To his surprise, the blinding mist suddenly revealed what he had been half-seeing all morning. “Yes.”
“Then I expect your comfort is gonna come from going and doing.” Deacon rose, and in the process settled a solid hand upon Marcus’ shoulder. He turned from the fog, the portents read and dismissed. “My bones tend to settle of a morning. Best to get them up and moving about.”
North Carolina State University had once been content to anchor the empty stretches east of Hillsboro Street. Now Hillsboro was a six-lane thoroughfare aimed straight at the capitol, and State’s campus sprawled in every conceivable direction. In the fifties it had been nicknamed Cow College, since over half its student body had been Piedmont farm children down to learn the new science of agriculture. Now its atomic-engineering department held seven NASA contracts, the agricultural-genetics division designed pest-resistant seed strains on behalf of the United Nations and eleven African nations, two professors had won Nobel Prizes in biochemistry, and the veterinary-medicine department held over a thousand groundbreaking patents.
Marcus parked by the original stone bell tower and asked directions to the math department. He found Dr. Austin Hall’s name on the address board and climbed to the third floor. A secretary took note of his age and his suit, checked the roster, and reported that Dr. Hall had a class but should be stopping by his office in about twenty minutes. Marcus used the time to reread the folder from Kirsten Stanstead.
“Mr. Glenwood?” Despite his stiff demeanor, Austin Hall looked seriously jolted by finding Marcus camped outside his office. “What are you doing here?”
Marcus closed the file and rose from the bench. “We need to talk.”
“I’m extremely busy.” Keys jangled nervously in the professor’s grasp. “I have a faculty meeting in ten minutes-”
“You might just make it,” Marcus replied, holding his ground. “If we don’t waste any more time out here.”
Austin Hall’s entire face folded with resignation. “Come on, then.”
The professor wore a three-piece suit of charcoal gray and shoes that squeaked as he walked to his door. “I wish you’d just speak to my wife.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Mrs. Hall.” He watched the man have difficulty fitting the key in the door, and knew he was right to come. “This is between you and me.”
Austin Hall entered an office as clean and tightly structured as his clothing. He dropped his briefcase on the desk and retreated behind the polished wood surface. “All right. What is it?”
Marcus shut the door. “Please sit down, Dr. Hall.”
“I told you, I’m in a hurry to-”
“Sit down.”
The man’s jawline knotted, but he did as he was told. Marcus pulled a chair front and center before the desk, seated himself on the edge, took a breath. Another. Forced himself to expel the air and the words, though he had to clench his hands and his gut to get them out. “Eighteen months ago I was driving back from Wrightsville Beach. My two children were in the backseat. My wife was beside me. We stopped at a diner for lunch. We got back in the car and started off, arguing like we had been ever since we left the beach.”
“Really, Mr. Glenwood, I don’t see any reason why you should barge in here and unload these highly personal details.”
Marcus raised his face a notch. Nothing more. Just let the other man see his eyes. It was enough to shut off the protest. Austin Hall dropped his gaze, fiddled open his jacket, and began toying with the gold watch chain that arched across his middle. Anything but look back into Marcus’ eyes.
Marcus held to the quiet tone, one that sounded almost gentle to his own ears. Like the voice of the doctor who had come to him that day in the hospital. A voice too full of emotion to hold much force. “We entered an intersection, I could have sworn we had the green light but I don’t know, the other driver said it was red and my wife and I were still arguing … ” He searched for air that did not fill his lungs and never would again. “All I saw was a flash of light off to my right, didn’t hear the horn or the brakes, though the police report says there was a skid mark seventeen feet long. Just that flash of light off the truck’s grill, then he hit us. Just behind my wife’s door. Drove in the back right door and …”
He couldn’t remember why he had started on this story. Only that he had to finish. “I don’t recall much about what happened next. In my memory it was as though one instant there came this flash of light, the next and I was on a bench in the hospital, a nurse was bandaging my forehead, and a doctor was leaning over to say something.”
He remembered then why he had come. Why this was so important. His head popped above the surface of his ocean of pain, and he focused on the man opposite him. “I didn’t want that doctor to speak. If I had owned a gun, I would have killed him stone dead not to hear what I saw there in his eyes.”
Marcus stopped then, and waited until the silence lifted the other man’s head. Austin Hall threw him one quick glance. A world of terror in one swift look. Marcus continued, “So I’m here to tell you that all you have to do is say the word and I’ll walk away. No, even more than that: Unless you ask me to continue, I’m going to drop this case. And I seriously doubt that anyone else will ever touch it.”
The dark fingers twirled the chain, a glittering spiral across his middle. “It won’t do any good. Alma-”
“I won’t say a word to your wife about our conversation. This is between you and me.” Another breath, the hardest of all. “Father to father.”
The gaze that met his own was hollowed by nights of whispering shadows. “I couldn’t bear it if my Gloria … ”
“I know,” Marcus murmured, “all too well.”
Laughter and loud student voices echoed from somewhere down the hall, drawing them back from the brink. Austin Hall asked, “Do you really think making a case of this might do any good?”
“It might. I hate to say more than that. But it might. New Horizons lives in the spotlight. If we could even threaten them with publicly staining their reputation, maybe they’d respond.” Marcus unclenched his hands and offered them, empty. “But it’s a long shot at best.”
When Austin Hall’s only response was to turn and stare out the window behind his desk, Marcus rose and left the room.
NINE
Logan Kendall’s secretary knocked on his open door. “Mr. Walker is here to see you, sir.”
“Show him in.” Logan waited to rise until the older man was through the door. “Randall, good to see you. You take coffee?”
“Black, two sugars.”
“Have a seat here, why don’t you.” Logan noted the man’s flash of irritation at being directed to the chair in front of the desk, and not the sofa in the corner. Good. Cracking that polished veneer was an excellent first step. Logan walked back around his desk and dropped into his chair. “What can I do for you?”
Randall Walker had the easy smile of old Southern money, and eyes of congealed mud. “What say we wait for the young lady to bring my coffee?”
“If you want.” Logan made a scene of checking his watch, his desk clock, his diary. “I need to be leaving fairly soon, though. Got a big case coming up.”
Randall held to his smile, though his gaze hardened. “Only if you’re lucky.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m here to offer you … ” He stopped as the secretary returned, with a mug this time, as per Logan’s earlier instructions. No china service, no boardroom conference, no stage for Randall to control. This was Logan’s office and strictly his show.
Randall inspected the mug, then lifted it in a wry accolade. “You learn fast.”
“You started to say something?”
“Indeed I did.” A sip, a nod of approval. “I stopped in today to offer you a dream come true.”