Mrs. Dinsmore gave me a wry smile. "You're a romantic."
"What happened to them?"
"A few things," she said. "There were rumors about their marriage."
"What kind of rumors?"
"What kind are there always on a college campus? Young kids, distracted wife, attractive man on a campus with impressionable coeds. I tease you about the young girls who stop by your office, but I've seen too many lives ruined by that temptation."
"He had an affair with a student?"
"Maybe. I don't know. Those were the rumors. Have you heard of Vice Chair Roy Horduck?"
"I've seen his name on some plaques."
"Aaron Kleiner accused Horduck of plagiarism. The charges were never brought, but vice chair is a pretty powerful position. Aaron Kleiner got demoted. Then he got involved in a cheating scandal."
"A professor cheated?"
"No, of course not. He made accusations against a student, maybe two. I don't remember the details anymore. That might have been his downfall, I don't know. He started to drink. He behaved more erratically. The rumors started."
She stared down at the photograph again.
"So they asked him to resign?"
"No," Mrs. Dinsmore said.
"Then what happened?"
"One day, his wife walked through that very door." She pointed behind her. I knew what door. I had walked through it a thousand times, but I still looked, as though Natalie's mom might walk through it again. "She was crying. Hysterical, really. I was sitting right where I am now, at this very spot, at this very desk . . ."
Her words faded away.
"She wanted to see Professor Hume. He wasn't here so I called him on the phone. He hurried over. She told him that Professor Kleiner was gone."
"Gone?"
"He'd packed his things and run off with another woman. A former student."
"Who?"
"I don't know. Like I said, she was hysterical. There were no cell phones back in those days. We had no way to reach him. We waited. I remember he had a class that afternoon. He never showed. Professor Hume had to cover that day. The other professors took turns covering until the semester ended. The students were really upset. Parents called, but Professor Hume placated them all by giving everyone an A." She shrugged, pushed the yearbook back toward me, and pretended to get back to work.
"We never heard from him again."
I swallowed. "So what happened to his wife and daughters?"
"The same, I guess."
"What does that mean?"
"They moved away at the end of the semester. I never heard from them again. I always hoped that they all ended up at another college--that they patched things up. But I guess that wasn't what happened, was it?"
"No."
"So what happened to them?" Mrs. Dinsmore asked.
"I don't know."
Chapter 20
Who would know?
Answer: Natalie's sister, Julie. She had blown me off on the phone. I wondered whether I'd have better luck in person.
I was heading back to my car when my cell phone rang. I checked the number on the caller ID. The area code was 802.
Vermont.
I answered the phone and said hello.
"Um, hi. You left your card at the cafe."
I recognized the voice. "Cookie?"
"We should talk," she said.
My grip on the phone tightened. "I'm listening."
"I don't trust phones," Cookie said. There was a quake in her voice. "Can you get back up here?"
"I can drive up right now if you want."
Cookie gave me directions to her home, not far from the cafe. I took 91 north and tried unsuccessfully not to speed. My heart pounded in my chest, keeping beat, it seemed, with whatever song was on the radio. By the time I reached the state line, it was near midnight. I had started that morning flying down to see Delia Sanderson. It had been a long day and for just a second, I could feel the exhaustion. I flashed back to the first time I saw Natalie's painting of that cottage on the hill--to Cookie coming up behind me and asking if I liked it.
Why, I asked myself again, had Cookie acted as though she didn't remember me when I stopped in the cafe?
There was something else that came back to me. Everyone else I met said that there had never been a Creative Recharge retreat, but when Cookie made her denial, she said, "We never worked at the retreat."
I hadn't caught that at the time, but if there had never been a retreat up that hill, wouldn't your response be something like, "Huh? What retreat?"
I slowed as I passed Cookie's bookshop cafe. There were only two streetlights, both casting long, menacing shadows. No people were present. The small town center was perfectly still, too still, like that scene in a zombie film before the hero gets surrounded by the flesh-eaters. I made a right at the end of the block, drove half a mile, made another right. There were no streetlights now. The only illumination at all came from my headlights. If I was passing houses or buildings, all the lights had been turned off there too. I guess no one out here left their lights on a timer to deter burglars. Smart move. I doubted in this darkness that burglars could find the homes.
I checked my GPS and saw that I was half a mile from my destination. Two more turns. Something akin to dread started seeping into my chest. We have all read about how certain animals and sea creatures can sense danger. They can actually feel threats or even oncoming natural disasters, almost as though they had survival radar or invisible tentacles reaching out and around corners. Somewhere, of course, primitive man must have had this ability too. That sort of survival stuff stays with us. It may lie dormant. It may wither away from lack of use. But that instinctive Neanderthal man is always there, lurking under our khakis and dress shirt.
Right now, to use vernacular from my comic-book youth, my Spidey senses were tingling.
I turned off the headlights and slowed to the curb in pitch darkness practically by sense of touch. There were no stones framing the street. The pavement just gave way to the grass. I didn't know what I was about to do, but the more I thought about this, the more I thought that maybe some measure of care was in order.
I could walk from here.
I slipped out of the car. Once I closed the door, once all the light was gone, I realized just how dark it really was. The night seemed to be a living thing, consuming me, covering my eyes. I waited a minute or two, just standing there, letting my eyes adjust. Eyes adjusting to darkness--another one of those talents we undoubtedly inherited from primitive man. When I could see at least a few feet in front of me, I started on my way. I had my smartphone too. It was loaded up with apps I never used, but the one I did, the one that was probably the most useful and least techie, was the simple flashlight. I debated turning it on but decided against it.
If there was danger here--and I couldn't imagine what that danger might be or what form it might take--I didn't want to give it a heads-up with a shining flashlight. That had been the whole point of parking and sneaking up, right?
I flashed back to being trapped in the back of that van. I had no qualms about what I'd been forced to do to escape--I would do it again, of course, a thousand times over--but there was also no doubt that Otto's final moments would haunt my sleep until the day I died. I would always hear the wet crack of that neck snapping, would always remember the feel of bone and cartilage giving way, ending a life. I had killed someone. I had snuffed out a human being.
Then my thoughts turned to Bob.
I slowed my step. What did Bob do after I escaped down the hill? He must have gotten back in his van, driven away, probably dumped Otto's body someplace, and then . . .
Would he maybe try to find me again?
I thought about the strain in Cookie's voice. What did she want to tell me? And why was it suddenly so urgent? Why call me up here now, late at night, not giving me a chance to think it all through?
I was on Cookie's block now. Small lights were on in a few of the windows, giving the houses
a spooky, jack-o'-lantern glow. The house at the end of the cul-de-sac had more lights on than the others.
Cookie's.
I moved to the left to stay out of sight. Her front porch lights were on, so that wouldn't be the way to approach. Not if I wanted to stay unseen. The house was a sprawling one-level, unnaturally long and slightly uneven, as though additions had been stuck on without much forethought. Staying low, I circled toward the side of the house. I tried to stay in the dark. I literally crawled the last ten yards toward the window with the brightest light.
Now what?
I was under the window on all fours. I stayed still and tried to listen. Nothing. There is silence, and then there is rural silence, silence you could feel and reach out and touch, silence with texture and distance. That was what surrounded me now. Real, true, rural silence.
I shifted my weight slightly. My knees cracked, the sound seemingly screaming through the stillness. I got my feet beneath me, my knees deeply bent, my hands on my thighs. I readied to push myself up like a human piston, so that I could take a peek in the window.
Keeping most of my face out of sight, I rose toward the corner of the window so that only one eye and the top right quadrant of my face would be exposed. I blinked in the sudden light and looked into the room.
Cookie was there.
She sat on the couch. Cookie's back was ramrod straight. Her mouth was set. Denise, her partner, sat next to her. They were holding hands, but their faces were pale and drawn. The tension came off them in waves.
You didn't have to be an expert in body language to see that they were nervous about something. It took me a few more moments to realize what that something was.
A man sat in the chair across from them.
His back was to me so that at first I could only see the top of his head.
My first thought was a panicked one: Could it be Bob?
I raised myself up a few more inches, trying to get a better look at the man. No luck. The chair was big and plush. The man sank deep into it, vanishing from view. I moved to the other side of the window, changing my exposed face quadrant to the upper left. Now I could see the hair was salt-and-pepper curly.
Not Bob. Definitely not Bob.
The man was speaking. The two women listened intently, nodding in unison to whatever he was saying. I turned and pressed my ear against the window. The glass was cold. I tried to make out what the man was saying, but it was still too muffled. I glanced back into the room. The man in the chair leaned a little forward, trying to make a point. Then he tilted his chin just enough so I could see his profile.
I may have gasped out loud.
The man had a beard. That was the key. That was how I was able to recognize him--the beard and the curly hair. I flashed back again to that very first time I saw Natalie, sitting in the chair with her sunglasses on. And next to her, seated to her right, had been a man with a beard and curly hair.
This man.
What the . . . ?
The bearded guy rose out of the plush chair. He started to pace, gesturing wildly. Cookie and Denise tensed up. They held hands so tightly I swore that I could see their knuckles whiten. That was when I noticed something else that sent me reeling--something that made me realize with a stunning thud the importance of running this little reconnaissance mission before walking blindly into the situation.
The bearded man had a gun.
I froze in my half squat. My legs started to shake, from fear or exertion, I wasn't sure which. I lowered myself back down. Now what?
Flee, dopey.
Yep, that seemed the best play. Flee back to my car. Call the cops. Let them handle it. I tried to picture how that scenario would play out. First off, how long would it take the cops to get here? Wait, would they even believe me? Would they call Cookie and Denise first? Would a SWAT team come out? And now that I really thought about it, what was happening here exactly? Did Beardy kidnap Cookie or Denise and make them call me--or were they all in cahoots together? And if they were in cahoots, what would happen after I called? The cops would show up, and Cookie and Denise would deny everything. Beardy would hide his gun and claim ignorance.
Then again, what was the alternative? I had to bring in the cops, right?
Beardy continued to pace. The tension in the room made it pound out like a heart. Beardy checked his watch. He took out his mobile phone and held it in a walkie-talkie manner. He barked something into it.
Who was he talking to?
Whoa, I thought. What if there were others? It was time to go. Call the cops, don't call the cops, whatever. That guy was armed. I wasn't.
Hasta luego, mofos.
I was taking one last look through the window when I heard the dog bark come from behind me. I froze at the sound. Beardy did not. His head snapped toward the barking--and by extension, me--as though pulled on a string.
Our eyes locked through the window. I saw his widen in surprise. For the briefest of moments--a hundredth of a second, maybe two of them--neither of us moved. We just stared in shock, unsure of what to make of each other, until Beardy raised the gun, pointed it at me, and pulled the trigger.
I fell backward as the bullet crashed through the window.
I dropped to the ground. Shards of glass rained down on me. The dog kept barking. I rolled over, cutting myself on the glass, and got to my feet.
"Stop!"
It was another man's voice coming from my left. I didn't recognize the voice, but the guy was outside. Oh man, I had to get out of there. No time to think or hesitate. I ran full throttle in the other direction. I turned the corner, legs pumping, nearly in the clear.
Or so I thought.
Earlier I had credited my attuned Spidey senses with gifting me the premonition of danger. If that was the case, those same senses had just failed me miserably.
Another man was standing right around the corner. He'd been waiting for me, baseball bat at the ready. I managed to stop my legs, but there was no time for anything else. The meat of the bat came toward me. No chance for me to react. No chance for me to do anything but stand there stupidly. The blow landed flush on my forehead.
I dropped to the ground.
He may have hit me with the bat again. I don't know. My eyes rolled back, and I was gone.
Chapter 21
First thing when I woke up: pain.
That was all I could think of: massive, all-consuming pain and how to lessen it. It felt as though my skull had been shattered, that tiny fragments of bone were loose, that their jagged edges were ripping through my most sensitive brain tissue.
I moved my head slightly to the side, but that just made those jagged edges angrier. I stopped, blinked my eyes, blinked them again in an attempt to open them, gave up.
"He's awake."
The voice belonged to Cookie. I tried once more to pry my eyes open. I almost used my fingers against my eyelids. I swam past the hurt. It took a few seconds, but I finally got there. It took a few more seconds to focus and start to take in my new surroundings.
I wasn't outside anymore.
That much was for certain. I looked up at the exposed wooden beams of a roof. I also wasn't in Cookie's house. She had a one-level ranch. This looked more like a barn or old farmhouse. There was a wooden floor underneath me, not dirt, so I ruled out the barn.
Cookie was there. So was Denise. Beardy came over and looked down at me with pure, unfiltered hatred. I had no idea why. I saw a second man standing by a door to my left. A third man sat in front of a computer screen. I didn't recognize either of them.
Beardy waited, glaring down at me. He probably thought that I would say something obvious like, "Where am I?" I didn't. I used the time to calm myself and try to gather my thoughts.
I had no idea what was going on.
I kept my eyes moving, trying to get a sense of the room. I searched for an escape route. I saw one door and three windows, all closed. The door was guarded too. I remembered that at least one of them was armed with a gun.
/> I needed to be patient.
"Talk," Beardy said to me.
I didn't. He kicked me in the ribs. I let out a groan, but I didn't move.
"Jed," Cookie said, "don't."
Beardy Jed stared down at me. There was rage behind his eyes. "How did you find Todd?"
That threw me. I don't know what I'd expected him to ask, but it wasn't that. "What?"
"You heard me," Jed said. "How did you find Todd?"
My head was swimming. I didn't see where a lie here would help me, so I went with the truth. "His obituary."
Jed looked at Cookie. Now I saw confusion on their faces.
"I saw his obituary," I continued. "It was on the college website. That's how I got to his funeral."
Jed wound up to kick me again, but Cookie stopped him with a shake of her head. "I'm not talking about that," Jed spat. "I'm talking about before."
"What before?"
"Don't play dumb. How did you find Todd?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.
The rage behind his eyes exploded. He pulled out the gun and pointed it at me. "You're lying."
I said nothing.
Cookie moved closer to him. "Jed?"
"Back off," he snapped. "You know what he did? Do you?"
She nodded and did as she was asked. I stayed perfectly still.
"Talk," he said to me again.
"I don't know what you want me to say."
I glanced at the guy sitting by the computer. He looked scared. So did the guy by the door. I thought back to Bob and Otto. They hadn't looked scared. They looked ready and experienced. These guys didn't. I wasn't sure what, if anything, that meant, except that either way, I was in huge trouble.
"One more time," Jed began through gritted teeth. "How did you find Todd?"
"I already told you."
"You killed him!" Jed shouted.
"What? No!"
Jed dropped to his knees and put the muzzle of the gun against my temple. I closed my eyes and waited for the blast. He moved his lips close to my ear.
"If you lie again," he whispered, "I will kill you right here and now."
Cookie: "Jed?"
"Shut up!"
He pressed the muzzle hard enough against my temple to leave an indentation. "Talk."
"I didn't . . ." His eyes told me that another denial would seal my fate. "Why would I kill him?"
"You tell us," Jed said. "But first I want to know how you found him."
Jed's hand was shaking, the muzzle jangling against my temple. His spittle was getting tangled up in his beard. My pain was gone now, replaced by naked fear. Jed wanted to pull that trigger. He wanted to kill me.