A Faint Cold Fear

3

Lena used her twisted ankle as an excuse to lag behind Chuck, knowing that her temper would flare if he tried to make conversation. She needed a couple of minutes to herself to think about what had happened with Jeffrey. Her mind would not let go of the way he had looked at her. Jeffrey had been angry with Lena before, but never like today. Today he’d actually hated her.

In the last year, Lena’s life had been one long series of fuck-ups, from losing her job to sliding on her ass down the riverbed. No wonder Jeffrey had pushed her off the force. He was right; she was unreliable. He could not trust her because time and time again Lena had proved she did not deserve it. This time she might have cost him the man who’d stabbed Tessa Linton.

“Keep up, Adams,” Chuck tossed over his shoulder. He was a couple of feet in front of her, and she stared at his wide back, willing all her hatred into him.

“Come on, Adams,” Chuck said. “Walk it off.”

“It’s fine.”

“Yeah,” Chuck said, slowing down. He gave her a wet smile. “So . . . guess the chief don’t want you back anytime soon.”

“You either,” she reminded him.

Chuck snorted, as if she’d made a joke instead of pointed out the truth. Lena had never met anyone who was so good at ignoring the obvious.

Chuck said, “He just don’t like me because I dated his girlfriend back in high school.”

“You dated Sara Linton?” Lena asked, thinking that was about as likely as Chuck’s dating the queen of England.

Chuck shrugged casually. “Long time ago. You friends with her or something?”

“Yeah,” Lena lied. Sara was far from a close friend. “She never mentioned it.”

“Sore spot for her,” Chuck covered. “I left her for another girl.”

“Right,” Lena said, thinking this was typical Chuck. He thought that everything that came out of his mouth was believed, and he labored under the false impression that he was well respected on campus, even though it was common knowledge that the only reason Chuck had gotten his job was his daddy had made a phone call to Kevin Blake, the dean of Grant Tech. Albert Gaines, president of the Grant Trust and Loan, had a lot of pull in town, especially with the college. When Chuck had moved back home after eight years in the army, he walked right into the job as director of campus security with no questions asked.

Answering to a man like Chuck was a bitter pill Lena had to swallow every day. She had not been presented with a lot of choices after resigning her badge. At thirty-four, Lena didn’t know anything other than being a cop. She’d entered the academy right out of high school and never looked back. The only things she was qualified for were flipping burgers or cleaning houses, neither of which appealed.

In the days after Lena left the force, she’d considered going somewhere far away, maybe visiting Mexico and finding her grandmother’s people or volunteering somewhere overseas, but then reality caught up with her, and she realized that the bank did not care if Lena needed a change of scenery—they still expected her mortgage and car payments every month. Even with the paltry disability payments she received from the police department and what little money she’d managed to make from selling her house, things were tight.

The college job offered free campus housing and health benefits in lieu of a living wage. Granted, the housing sucked and the health insurance had a deductible so high Lena panicked if she so much as sneezed, but it was a steady job and meant she did not have to move in with her uncle Hank. Moving back to Reece, where Hank had raised Lena and Sibyl, her twin sister, would have been too easy. It would’ve been too easy to take up space at the bar Hank owned and drink away her nightmares. It would have been too easy to hide from the rest of the world, until thirty years had passed and she was still holding down a barstool, the scars on her hands the only reminder of why she’d started drinking in the first place.

Lena had been raped a little over a year ago; not just raped but kidnapped, held in her abductor’s home for days. Her memories from that time were scattered because she was drugged during most of the attack, her mind sent to a safer place while her body was brutalized. Scars on her hands and feet served as a permanent reminder that she’d been nailed spread-eagle to the floor to keep her open to her attacker at all times. Her hands still ached on cold days, but the pain could not match the fear she’d experienced watching the long nails being hammered into her flesh.

Before setting his sights on Lena, this same animal had killed Sibyl, Lena’s sister, and the fact that he was gone now offered no comfort. He still showed up in Lena’s dreams, giving her such vivid nightmares that she sometimes woke in a cold sweat, clutching the covers, feeling his presence in the room. Worse still were the dreams that were not nightmares, when he touched her so softly that her skin tingled, and she woke disoriented and aroused, her body shaking in response to the erotic images her sleeping mind had conjured. She knew the drugs she had been given during the attack had tricked her body into responding, but Lena still could not forgive herself. Sometimes the memory of his touch on her body would cover her like the fine silk of a spiderweb, and she would find herself shaking so hard that only a scalding-hot shower could make her skin feel like her own again.

Lena didn’t know if it was desperation or stupidity that had made her call the college’s counseling center a month ago. Whatever had compelled her, the three and a half sessions she’d managed to attend were a huge mistake. Talking to a stranger about what had happened—not that Lena had actually gotten around to that part of it—was too much. There were some things that were too private to discuss. Ten minutes into a particularly painful fourth session, Lena had gotten up and left the clinic, never to return. At least not until now, when she would have to tell that same doctor that her son was dead.

“Adams,” Chuck said, glancing over his shoulder, “you know this chick?”

Women were always chicks or bitches to Chuck, depending on whether or not he thought they would fuck him. Lena hoped to God he knew she was a bitch, but sometimes she got the feeling that Chuck thought it was just a matter of time before she threw herself at his feet.

She told him, “I’ve never met her.” Then, just in case, she added, “I’ve seen her around campus.”

He looked back at her again, but Chuck was as good at reading people as he was at making friends.

“Rosen,” Chuck said. “That sound Jewish to you?”

Lena shrugged; she’d never given it much thought. Grant Tech was fairly well integrated, and except for one or two assholes who had recently decided to take up spray-painting racial slurs on anything that wasn’t moving, there was an easy balance on campus.

“Hope she’s not—” Chuck made a whistling noise, whirling his finger near his temple. Of course Chuck would assume that anyone working in a mental-health clinic was nuts.

Lena did not give him the satisfaction of a response. She was trying to think whether anyone at the clinic would recognize her. The clinic closed at two on Sundays, but Rosen had agreed to see Lena after hours, probably because of the notoriety attached to Lena’s case. Anyone who could read a newspaper knew the lurid details of Lena’s kidnapping and rape. Rosen had probably been overjoyed to hear Lena’s voice on the line.

“Here go,” Chuck said, opening the door to the counseling center.

Lena caught the door before it closed in her face and followed Chuck into the crowded waiting room.

Like most colleges, Grant Tech was seriously underfunded in the mental-health department. Especially in Georgia, where the lottery-backed Hope Scholarship pretty much ensured that anybody who could pencil in a circle got into a state university, more and more kids were coming to college who could not handle the emotional stress of being away from home or having to work. As a technical college, Grant tended toward math nerds and overachievers anyway. These type-A personalities did not take failure well, and the counseling center was practically bulging at the seams from the influx of new students. If their insurance plans were anything like Lena’s, the students had no choice but to turn to the college.

Chuck hitched up his pants as he walked to the counter. Lena could almost read his mind as he looked around the room, taking in the fact that most of the patients were young women wearing cropped T-shirts and bell-bottom jeans. Lena had her own thoughts about the girls, whose worst difficulties probably centered on boys and missing Fido back home. They probably had no idea what it was like to have real problems, problems that kept you up at night, sweating it out until morning came and you could breathe again.

“Hello?” Chuck said, popping his palm against the bell on the counter. Some of the women jumped at the sound, giving Lena a nasty glance, as if they expected her to be able to control him.

“Hello?” He leaned over the counter, trying to see down the hallway.

His voice was so loud in the small room that Lena wanted to put her hands over her ears. Instead she stared at the floor, trying not to look as embarrassed as she felt.

The receptionist, a tall strawberry blonde with an irritated look on her face, finally appeared. She glanced at Lena with no sign of recognition.

“There you are,” Chuck said, smiling like they were old friends.

“Yes?”

“Carla?” Chuck asked, reading her name tag. His eyes lingered at her chest.

She crossed her arms. “What is it?”

Lena stepped in, keeping her voice low. “We need to see Dr. Rosen.”

“She’s in session. She can’t be disturbed.”

Lena was about to take the woman aside and privately explain the situation when Chuck blurted out, “Her son killed himself about an hour ago.”

There was a collective gasp around the room. Magazines were dropped, and two girls walked out the door within seconds of each other.

Carla took a moment to recover from her shock before offering, “I’ll go get her.”

Lena stopped her, saying, “I’ll tell her. Just take me to her office.”

The younger woman exhaled with relief. “Thank you.”

Chuck was at Lena’s heels as they followed the girl down the long, narrow hallway. Claustrophobia struck Lena like a sudden flame, and she found herself sweating by the time they reached Jill Rosen’s office. With his usual flair for knowing how to make things worse, Chuck stood close to Lena, almost hovering over her. She could smell his aftershave mixed with the sickly sweet smell of his gum, which he smacked loudly in her ear. She held her breath, turning her head away from him, trying not to be sick.

The receptionist rapped lightly on the door. “Jill?”

Lena pulled at her collar, trying to get more air.

Rosen sounded exasperated as she opened the door, asking, “Yes?” Then she saw Lena, recognition bringing a curious smile. Her mouth opened to say something, but Lena cut her off.

“Are you Dr. Rosen?” Lena asked, aware her voice sounded tinny.

Rosen looked from Lena to Chuck, hesitating for a moment before she turned back to the patient in her office, saying, “Lily, I’ll be right back.”

She pulled the door closed, saying, “This way.”

Lena glared at Chuck before following her, but he still kept close to her heels.

Rosen stopped at an open doorway, gesturing into the room. “We can talk in here.”

Lena had only ever been in the waiting room or Rosen’s office, so she was surprised to find herself in a large conference room. The space was warm and open, with lots of plants, just like Jill Rosen’s office. The walls were painted a soothing light gray. There were chairs covered in mauve fabric tucked under a long mahogany conference table. Large four-drawer filing cabinets filled one side of the room, and Lena was glad to see they were padlocked to keep people from prying.

The doctor turned around, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Jill Rosen had a narrow face and shoulder-length dark brown hair. She was attractive for her age, which was probably early forties, and dressed in an earthy style, with long, flowing blouses and skirts that suited her figure. There was a no-nonsense manner about her that had been very off-putting to Lena, especially when the doctor took it upon herself to diagnose Lena as an alcoholic after only three sessions. Lena wondered that the woman had any patients at all with that kind of attitude. Come to think of it, there was not much to be said for a shrink who couldn’t keep her own son from taking a deep dive into a shallow river.

Predictably, Rosen got straight to the point. “What’s the problem?”

Lena took a deep breath, wondering how strained this was going to be, considering her past with Rosen. She decided to be direct. “We’ve come about your son.”

“Andy?” Rosen asked, sinking into one of the chairs like a slowly deflating balloon. She sat there, back straight, hands clasped in her lap, perfectly composed but for the look of sheer panic in her eyes. Lena had never read anyone’s expression so clearly in her life. The woman was terrified.

“Is he—” Rosen stopped to clear her throat, and tears sprang into her eyes. “Has he gotten into trouble?”

Lena remembered Chuck. He was standing in the doorway, hands tucked into his pockets as if he were watching a talk show. Before Chuck could protest, she shut the door in his face.

“I’m sorry,” Lena said, pressing her palms against the table as she sat down. The apology was for Chuck, but Rosen took it a different way.

“What?” the doctor pleaded, a sudden desperation filling her voice.

“I meant—”

Without warning, Rosen reached across the table and grabbed Lena’s hands. Lena flinched, but Rosen did not seem to notice. Since the rape, the thought of touching someone—or worse, being touched—made Lena break into a cold sweat. The intimacy of the moment brought bile to the back of her throat.

Rosen asked, “Where is he?”

Lena’s leg started to shake, the heel of her foot bobbing up and down uncontrollably. When she spoke, her voice caught, but not from sympathy. “I need you to look at a picture.”

“No,” Rosen refused, holding on to Lena’s hands as if she were hanging over a cliff and Lena was the only thing keeping her from falling. “No.”

With difficulty Lena freed one of her hands and took the Polaroid out of her pocket. She held up the picture, but Rosen looked away, closing her eyes like a child.

“Dr. Rosen,” Lena began. Then, moderating her tone, “Jill, is this your son?”

She looked at Lena, not the photograph, hatred glowing like white-hot coals.

“Tell me if it’s him,” Lena persisted, willing her to get this over with.

Rosen finally looked at the Polaroid. Her nostrils flared and her lips pressed into a thin line as she fought back tears. Lena could tell from the woman’s expression that the dead boy was her son, but Rosen was taking her time, staring at the picture, trying to let her mind accept what her eyes were seeing. Probably without thinking, Rosen stroked the scar on the back of Lena’s hand with her thumb as though it were a talisman. The sensation was like sandpaper on a blackboard, and Lena gritted her teeth together so she would not scream.

Rosen finally asked, “Where?”

“We found him on the west side of campus,” Lena told her, so taken by the urge to jerk back her hand that her arm began to shake.

Rosen, oblivious, asked, “What happened?”

Lena licked her lips, though her mouth was as dry as a desert. “He jumped,” she said, trying to breathe. “From a bridge.” She stopped. Then, “We think he—”

“What?” Rosen asked, her hand still clamped onto Lena’s.

Lena could take no more, and she found herself begging, “Please, I’m sorry . . .” A look of confusion crossed Rosen’s face, which made Lena feel even more trapped. The level of her voice rose with each word, until she was screaming, “Let go of my hand!”

Rosen recoiled quickly, and Lena stood, knocking over her chair, moving away from the other woman until she felt her back against the door.

A look of horror was on Rosen’s face. “I’m sorry.”

“No.” Lena leaned against the door, rubbing her hands on her thighs like she was wiping off dirt. “It’s okay,” she said, her heart shaking in her chest. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

“I should have known . . .”

“Please,” Lena said, feeling heat on her thighs from the friction. She stopped the motion, clasping her hands, rubbing them together as if she were cold.

“Lena,” Rosen said, sitting up in her chair but not standing. She said, “It’s okay. You’re safe here.”

“I know that,” Lena said, but her voice was weak, and the taste of fear was still sour in her mouth. “I’m fine,” she insisted, but she was still wringing her hands. Lena looked down, pressing her thumb into the scar on her palm, rubbing into it as if she could rub it away. “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”

“Lena . . . ,” Rosen began, but she did not finish the thought.

Lena concentrated on her breathing, calming herself. Her hands were red and sticky from sweat, the scars standing out in angry relief. She forced herself to stop, tucking her hands under her arms. She was acting like a head case. This was the kind of thing mentally ill people did. Rosen was probably ready to commit her.

Rosen tried again. “Lena?”

Lena tried to laugh it off. “I just got nervous,” she said, pushing her hair behind her ear. Sweat made it stick to her scalp.

Inexplicably, Lena wanted to say something mean, something that would cut Rosen in two and put them both back on a level playing field.

Maybe Rosen sensed what was coming, because she asked, “Who should I talk to at the police station?”

Lena stared, because for a split second she could not remember why she was here.

“Lena?” Rosen asked. She had retreated back into herself, her hands clasped in her lap, her posture ramrod straight.

“I—” Lena stopped. “Chief Tolliver will be at the library in about half an hour.”

Rosen stared, as if she could not decide what to do. For a mother, thirty minutes of waiting to hear the details of what had happened to her son was probably a lifetime.

Lena said, “Jeffrey doesn’t know about . . .” She indicated the space between them.

“Therapy?” Rosen provided, as if Lena were stupid for not being able to say the word.

“I’m sorry,” Lena said, and this time she genuinely felt the emotion. She was supposed to be here comforting Jill Rosen, not yelling at her. Jeffrey had told Chuck that Lena would be an asset, and she had fucked everything up in the space of five minutes.

Lena tried again. “I’m really sorry.”

Rosen raised her chin, acknowledging the apology but not accepting it.

Lena uprighted the chair. The desire to bolt from the room was so strong that her legs ached.

Rosen said, “Tell me what happened. I need to know what happened.”

Lena folded her hands over the back of the chair, holding on to it tightly. “It looks like he jumped from the bridge by the woods,” she said. “A student found him and called 911. The coroner got there a little while later and pronounced him.”

Rosen inhaled, holding the air in her chest for a few beats. “He walks to school that way.”

“The bridge?” Lena asked, realizing that Rosen must have a house near Main Street, where a lot of professors lived.

“His bike kept getting stolen,” she said, and Lena nodded. Bicycles were constantly being stolen on campus, and the security team had no idea who was doing it.

Rosen sighed again, as if she were letting out her grief in little spurts. She asked, “Was it fast?”

“I don’t know,” Lena said. “I think so. That kind of thing . . . it would have to happen fast.”

“Andy’s manic-depressive,” Rosen told her. “He’s always been sensitive, but his father and I are . . .” She let her voice trail off, as if she did not want to trust Lena with too much information. Considering her recent outburst, Lena could not blame her.

Rosen asked, “Did he leave a note?”

Lena took the note out of her back pocket and put it down on the table. Rosen hesitated before picking it up.

“That’s not from Andy,” Lena said, indicating the bloody fingerprints Frank and Jeffrey had left on the paper. Even considering everything that had happened with Tessa, Lena was surprised Frank had let her take the note to Andy’s mother.

“It’s blood?”

Lena nodded but did not explain. She would leave it to Jeffrey to decide how much information to give the mother.

Rosen put on her glasses, which were hanging by a chain around her neck. Though Lena had not asked her to, she read aloud, “ ‘I can’t take it anymore. I love you, Mama. Andy.’ ”

The older woman took another deep breath, as if she could hold it in along with her emotions. Carefully she took off her glasses, putting the suicide note on the table. She stared at it as if she could still read it, saying, “It’s almost identical to the one he wrote before.”

“When was this?” Lena asked, her mind clicking onto the investigation.

“January second. He slit his arm up the center. I found him before he lost too much blood, but . . .” She leaned her head on her hand, looking down at the note. She put her fingers on it, like she was touching a part of her son—the only part that he had left her.

“I’ll need that back,” Lena told her, even though Jeffrey and Frank had destroyed its value as evidence.

“Oh.” Rosen moved her hand away. “Will I be able to get it back?”

“Yes, when everything’s finished.”

“Oh,” Rosen repeated. She started to fidget with the chain holding her glasses. “Can I see him?”

“They’ll need to perform an autopsy.”

Rosen latched on to the news. “Why? Did you find something suspicious?”

“No,” Lena said, though she was still unsure. “It’s just routine because the death was unattended. No one was there.”

“Was his body badly . . . damaged?”

“Not really,” she said, knowing that the answer was subjective. Lena could still remember seeing her sister in the morgue last year. Though Sara had cleaned her up, the small bruises and cuts on Sibyl’s face had seemed like a thousand wounds.

“Where is he now?”

“At the morgue. They’ll release him to the funeral home in a day or so,” Lena told her, then realized from Rosen’s shocked expression that the mother had not let her mind think through the steps to the point where she would actually have to bury her son. Lena thought about apologizing, but she knew what a pointless gesture the words would be.

“He wanted to be cremated,” Rosen said. “I don’t think I can do that. I don’t think I can let them . . .” She shook her head, not finishing. Her hand went to her mouth, and Lena noticed a wedding ring.

“Do you want me to tell your husband?”

“Brian’s out of town,” she said. “He’s been working on a grant.”

“He’s at the college, too?”

“Yes.” Her brow furrowed as she fought back emotions. “Andy was working with him, trying to help. We thought he was doing better—” She tried to suppress a sob but finally broke down.

Lena clutched the back of the chair, watching the other woman. Rosen was a silent crier, her lips parted but no sound coming out. She put her hand to her chest, squeezing her eyes closed as tears poured down her face. Her thin shoulders folded inward, and her chin trembled as it dropped to her chest.

Lena was overwhelmed with the urge to leave. Even before the rape, she had never been good at comforting people. There was something about neediness that threatened her, like Lena would have to give up part of herself in order to console someone. She wanted to go home now to fortify herself, to wash the taste of fear out of her mouth. Lena had to find a way to regain her strength before she went out into the world again. Especially before she saw Jeffrey.

Rosen must have sensed Lena’s feelings. She wiped away a tear, her tone turning brisk. “I need to call my husband,” she said. “Can you give me a moment?”

“Of course,” Lena told her, relieved. “I’ll meet you in the library.” She put her hand on the doorknob but stopped, not looking at the doctor. “I know I don’t have a right to ask this,” she began, aware that Jeffrey would write her off completely if Rosen told him what had happened.

Rosen seemed to sense exactly what Lena was worried about. She snapped, “No, you don’t have a right to ask.”

Lena turned the knob, but she could feel Rosen’s stare burrowing into her. Lena felt trapped, but she managed to ask, “What?”

Rosen offered what seemed like a compromise. She said, “If you’re sober, I won’t tell him.”

Lena swallowed, and her mouth could almost taste the shot of whiskey her mind had been conjuring for the last two minutes. Without answering, she shut the door behind her.

Lena sat at an empty table by the circulation desk at the library, watching Chuck making a fool of himself with Nan Thomas, the school librarian. Setting aside the fact that Nan, with her mousy brown hair and thick glasses, was hardly worth the effort, Lena happened to know that the woman was gay. Nan had been Sibyl’s lover for four years. The two women had been living together when Sibyl was murdered.

To take her mind off Chuck, Lena glanced around the library, looking at the students working at the long tables lining the middle of the room. Midterms were on the horizon, and the place was pretty packed for a Sunday. Other than the cafeteria and the counseling center, the library was the only building open today.

As libraries went, Grant Tech’s was pretty impressive. Lena supposed that the school’s not having a football team meant more money could be spent on the facilities, but she still thought they would have been better off with some sort of athletic department. Five years ago two Grant professors had developed some kind of shot or magic pill that made pigs grow fatter in a shorter amount of time. Farmers had gone nuts over the discovery, and there was a framed cover of Porcine & Poultry by the library entrance with a picture of the two professors looking rich and satisfied on the cover. The headline read “High on the Hog,” and judging by the smiles on the professors’ faces, they certainly were not hurting for money. As with most research institutes, the school got a chunk of the proceeds from anything its professors worked on, and Kevin Blake, the dean, had used some of the money to completely refurbish the library.

Large stained-glass windows facing the eastern side of the campus had been reglazed so that heat and air-conditioning didn’t seep outside. The dark wood paneling on the walls and the two stories of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves had been lightened so that they were still imposing but not oppressive. The overall atmosphere was soothing, and Lena liked coming here at night as part of her after-work routine. She would sit in one of the cubicles in the front and thumb through whatever book was handy until around ten, when she would return to her room, have a drink or two to take the edge off, and try to go to sleep. All in all, the routine worked for her. There was something comforting about having a schedule.

“Fuck,” Lena groaned as Richard Carter walked toward her.

Without waiting for an invitation, Richard slumped down in the chair opposite Lena.

“Hey, girl,” he said, flashing a smile.

“Hey,” she said, injecting as much dislike into her tone as possible.

“Whatcha know good?”

Lena stared at him, wishing he would go away. Sibyl’s ex–teaching assistant was a short, husky man who had only recently traded in his thick glasses for contact lenses. Richard was three years younger than Lena, but he already had a large bald spot on the crown of his head, which he tried to cover by brushing the rest of his hair straight back. Between the new contacts, which had him constantly blinking, and the widow’s peak on his forehead, he had the appearance of a confused owl.

Since Sibyl’s death Richard had been promoted to an associate professorship in the biology department where, considering his repellent personality, his career would probably stall. Richard was a lot like Chuck in that he tried to cover his suffocating stupidity with an air of completely unfounded superiority. He could not even order breakfast at a restaurant without implying to everyone around that he knew more about the eggs than the cook did.

“Did you hear about that kid?” Richard made a low whistle like a plane going down, waving his hand in the air and slapping it on the table for emphasis. “Jumped right off the bridge.”

“Yeah,” she told him, not offering more.

“Assassination plots abound,” Richard said, almost giddy. He loved gossip more than a woman; appropriate, considering he was queer as a three-dollar bill. “Both his parents work at the school. His mother is in the counseling department. Can you imagine the scandal?”

Lena felt a flush of shame as she thought about Jill Rosen. She told Richard, “I imagine they’re both pretty broken up. Their son is dead.”

Richard twisted his lips to the side, openly appraising Lena. He was very perceptive for a self-involved asshole, and she hoped she wasn’t giving anything away.

He asked, “Do you know them?”

“Who?”

“Brian and Jill,” he said, glancing over Lena’s shoulder. He gave a silly little-girl wave to someone before turning his focus back to Lena.

She stared, not answering his question.

“Have you lost weight?”

“No,” she said, though she had. Her pants were looser than they had been last week. Lena had not felt much like eating lately. “Was he one of your kids?”

“Andy?” Richard asked. “Sibyl had him for a quarter right before—”

“What kind of kid was he?”

“Nasty, if you ask me. His parents couldn’t do enough for him.”

“He was spoiled?”

“Rotten,” Richard confirmed. “He nearly failed Sibyl’s class. Organic biology. How hard is that? He’s supposed to be the next Einstein, and he can’t pass OB?” Richard gave a snort of disgust. “Brian tried to lean on her, call in some favors to get the grade bumped up.”

“Sibyl didn’t do favors like that.”

“Of course she didn’t,” Richard said, as if he had never called it into question. “Sib was very polite, as usual, but Brian was ticked.” He lowered his voice. “Let’s be honest. Brian was always jealous of Sibyl. He lobbied night and day for her position as department head.”

Lena wondered if Richard was really being honest or just stirring up shit. He had a habit of putting himself in the middle of things. At one point during the investigation of Sibyl’s murder, Richard’s big mouth had nearly talked him onto the list of suspects, even though he was as capable of murder as Lena was of sprouting wings.

She tried to put him on the spot. “It sounds like you know Brian pretty well.”

He shrugged, waving at someone else behind Lena as he said, “It’s a small department. We all work together. That was Sibyl’s doing. You know her motto was ‘Teamwork.’ ”

He waved again.

She was half curious to turn around and see if anyone was really there but decided she would be better served pumping Richard for information.

“Anyway,” Richard began, “Andy ended up dropping out, and of course Daddy found a job for him at the lab.” He puffed an irritated breath. “Not that I’d call sitting on your ass listening to rap music for six hours a day a job. And God forbid you complain to Brian about it.”

“I guess he’ll take the news pretty hard.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Richard asked. “I imagine both of them will be devastated.”

“What does Brian do?”

“Biomedical research. He’s working on a grant right now, and between you and me . . .” He didn’t finish, but Lena knew that it was between Richard and the entire school. “Well, let’s just say that if he doesn’t get this grant, he’s out of here.”

“He doesn’t have tenure?”

“Oh,” Richard said knowingly, “he has tenure.”

Lena waited for more, but Richard was uncharacteristically silent. She had worked on campus for only a few months, but Lena could guess how the school would get rid of a professor who was underperforming. Richard, who taught remedial biology to drooling freshmen all day, was a perfect example of how the administration could punish professors without exactly firing them. The only difference was, someone like Richard would never leave.

She asked, “Was he smart?”

“Andy?” Richard shrugged. “He was here, wasn’t he?”

Lena knew that that could be taken a couple of different ways. Grant Tech was a good school, but any geek worth his salt wanted to go to Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Like Emory University in Decatur, Georgia Tech was considered one of the South’s Ivy League schools. Sibyl had gone to Georgia Tech on a full scholarship, and it had given her instant cachet on staff. She could have taught anywhere she wanted to, but something had drawn her to Grant.

Richard sounded reflective. “I wanted to go to Georgia Tech, you know. For as long as I could remember. That was going to be my way out of Perry.” He smiled, and for just a second he seemed like a regular human being. “When I was a kid, I had posters all over my walls. I was a Ramblin’ Wreck,” he said, citing one of Georgia Tech’s many school mottos. “I was going to show them all.”

“Why didn’t you go?” Lena asked, thinking she would embarrass him.

“Oh, I got accepted,” Richard said, waiting for her to be impressed. “But my mother had just died and . . .” He let his voice trail off. “Oh, well. Nothing I can do about that now.” He pointed his finger at Lena. “I learned a lot from your sister. She was a very good teacher. She was a role model for me.”

Lena let his compliment hang in the air between them. She did not want to talk about Sibyl with Richard.

“Oh, God.” Richard sat up quickly. “There’s Jill.”

Rosen stood at the door, looking around for Lena. The woman seemed lost, and Lena was debating whether to say something to her when Richard tossed one of his girlie waves.

Jill Rosen smiled weakly, walking toward them.

Richard stood, saying, “Oh, honey,” as he took both of Rosen’s hands.

“Brian’s coming in from Washington,” she told him. “They’re going to try to get him on the next flight out.”

Richard frowned, offering, “If there’s anything I can do for you or Brian . . .”

“Thank you,” Rosen said, but she was looking at Lena.

Lena told Richard, “I’ll see you later.”

Richard raised his eyebrows but bowed out gracefully, offering a final, “Anything you need,” to Jill Rosen.

Rosen gave a tight smile of thanks as he left. She asked Lena, “Is Chief Tolliver here yet?”

“Not yet.”

Rosen stared at her, probably trying to ascertain if Lena had held up her side of the bargain. Lena had, actually. She was sober. The two drinks she had grabbed at her apartment after telling Rosen about her son were hardly enough to make her drunk.

Lena said, “He had some things to deal with first.”

“Do you mean the girl?” Rosen asked, and Lena guessed she’d heard the news about Tessa Linton at least twenty times walking from the counseling center to the library.

Lena explained, “I didn’t want to tell you.”

The woman’s tone was clipped. “Of course you didn’t.”

“No, not because of that,” Lena said. “We’re not even sure if it has anything to do with Andy. I didn’t want you to think—”

“It was her blood on the note?”

“That came after,” Lena said. “They just had it and . . .”

Tears welled into Rosen’s eyes. She rested her hands on the table as though she needed help standing up.

Lena said, “I could leave you alone if you wanted,” hoping like hell the woman would take her up on the offer.

“No,” Rosen said, blowing her nose again. She did not offer an explanation as to why she wanted to keep Lena around.

They both stood there, staring aimlessly at the people in the library. Lena realized she was rubbing the scars on her hands and forced herself to stop. She said, “I’m really sorry about your son. I know what it’s like to lose someone.”

Rosen nodded, still looking away. “After the first time”—she indicated her arm, and Lena took it that she meant Andy’s earlier suicide attempt—“he was getting better. We’d gotten his medication balanced. He seemed like he was doing better.” She smiled. “We’d just bought him a car.”

Lena asked, “He was enrolled in school here?”

“Richard told you, I suppose,” she said, but there was no bitterness to her tone. “We took him out this last quarter so he could concentrate on getting better. He was helping his father at the lab, doing some things around the clinic for me.” She smiled, remembering. “Thursdays he had art lessons. He was very good.”

Lena wished she had her notebook so she could write down this information, but there was really no reason for her to do so. As Jeffrey had pointed out, Lena was not a cop. She was just Chuck’s security gofer, and barely that.

Rosen asked, “What will Chief Tolliver want from me?”

“Probably a list of your son’s friends, where he hung out.” Lena took a wild guess, unable to stop herself from thinking like a cop. “Was Andy using drugs?”

Rosen seemed surprised. “What makes you ask that question?”

“Depressed people tend to self-medicate.”

Rosen tilted her head to the side, giving Lena a knowing look. When Lena did not respond, Rosen said, “Yes, he did drugs. Pot at first, but he was moving into the heavier stuff this time last year. We sent him to a treatment facility. He came out a month later.” She paused. “He told me he was clean, but you can never be certain.”

Lena admired the fact that the woman admitted she did not know everything about her son. In Lena’s experience parents tended to insist they knew their kid better than anyone else did, even the kid.

“When he came out of the program, none of his friends would talk to him. No one who’s using wants to be around someone who’s not.” She added almost as an afterthought, “He was always lonely, though. He never really fit in. He was very smart, and other kids found that off-putting. I suppose you could say he felt a bit alienated.”

“Were any of his friends mad at him? Mad enough to wish him harm?”

Lena could see a spark of hope glimmer in Rosen’s eyes when the mother asked, “You think he could’ve been pushed?”

“No,” Lena answered, knowing that Jeffrey would kill her for putting the thought into Rosen’s head. At the thought of Jeffrey, Lena felt her heart drop.

“Listen,” she told Rosen, “are you going to tell Jeffrey about today or not?”

Rosen took her time answering, moving closer to Lena, as if she wanted to smell her breath. All she would sniff was minty-fresh gel, but Lena still felt a moment of panic.

“No,” Rosen decided. “I won’t tell him about today.”

“What about before?”

Rosen seemed confused. “Therapy?” She shook her head. “That’s confidential, Lena. I told you that in the beginning. I’m not in the habit of revealing who my patients are.”

Lena could only nod, overcome with relief. Jeffrey had given Lena an ultimatum seven months ago: Go to a shrink or go find another job. The choice had seemed simple at the time, and she had tossed both her badge and her gun onto his desk without reservation. Now Lena would put a bullet in her head before she admitted to Jeffrey that she had weakened last month and gone to the clinic. Her pride could not take it.

As if on cue, the large oak doors at the front of the room opened and Jeffrey came in, looking around the room. Chuck walked over to meet him, but Jeffrey must have said something to cut him off, because the next thing Lena knew, Chuck was leaving the room with his tail tucked between his legs.

Lena had never seen Jeffrey look as bad as he did now. He had changed clothes from before, but his suit was rumpled and he was not wearing a tie. The closer he got, the worse he looked.

“Dr. Rosen,” Jeffrey said. “I’m sorry about your loss.” He did not shake her hand or wait for her to acknowledge his words, which struck Lena as very unlike Jeffrey.

He held out a chair for Rosen. “I need to ask you some questions.”

Rosen sat, asking, “Is the girl okay?”

His expression changed just enough to make Lena feel sorry for him. “We don’t know anything yet,” he said. “The family is driving into Atlanta right now.”

Rosen folded the tissue in her hand. “Do you think the person who attacked her could have killed my son?”

“Right now,” Jeffrey said, “we’re treating Andy’s death as a suicide.” He paused, probably to let his words sink in. “I talked to your husband earlier.”

“Brian?” She was surprised.

“He called at the station after he spoke with you,” Jeffrey told her, and Lena could tell from the way he squared his shoulders that the father had been far from polite.

Rosen must have picked up on this. “Brian can be abrupt,” she said by way of apology.

Jeffrey said, “Dr. Rosen, all I can tell you is what I told him. We’re following every possible lead we can, but with your son’s history, suicide seems the most likely scenario.”

Rosen told him, “I’ve been talking to Detective Adams—”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Jeffrey interrupted her. “Ms. Adams isn’t on the police force. She works for campus security.”

Rosen’s tone said she wasn’t going to get caught in the middle of this. “I’m not sure what the hierarchy has to do with the fact that my son is dead, Mr. Tolliver.”

Jeffrey looked only a little contrite. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, taking something out of his coat pocket. “We found this in the forest,” he said, holding up a silver chain with a Star of David hanging from it. “There weren’t any fingerprints on it, so—”

Rosen gasped, grabbing the chain. Tears sprang into her eyes again, and her face seemed to crumple into her neck as she held the charm to her lips, saying, “Andy, oh, Andy . . .”

Jeffrey glanced at Lena, and when she made no move to comfort Jill Rosen, he put his hand on the woman’s shoulder, trying to do the job himself. He patted her like a dog, and Lena wondered why it was perfectly acceptable for a man to be bad at this, but the same deficiency in a woman made her somehow less of a person.

Rosen wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s perfectly understandable,” Jeffrey told her, patting her shoulder a few more times.

Rosen fingered the necklace, still keeping it close to her mouth. “He hadn’t worn it for a while. I thought he might have given it away or sold it.”

“Sold it?” Jeffrey asked.

Lena provided, “She thinks he might have been using drugs.”

Jeffrey said, “The father says he was clean.”

Lena shrugged.

Jeffrey asked Rosen, “Did your son have a girlfriend?”

“He’s never really dated.” She gave a humorless laugh. “Girls or boys, not that we would have minded. We just wanted him to be happy.”

Jeffrey asked, “Was there any particular person he hung around with?”

“No,” she said. “I think he was probably very alone.”

Lena watched Rosen, waiting for more, but the doctor’s composure had started to slip again. She closed her eyes, squeezing them tight. Her lips moved silently, but Lena could not tell what she was saying.

Jeffrey gave the mother some time before saying, “Dr. Rosen?”

“Could I see him?” she asked.

“Of course.” Jeffrey stood, offering the woman his hand. “I’ll drive you to the morgue,” he said, then told Lena, “Chuck went to see Kevin Blake.”

Lena said, “All right.”

Rosen seemed lost in her own thoughts, but she told Lena, “Thank you.”

“It’s okay.” Lena forced herself to touch Jill Rosen’s arm in what she hoped was a comforting gesture.

Jeffrey took in the exchange with a glance. He told Lena, “I’ll talk to you later,” in a tone that sounded more like a threat than anything else.

Lena rubbed her thumb into the back of her hand as she watched them leave. There were noises on the second-floor balcony, where a couple of guys were horsing around, but Lena ignored them. She sat down, going over the last ten minutes in her mind, trying to figure out what she should have done differently. She was a couple of minutes into the process before she realized that what she really needed to do to make things right was relive the whole damn year.

“God,” Nan Thomas groaned, plopping into the chair across from Lena. “How do you work with that jerk?”

“Chuck?” Lena shrugged, but she was glad for the distraction. “It’s a job.”

“I’d rather shelve books in hell,” Nan said as she pulled her stringy brown hair into a red rubber band. There was a huge thumbprint on the right lens of her glasses, but Nan did not seem to notice. She wore a Pepto-Bismol pink T-shirt tucked into an elastic-waisted denim skirt. Red Converse All-Stars completed the ensemble, worn with matching pink socks.

Nan asked, “What are you doing this weekend?”

Lena shrugged again. “I don’t know. Why?”

“I thought I’d have Hank come up for Easter. Maybe cook a ham.”

Lena tried to think of an excuse, but she’d been blindsided by the invitation. She looked at a calendar only to see when she was going to get paid, not to figure out which holiday was coming up. Easter came as a surprise.

Lena said, “I’ll think about it,” and, to her relief, Nan took it well.

There was a shout from above, and they both turned to look at the boys playing on the balcony. One of them must have sensed Nan’s displeasure, because he gave her an apologetic smile before opening the book in his hand and pretending to read it.

“Idiots,” Lena said.

“Nah, they’re good kids,” Nan told her, but she kept her eye on them for a few beats to make sure they stayed settled down.

Nan was the last person on earth Lena would have thought herself capable of being friends with, but over the past few months, something had shifted. They weren’t friends in the normal sense—Lena wasn’t interested in going to the movies with her or hearing about the gay side of Nan’s life—but they talked about Sibyl, and, for Lena, talking about Sibyl with someone who really knew her was like having her back.

“I tried to call you last night,” Nan said. “I don’t know why you don’t get an answering machine.”

“I’ll get around to it,” Lena said, though she already had one sitting in the bottom of her closet. Lena had unplugged the damn thing her first week living on campus. The only people who called were Nan and Hank, both of them leaving the same concerned messages, wondering how she was doing. Now Lena had Caller ID hooked up, and that was all she needed to screen her calls, such as they were.

“Richard was here,” Lena said.

“Oh, Lena.” Nan frowned. “I hope you weren’t rude to him.”

“He was trying to dig up dirt.”

As usual, Nan tried to defend Richard. “Brian works in his department. I’m sure Richard just wanted to know what happened.”

“Did you know him? The kid, I mean?”

Nan shook her head. “We saw Jill and Brian at the faculty Christmas party every year, but we never really socialized. Maybe you should talk to Richard,” she suggested. “They work together in the same lab.”

“Richard is an asshole.”

“He was very good to Sibyl.”

“Sibyl could take care of herself,” Lena insisted, though they both knew that was not necessarily true. Sibyl had been blind. Richard had been her eyes on campus, making her life a hell of a lot easier.

Nan changed the subject, saying, “I wish you would talk to me about taking some of the insurance—”

“No,” Lena cut her off. Sibyl had taken out a life-insurance policy through the college that paid out double for accidental death. Nan had been the beneficiary, and she had been offering half to Lena since the check cleared.

“Sibyl left that to you,” Lena told her for what felt like the millionth time. “She wanted you to have it.”

“She didn’t even have a will,” Nan countered. “She didn’t like to think about death, let alone plan for it. You know how she was.”

Lena felt tears well into her eyes.

Nan said, “The only reason she had the policy was the college offered it for free with her health insurance. She just put me because—”

“Because she wanted you to have it,” Lena finished for her, using the back of her hand to wipe her eyes. She had cried so much in the last year that it no longer embarrassed her to do it in public. “Listen, Nan, I appreciate it, but it’s your money. Sibyl wanted you to have it.”

“She wouldn’t have wanted you working for Chuck. She would’ve hated that.”

“I’m not too crazy about it myself,” Lena admitted, though the only person she had ever said this to was Jill Rosen. “It’s just something to get by until I decide what I want to do with my life.”

“You could go back to school.”

Lena laughed. “I’m a little old to be going back to school.”

“Sibby always said you’d rather sweat your butt off running a marathon in the middle of August than spend ten minutes inside an air-conditioned classroom.”

Lena smiled, feeling the release as her mind conjured Sibyl’s voice saying this exact thing. Sometimes it was like a click in Lena’s brain, where the bad things were shut off and the good things came on.

Nan said, “It’s hard to believe it’s been a year.”

Lena stared out the window, thinking how odd it was that she was talking to Nan like this. Except for Sibyl, Lena would have stayed as far away as possible from someone like Nan Thomas.

“I was thinking about her this morning,” Lena said. Something about the fear on Sara Linton’s face as they loaded her sister into the helicopter had cut Lena deeper than anything had in a long while. “Sibyl used to love this time of year.”

“She loved walking in the woods,” Nan said. “I always tried to leave early on Fridays so we could go for a walk before it got too dark.”

Lena swallowed, afraid that if she opened her mouth, a sob would escape.

“Anyway,” Nan said, putting her palms flat on the table as she stood, “I’d better start cataloging some books before Chuck comes back and asks me to dinner.”

Lena stood, too. “Why don’t you just tell him you’re gay?”

“So he can get off on it?” Nan asked. “No thank you.”

Lena conceded the point. She herself had worried about Chuck’s reading the paper and the lurid details of Lena’s attack.

“Besides,” Nan said, “a guy like that will just say the only reason I don’t want him around is because I’m a lesbian and lesbians hate men.” Nan leaned forward conspiratorially. “When the truth is, we don’t hate all men. We just hate him.”

Lena shook her head, thinking if that was the criteria, every woman on campus was a lesbian.