Faith struggled to remain passive, though she would have loved to take Tommy Albertson to the morgue and ask him what exactly was so exciting about his friend being dead. "Did Adam have a girlfriend? Did he hang around with anyone in particular?"
As with everything else, Tommy found this extremely entertaining. He clamped his hands on Gabe's shoulders. "Two questions, one answer!"
Gabe squirmed away from him. "Fuck off, asshole. You never even talked to Adam. He hated your guts."
She tried, "Gabe-"
"Fuck you, too." He left the room. A few moments later, she heard a door slam.
Faith narrowed her eyes at Tommy, resisting the urge to tear him down to size. He'd stepped a few feet into the room, and she didn't like the way he was crowding her space. She knew that she would need to establish control or there would be a problem. "Maybe you'd like to answer these questions at the station?"
He showed a toothy grin, coming closer. "My dad's a lawyer, lady. Unless it gets you wet slapping the cuffs on a virile young stud such as myself, no way am I getting into the back of your car."
Faith kept her tone even. "Then I guess we have nothing to talk about."
He smiled smugly, closing the space between them. "Guess so."
"Could you leave now?" When he didn't move, she shouldered him back into the hall. He was taken off guard, or maybe she was madder than she thought, but the push turned into more of a shove, and he landed flat on his ass.
"Jesus," he whined, sitting up. "What is wrong with you?"
She turned the thumb latch on the inside doorknob and pulled the door firmly closed. "Your friend is dead, a girl is missing, and your reaction to all this is to laugh and make jokes about it. What do you think is wrong with me?"
Her words hit their mark, but they didn't have the desired effect. "Why are you such a bitch?"
"Because I have to deal with assholes like you every day."
"Is there a problem here?" A well-dressed Hispanic man was coming up the stairs. He sounded slightly out of breath and a bit concerned that a student was on the floor.
Tommy scrambled to stand. He had the look of a spoiled child who was relishing the prospect of tattling. Faith dealt with it the only way she knew how, admitting, "He got aggressive and I pushed him out of my way."
The man had reached them by now. There was something familiar about his face, and Faith realized he was one of the many nameless administrators she'd seen at Jeremy's freshman orientation the month before.
There was no recognition in his eyes as Victor Martinez looked from Tommy to Faith, then back again. "Mr. Albertson, we have over eighteen thousand students enrolled in this school. It doesn't bode well for you that we are barely out of our first week and I already know your name and student ID number by heart."
"I didn't-"
He turned his attention to Faith. "I'm Dean Martinez," he said, offering his hand. "You're here about Adam Humphries?"
She shook his hand. "Humphrey," she corrected.
"I'm sorry we had to meet under these circumstances." He kept ignoring Tommy, who muttered an insult under his breath before he skulked away. "Maybe you could walk with me? I'm sorry that it seems like I'm not giving this the attention I should, but the first week of school is grueling and I'm between meetings."
"Of course." She caught the scent of his cologne as she followed him toward the stairs. Though it was late in the day, he was clean-shaven and his suit was still neatly pressed. Not counting Will Trent-and why would she?-it had been a long time since Faith had been around a man who paid attention to basic hygiene.
"Here," Victor said, reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket. "This is the master key to his room, his class schedule and his contact details." His hand brushed hers as he gave her the paper, and Faith was so surprised by the sensation it brought that she dropped the paper.
"Whoops," he said, kneeling down to retrieve it. The moment could have been awkward-Victor on one knee in front of her- but he managed to make it look graceful, scooping up the page and standing in one fluid motion.
"Thank you," Faith managed, trying not to sound as stupid as she felt.
"I'm sorry it took so long to clear this through legal, but the university has to cover its ass."
She scanned the paper, a familiar-looking student application with all the pertinent information. "Your candor is refreshing."
He smiled, lightly holding the railing as they walked down the stairs. "Can you tell me a little bit about what's going on? I've heard the news, of course. It's extraordinary."
"It is," she agreed. "I don't know what they're saying, but I really can't comment on an ongoing investigation."
"I understand," he responded. "The police department has an ass, too."
She laughed. "That could be taken two different ways, Dean Martinez."
He stopped on the next landing. "Victor, please."
She stopped, too. "Faith."
"I love the old-fashioned names," he told her, his eyes crinkling as he smiled.
"I'm named after my grandmother."
"Beautiful," he said, and she got the distinct impression he wasn't commenting on the tradition of passing down family names. "Do you mind my asking why you look so familiar to me?"
Despite the circumstances, there had definitely been some sort of flirting banter between them. Faith took a moment to mourn the loss of it before saying, "You probably saw me at freshman orientation. My son is a student here."
He did a terrific impression of a deer staring down an eighteen-wheeler. "Our youngest student is sixteen."
"My son is eighteen."
His throat moved as he swallowed, then came the forced chuckle. "Eighteen."
"Yep." There was nothing to do with the awkward moment but talk over it. "Thank you for the key. I'll make sure it's returned to your office. I'm sure my boss will want to interview some of the students tonight. We'll be as respectful as we can, but I would appreciate your informing campus security so we don't have any problems. You might get some angry phone calls from parents. I'm sure you're used to dealing with that."
"Certainly. I'll be glad to run interference." He started down the stairs. "I really must get to that meeting."
"One more thing?" Faith was only doing her job, but she had to admit it was somewhat rewarding seeing the fear in his eyes as he waited. "Can you tell me why Tommy Albertson is already on your radar?"
"Oh." The dean was obviously relieved it was that easy. "Towers and Glenn have a running rivalry. There are usually some good-natured pranks back and forth, but Mr. Albertson took it a bit far. They're sketchy on the details, but knowing how these things work, I assume water balloons were involved. The floor was wet. People were injured. One boy had to be taken to the hospital."
That would explain the cast on Gabe's arm.
"Thank you." Faith shook his hand again. This time, his eyes didn't crinkle when he smiled, and he let her go down the stairs ahead of him. He seemed to hesitate when they got outside, but once he figured out she was going right, he took a quick left toward the back of the quad.
Faith made her way toward her car, wondering what the hell had happened to Will Trent. She found him leaning over her Mini, his elbows resting on the roof. He had his head in his hands, the phone to his ear. His jacket was draped across the hood.
As Faith drew closer, she could make out what he was saying. "Yes, sir. I'll make sure someone is there to meet you at the airport tomorrow. Just call me back with your flight information." He glanced up, and there was so much pain in his expression that she made herself look away. "Thank you, sir. I'll do everything I can."
She heard the phone snap closed. He cleared his throat. "Sorry, the sheriff called back with a number for the Humphreys. I wanted to get that over with as soon as possible." He cleared his throat. "They're about six hours from a major airport. They're going to drive down tonight and try to get the first flight out tomorrow morning, but it lays over in Salt Lake. Depending on whether or not they get routed through Dallas, it could take them anywhere from seven to twelve hours to get here." He cleared his throat. "I told them to call the airline directly, explain their situation, and see what can be done."