life history out of me on the drive up. How’d we miss that detail? But you’re right, I have spent a lot of time in Newberry recently.”

“Do you travel a lot with your job?”

“It depends. Sometimes I feel like I live in my car. Other cases are one big paper chase. I’m mostly in the office on those.” He shrugged. His eyes moved, clicking through the other patrons and the street traffic.

She took in the sudden tension in his shoulders. Work wasn’t a good topic today, she concluded. “What are we doing after lunch?”

He turned back and grinned, the tension gone as quickly as it had arrived. “It’s a surprise.” Mischief lit his eyes.

“You were hell on wheels when you were a kid, weren’t you?”

“Let’s just say I appreciated my parents’ tolerant attitude.”

She tried to keep her reaction off her face. She couldn’t imagine tolerant parents. “Lucky you,” she said lightly. “What kind of trouble did you get into?”

He reached across the table and took her hand in silent empathy.
Damn him for being so observant.

His gaze turned inward, lost in memory. He idly caressed her hand, tracing her fingers. The featherlight touches sent shivers through her, to other sensitive spots. To her surprise, she didn’t want him to stop. Her eyes half-closed as she gave herself over to the sensation.

“We used to take a canoe out on the creek or the river. My folks didn’t mind if we went fishing or crabbing, but we were always testing the limits.”

Meg blinked, tuning back in to his words.

“Our farm’s about four hundred acres of swamp and forest. We knew all the trails and roads in the woods—we grew up there—and we thought we knew the swamp. To a certain extent, we did.”

His focus remained internal. “It’s beautiful there. There’s a wild feeling to it, that anything’s possible. It’s so fertile, you can
feel
things growing. Water’s everywhere, of course. You can barely tell it’s moving. You have to know how to read the swamp. Where the current is, the ridges.”

He really loved it, she realized.

“They’re called blackwater swamps. It’s not dirty. The tannins in the leaves stain the water. That’s from the oak trees, upstream. Down where we live, there’s a lot of cypress. Those trees that grow in the water with the knees sticking up around them.”

His hand closed over hers, interlacing their fingers. “There’s so much wildlife deep in the swamps. Not just deer. I’ve seen bobcats. And turtles laying eggs.”

“And snakes and alligators.”

“They aren’t so bad.” He smiled, leaving his pensive mood. “What you have to
look out for are the pigs.”

“Pigs? Is this a bad cop joke?”

“No.” He sat back and grinned. “Feral hogs. Meanest mothers you ever saw. It’s why we weren’t supposed to go into the swamp by ourselves. Most of the time, it was no big deal. But once, I guess I was about twelve, Vince and I snuck back there. Vince is my younger brother. We were goofing off, when a big boar charged us. He ripped a hole in the side of the canoe.” Mick shook his head. “Vince and I spent the night in a tree while that hog tore up everything in a thirty-foot circle around us. He was still there the next morning, trying to figure out now to shake us out of that tree, when Dad and two game wardens finally found us.”

“They went searching for you?”

“Well, yeah.” He seemed startled by the question. “We didn’t come home, so Dad brought out the troops. I never could figure out how they knew when and where to start looking. In the summertime, as long as we were home before they went to bed, it was okay if we stayed out late.”

“Didn’t they get mad when you were late for dinner?”

“We were pretty good about letting them know where we were.” Mick shrugged. “They’d ask around. See whose house we were at. That’s probably what made them look for us. Nobody had seen us.”

Leaning back in his chair, he stretched out his legs and ran his thumb over her fingers. “Usually, some combination of us and our friends eventually showed up at our house. We slept on the porch. We didn’t even have to open the back door. But they always seemed to know what time we got in.”

“What happened if you were late?”

He frowned. “I don’t remember exactly. It didn’t happen often. They made us do some nasty chore, like cleaning out the gutters. After the hog incident, we had to work at the fish hatchery until we paid back the overtime for the guys who looked for us.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, we weren’t saints, but they cut us some slack, and we didn’t take advantage of it. Mom grounded Tricia a few times when she was in high school. I can’t see her on a ladder with a scraper, cleaning the gutters. Why? What did your parents do when you misbehaved?”

Beat the crap out of me
. “Tricia’s your sister?”

He looked at her, just for a minute, and Meg remembered he was a detective. He’d notice she didn’t answer his question.
Don’t ask
, she silently urged.
Let it go
.

The rest of lunch passed quickly, with Mick telling her more about his family. Meg listened, hungry for the details, as he described the family she’d always longed for.

“Enough about me. I don’t know anything about you. Where’d you grow up?”

“Charleston,” she answered, surprising herself. She usually made up something and changed the subject when people asked. “Actually, I was born in Summerville, but we moved out to a development on the Stono River when I was eight.”

“Stono Ferry?” A startled expression crossed his face.

“You’ve heard of it?” she asked, a little nervous. It was an exclusive neighborhood of multimillion-dollar homes along the Intercoastal Waterway.

“I worked a case down there a couple of years ago. A security firm was moonlighting with a little breaking and entering.”

“I heard about it. I wasn’t there that summer.” What was she doing? She’d never told anyone about her parents—or why she didn’t see them anymore. Dropping her eyes to the table, she fiddled with her fork, pushing the remnants of her lunch around her plate. She felt his gaze, studying her.

Instead of pursuing it, he asked, “Doing what?”

“Working with a private equity firm in Charlotte,” she said with a small sigh of relief. “It was far from glamorous. I was the grunt who tracked their trading efforts. What paid off, what didn’t.”

“Hmm, exciting stuff.”

“Yee-haw.” She set the fork aside. “But I got to see how the analysts worked with my boss, mapping their market and working out strategies.”

“Is that what you want to do when you graduate? Or are you planning to keep teaching?”

She looked at him, then away. There were all kinds of answers she could give him, but something made her tell the truth. “I don’t know anymore. For the longest time, I wanted to be somebody. Somebody who got noticed.”
Somebody too special to toss aside
.

“People notice you, Meg.” He captured her hand and tugged, trying to get her to look at him. “Not just your looks. It’s obvious you’re intelligent, self-confident and…aware. The lights are on inside. Somebody’s home.”

“Thanks. I wasn’t fishing.” She sat back, pulling her hand free. “Now I just want a job where I get paid enough to live on.”

“But… You said…”

She glanced up and smiled ruefully. “You sure you’re a detective?”

“I haven’t investigated you. Should I?” he asked lightly.

Something went still inside her. He could, if he wanted to. He could ask enough questions and it would all come out. And then he’d probably never speak to her again. He’d leave just like everyone else who said they cared about her.