Winston got in and drove away, and Mark looked around before slowly approaching the cab.
“Airport?” the driver said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Alexis wound through the clusters of students milling on the commons. It was Friday morning, and most upperclassmen were wise enough to manipulate their schedules for a three-day weekend, so the college was less crowded than usual. Even so, the changing of classes launched a human tidal wave across the well-kept grounds.
Not everyone was worried about the next class, however. Students sat under the ancient oak trees with fat books, iPhones, and laptops, while others enjoyed leisurely games of Frisbee or hacky sack. The aroma of coffee and rancid fryer oil wafted from the student canteen. A golden retriever chased a squirrel across the grass, nearly upending a girl on a bicycle.
Alexis loved the older part of the University of North Carolina. The country’s first public university still had some of the landmarks from its 1700s origin, and care had been taken to preserve the traditional heart of the campus.
She’d been an undergrad here, receiving twin degrees in psychology and chemistry. She still had many fond memories of basketball games, frat parties, late nights in the library, strolling through the arboretum in the fall, smoking pot at the Bell Tower with Mark during the traditional Friday “High Noon,” and barhopping on Franklin Street.
She’d lost her virginity her freshman year in the woods behind the outdoor amphitheater, then wished she had it back when the guy turned out to be a self-absorbed asshole. Never date a concert violinist, no matter how skilled his fingers.
Despite tradition, expansion had pushed the campus toward the south, where the buildings rose in gleaming towers of glass and steel surrounding the hospital. Most of Alexis’s classes were in the Morton Building, named for a prominent disciple of Carl Jung, with her lab in the Neurosciences Department.
It was the same lab where she had served as a graduate assistant to Dr. Sebastian Briggs, although she only had a few papers of notes from that era. So much of it was lost, but she had a feeling the loss was for the best.
Today, though, she had to pay a visit to the Chancellor’s Office to sort out some matters related to her upcoming leave of absence. She planned to take a year off to write another book.
“Dr. Morgan?”
Alexis turned. Celia Smith fell into step beside her, a freckle-faced young lady in pigtails and a Decemberists sweatshirt. Although Alexis had about fifty students each semester, she made it a point to memorize their names. Celia was one of those unspectacular students who turned in assignments on time but rarely made the leap from rote recitation to genuine insight.
“Hello, Celia. How are you?”
“Great. I didn’t know they let the scientists over on this part of campus. This is liberal-arts turf.”
“Some people would argue that neurobiology isn’t really a science.”
“Well, you’ve got a lab and stuff.”
Alexis smiled at the “stuff.” “As we come to understand more about the brain, the closer psychology edges toward science. Mood, disorder, and emotion are nothing more than various combinations of electrical impulses and chemical compounds.”
“You sound like Dr. Briggs.”
Alexis drew to a halt, spinning to face Celia and grab her forearm. “Briggs?”
Celia looked down at her flesh, where Alexis’s fingers pressed hard enough to create red rings. “Ow.”
“Sorry.” Alexis drew back, appalled. “I didn’t mean…are you talking about Sebastian Briggs?”
Celia nodded, eyes wide with a look Alexis realized was fear. “Yeah. I’m a volunteer in one of his research projects.”
“Briggs is here?” Alexis couldn’t believe it. She would have seen his name on the faculty roster, and he almost certainly would have been assigned to her department. Besides, Briggs had left UNC with a black mark on his record, and in academia, no administrator was willing to risk repeating a mistake. Especially one of the magnitude made by Briggs.
She had shared in that mistake, but her resume was spotless. However, the ledger in her memory bore a few smudges and eraser marks.
“He’s working under contract,” Celia said. “I drive over to RTP once a week. They pay us fifty dollars a session.”
So Briggs is working in private industry. “What’s the project?”
Celia shook her head, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “We’re not supposed to say. We signed a whatchamacallit, where we have to keep it a secret.”
“A nondisclosure agreement?”
“Yeah. I could get in trouble just saying this much. Plus I could lose the bonus at the end of the trial.”
The crowd around them grew denser, people picking up the pace as the next class loomed minutes away. Alexis felt the urgency in her own bloodstream.
She didn’t know how to fish information from Celia without further frightening the girl. “I won’t tell anybody, Celia. I used to work with him and-well, I didn’t know he was around. I wouldn’t mind saying hello.”
Celia backed away, looking over Alexis’s shoulder. “Sorry, Dr. Morgan. I’m late for chemistry lab.”
Celia turned and hurried into the crowd, which seemed to have thickened in the space of seconds. Alexis was about to shout at Celia, but someone bumped into her, causing her to drop the books she was carrying. As she was flung forward, she bounced against a tall man with the muscular physique of an athlete.
“Hey,” the man yelled in a deep, gruff voice. In the commotion, Alexis felt a sting in the small of her back.
Her first thought was bee, even though it was March and bees were still a little sluggish in the cool air. A spider was more likely, since the spindly arachnids were so ubiquitous and would bite if trapped in clothing. She reached to rub the wound as the jock turned and sneered.
“Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” he said, obviously used to inciting fear through a display of force.
Classic case of insecurity and overcompensation. He probably had performance issues in bed. But, despite Freud’s own suspect logic in linking every problem to sex, maybe this case was simpler. Maybe the guy was just a flaming asshole.
“Sorry,” Alexis said, looking past the gathering crowd in hope of sighting Celia. The student was gone.
The jock kicked at one of the books that had fallen near his foot. “You could have broke my toe,” he said. “Knocked me down a few rounds in the draft.”
Alexis gave her most winning smile, though the spreading pain of the sting tightened her lips. “I advise you to get your degree, then, so you’ll have a fallback position.”
“Fallback? I’m a fullback.”
“I’m sure you are,” she said. Another student, a geeky guy in a ragged knit cap, bent and collected her books as the crowd, now bored and running late, lapsed back into its chaotic stream. The football player trudged forward as if it were second down and goal to go from the three.
Knit Cap Boy handed her the stack of books. “You okay, miss? You don’t look so hot.”
The stung area had begun to swell, and heat radiated across her back and down her buttocks. She looked around, her throat dry, wondering if she might be suffering anaphylactic shock. A campus policeman stood watching from the steps of a nearby student-services building.
“I’m fine,” she said thickly, taking the books. “Thanks.”
Alexis wiped a sudden sweat from her temples, wondering if she’d be able to finish the quarter-mile walk to her office. The student infirmary was across the compound, behind the library. Anaphylaxis could kill in minutes by constricting her throat and cutting off her air supply. The campus cop, evidently noticing her distress, hurried down
