And then her heart began to pound.
“Hey,” Rachel said, now laying on her back and staring up at the ceiling. “That’s Haydn, isn’t it?”
“No.” She swallowed hard. “It’s Alex.”
Her partner rolled up on her knees and moved to look over Lorelei’s shoulder. She could feel the renewed heat and arousal in her lover. As soon as the clip ended, Lorelei immediately replayed it. “You know,” she breathed in awe, “he worried, when we first came together, that he would bore me before too long.”
Rachel looked up at her lover’s awed expression. She knew Lorelei’s passions and interests. She shared a few, though perhaps not as intensely. Rachel couldn’t help but grin. “He’s pretty good on that piano.”
“Very good.”
“I mean, he’s not like a virtuoso or anything, but that’s some skill there.”
It was a long moment before Lorelei said anything. Rachel waited. “Lover, I gotta get going.”
Lorelei nodded. “I think I may have to meet him on campus.”
Rachel’s grin widened. “Just make sure I have enough warning to brace myself for that.”
* * *
“Now I will repeat this, because I can’t emphasize it enough: I know he may not look it, but the suspect is exceedingly dangerous. He may be armed. He’s fought his way out of captivity before.” Hauser looked out at the dozen uniformed officers in the room, searching for any signs of doubt.
Pictures of Alex Carlisle and a map of the college campus covered the presentation screen of the conference room. All the officers were fairly familiar with the campus already; it was, ultimately, only a couple of blocks away from the precinct headquarters. One of the diagrams had positions and numbers listed to make sure all the bases were covered for the arrest.
“We all know our positions. We all know the plan. Are there any questions?” Hauser asked.
A black officer near the back raised his hand. Hauser read his nametag. “Officer Johnson?” he asked.
“Yeah, if this guy is so dangerous, why are we picking him up in the middle of class on a campus? Wouldn’t it be safer to pick him up somewhere else? Like his home?”
Hauser nodded. “That’s a fair question. Everything in our psych profile and our direct observation shows that he’s less likely to put up resistance in public. If he perceives a threat to other people around him, he’ll back down. If we try to take him in private, he’ll probably resist and someone will get hurt. I know that’s a little counterintuitive-“
“So wait,” spoke up the fit, young officer beside Johnson with a skeptical frown, “we don’t want anyone to get hurt, so we’re gonna use a bunch of innocent people as a deterrent?”
“I figure the twelve police uniforms will be the real deterrent, Officer Murray. Any other questions?” Hauser asked. He winced when Johnson and Murray glanced at one another and Murray raised his hand again.
“I’m sorry, I just wanna get this part straight: we’re the good guys here, right?”
“Murray, Johnson, outside,” sighed Sergeant Barnes. “I’ll talk to you in a minute. Everyone else, are we all ready to go?” he asked as the pair of officers headed out of the room. “No? Okay, good. Let’s roll on out and wait for the go order from Agent Hauser.”
Watching the room clear out, Hauser turned to the lieutenant by his side. “Is there going to be a problem with those two?”
“No,” the lieutenant shook his head. “Just a little attitude, and they have a point. But they’ll do their jobs. I got ‘em transferred up from South Precinct for just this sort of thing. Believe me, if this guy does put up a fight, you want Johnson and Murray there to end it.”
It wasn’t the answer Hauser wanted to hear, but he decided to roll with it. He hit his cell phone and brought it to his ear. “We still have contact?” he asked.
“Yeah, we spotted him. He walked with the Goth girl to some other classroom not on his schedule, but now he’s headed to class. Dancing.”
“Dancing?” Hauser blinked.
“Yeah, sort of. I mean not like a full musical routine, or anything, but he’s boppin’ along all happy-like. Not a care in the world. Looks like swing to me, maybe?”
“…swing dancing?”
“Can’t tell if it’s East Coast or West Coast. I’m out of practice.”
Hauser pinched the bridge of his nose. “Keeley-“
“He’s in the classroom now. We’re good to go.”
“Okay. Let’s move out.”
* * *
He put the date on the first page of the notebook. Class names didn’t matter; he’d recognize the subjects later just from whatever notes he wrote down. The notebook was only meant to get him through the day, anyway. He’d probably just tear out the pages he used and put them in the pockets of the leather jacket hung on the back of his seat on his way off campus later that day.
“So for the next few weeks, we’ll be tackling selected short stories from your anthology,” explained Professor Mayfield. She leaned against the table at the front of the classroom, holding up the thick text just in case anyone was confused. “This anthology was put together by some of the greatest minds in literature today.”
Alex tried to listen. Instead, his mind wandered as he looked at his pretty professor. Lorelei had taunted him over her, suggesting that he could woo her into a much less academic or professional relationship. He’d had a crush on her, sure; she was intelligent, educated, mature, pretty… all things he admired greatly.
Then she forced the class to read The Glass Menagerie. Emotional cruelty like that was unforgivable.
“These stories,” she said with almost breathless reverence, “contain a wealth of human emotion and human experience. These are what we mean when we call something literature.
“So you’ll put together a double-entry journal for each story, like so,” she said, holding up an example. “You draw a line down the center of the page, and when you find a particular passage moving or if something strikes a chord within you, quote just a little of it on the left and then write your reaction on the right.”
He’d done these before. He wrote “short stories” on his notebook page and drew a short line down the middle. On the left he put, “Quote tale of human misery and helplessness here,” and on the right he scrawled, “Write down anger and disgust at assignment here.”
“Now, I have some slides to show you examples,” continued Mayfield as she moved back around the table for her laptop, “if I can just get the projector to work right again…”
Alex stared at his paper. He had no idea how he’d be able to focus on this sort of work. Creatures of the night hunted him, he’d just started up another wild and unusual relationship, fragments and echoes of past lives were still settling in his head, and as if all that weren’t enough, there was still Rachel and Lorelei.
He felt a tap at his shoulder and looked over to his side. Dylan Jorgensen leaned in from the next desk over. “Didn’t we do exactly this in Ms. Uribe’s class?”
“Yup,” nodded Alex.
The burly classmate in the Twelfth Man jersey smirked. “I think I liked maybe one of those stupid short stories in that class,” he huffed. Alex gave the briefest rise of his eyebrows in acknowledgment, but said nothing. Dylan added, “Think I was baked in her class most days, too.”
“Yeah,” Alex nodded quietly. He could believe that.
“One time I cut that class to hook up with Jocelyn.”
Alex bit his lip. That he did not believe.
Someone in a suit came into the classroom to speak to Professor Mayfield, distracting her further. He had another man with him, also in a suit, looking calm and collected. Mayfield seemed surprised by whatever they told her. Alex faintly heard the door at the back of the classroom open, but didn’t look back. He sensed nothing wrong. Besides, not laughing in Dylan’s face required concentration.