insignia.
Her voice, more polite to mask the rising tenseness: 'I'd appreciate it. You know our time in there is limited as is.'
I did. But I had only a ten-minute window between afternoon lectures, not time enough to leave the floor to hit the computer lab, and my colleague hadn't shown up for her office hours. Or so I'd thought.
The next shot showed my Red Sox cap lying on our bed, as stark as Exhibit A in a crime-scene photo. The air-conditioning froze the sweat on the back of my neck. In the picture, our bedroom walls weren't torn up, so it had been taken before Thursday night. I dug in my pocket for my cell phone and thumbed it on, the spinning Sanyo graphics taking their time.
'I'm just packing up. Gimme a sec.' Navigating its menu, I held the phone up next to the monitor so I could take in the cell-phone screen and computer monitor at a glance. Furiously punching at the tiny buttons, I finally called up the camera function on the phone and hit 'record.'
On the computer a QuickTime video lurched into action. A driver's view through a windshield, the lens carefully positioned so not a sliver of dashboard or hood crept into the frame. The rumble of an engine. A low view--a car, not a truck or SUV, leaving a familiar parking area. Northridge Faculty Lot B2. The footage played on fast-forward, the car zipping through streetlights, turning corners, other vehicles speeding by.
My eyes jerked back and forth from the real screen to the view of it through my cell phone's camera, as I made sure the Sanyo was picking up the footage.
A frustrated thump at the door--a little more than a knock this time. I could hear her keys jangling in her fist. 'Patrick, this is getting a bit rude. Don't you have class now anyway?'
'Yes. Sorry. Literally give me two minutes.'
My phone beeped twice, and the camera shut off--the memory was limited, so it recorded only in ten-second chunks.
About two blocks from campus, the driver pulled in to a dead-end alley between a Chinese restaurant and a video store. Parked tight in front of a Dumpster, facing away, was an old Honda Civic. The screen went black, and when it came back on, the driver was no longer in his car--he'd edited out his exit from the vehicle so I wouldn't catch even a glimpse of the door.
A handheld approach to the Honda, the screen tilting back and forth. Not wanting to take my eyes from the monitor, I struggled with my phone, punching buttons by feel and memory, trying to call up another ten-second recording session. A quick glance over showed me to have succeeded in getting myself into a cell-phone game of Tetris.
With frustration, I dropped the phone into my lap. The rapping on the door intensified.
The view pushed in tight on the Honda. Closer. When I realized what it was zooming in on, a chill spread through my insides.
The trunk lock.
A wave of light-headedness, static specking my vision.
Another set of messages appeared and faded. Forgetting to breathe, I read them numbly.
6PM. NO SOONER. NO LATER.
GO ALONE.
TELL NO ONE.
FOLLOW ALL INSTRUCTIONS.
OR SHE DIES.
The screen went blank. The browser quit of its own volition. Sagging back in the chair, I stared vacantly at the sad little office. Out in the hall, high heels clicked angrily away, and then only my ragged breathing remained to interrupt the silence.
Chapter 28
'I know some of you are starting to feel impatient. I will get to your scripts this week.'
'That's what you said last week,' someone called out from the back of the lecture hall.
I riffled my pad, staring at my notes. Aside from the three sentences I'd jotted down this morning, the page was empty. I kept picturing those ghost letters, rising and fading against the black screen: FOLLOW ALL INSTRUCTIONS. OR SHE DIES.
Did I know the woman on the couch? Or was she merely a stranger I was supposed to help, like Doug Beeman? Was she locked in the trunk of that Honda? Alive? And if so, if they wanted me to help her, why did I have to wait until six o'clock? Dread had returned, blacker and more certain than before, wiping out any foolish excitement that might have tinged my encounter with Beeman. Their runaway plot had veered across the line, finally, into life-or-death terrain.
The clock in the back of the lecture hall showed 4:17. Class let out in thirteen minutes--I'd have just enough time to race home, grab the key and my Red Sox hat, and get back to that alley. Though dozens of countermeasures ran through my head, I couldn't seriously consider them. My choices would determine whether that woman survived.
One of the students cleared her throat. Loudly.
'Okay,' I said, regrouping. 'So dialogue . . . dialogue should be succinct and . . . uh, compelling. . . .' I was just considering how poorly I was exemplifying this principle when I scanned the class and caught sight of Diondre in the back. I detected a hint of disappointment in his face. I forced my head into the lecture again, trying to hold it together, and had just started to get my focus when I heard the classroom door open and close.
Sally stood to the side, her back to the wall, her holstered sidearm poking conspicuously from the bottom of her rumpled coat. I did a double take, but she offered only an amiable smile. I'd lost the cadence of my thoughts again. The mostly blank page offered no help. I checked the clock. An hour and thirty-five minutes to showtime.
'You know what?' I said to the class. 'Why don't we call it early today?'
I grabbed my notes and started for the door. As I approached, Sally took in my faded salmon button-up. 'Nice shirt,' she said. 'They make it for men?'
Valentine lingered beyond the door. I couldn't wait for the last of the students to shuffle out, so I pulled him and Sally aside in the hall. 'What's wrong?'
'Somewhere we can talk?' she asked.
'I don't have my office right now. Maybe the faculty lounge.'
'Coupla teachers,' Valentine said. Something hummed in his shirt pocket, and he pulled out a Palm Treo and silenced it.
'You went in there?' I glanced around nervously. Dr. Peterson was passing through the intersecting hall at that moment, of course, discussing something with a student. 'It really looks bad for me to be questioned by cops at work right now.'
'We're not questioning you,' Sally said. 'Just wanted to check in. And here we thought you'd be flattered by all this attention.'
Peterson didn't slow down or stop talking, but her eyes tracked us until she passed out of view. My watch read 4:28. I needed the key before I could get to whatever--or whoever--was locked in the trunk of that Honda. If I didn't get moving, soon, I wouldn't make it there by 6:00.
My shirt felt damp. I resisted the urge to run my sleeve across my forehead. 'Okay,' I said. 'Thank you. Thank you for checking in.'
Sally said, 'We didn't make a scene in the faculty room. Though I must say, one of your colleagues was rather solicitous.'
'Julianne.'
'Yes. Attractive woman.'
Valentine sucked his teeth. 'She's straight, Richards.'
'Thanks for pointing that out. I won't abscond with her to Vermont now.' Sally hitched her belt, rattling the gear. 'When you comment that Jessica Biel is hot, do I point out that she doesn't go for aging black guys with jelly-doughnut guts?'
Valentine scowled. 'I have a jelly-doughnut gut?'
'Wait five years.' She took in his expression of strained amusement. 'That's right. And there's more where that came from.'
