office ought to be, she knew that at least part of whatever plan he did have involved a lot of walking. She was grateful for the fact that she was still dressed in her “bullet-proof” riding gear and comfortable boots.
Jack cut the engine and held the bike while she dismounted.
“What are we doing, Jack? We can’t just walk right in,” she told him after he kicked down the stand and got off.
He turned a white grin on her and cocked his head to one side, pulling the keys out of his pocket with one gloved hand. “Why not, luv?” He held the keys up in front of her and his grin widened.
So his plan was of the, we-have-every-right-to-be-here sort. She hated those plans. She’d never been able to get a drink with a fake ID when she was under-age. Her nerves had always given her away.
“Jack, why did you bring me with you?” she asked, trying not to sound as if she was whining. She
He chuckled. “A man accompanied by an attractive young woman looks a lot less suspicious than two men or a man alone,” he told her softly. He once more took her wrist, this time allowing his grip to slide to her hand and hold fast there. She spun around and walked with him as he made his way through the pedestrian exit of the garage and down several flights of stairs.
Annabelle wondered, exactly, what Jack hoped to find when they reached the dean’s office. Did he think it would be some secluded door at the end of a darkened hallway where no one would be watching? Because, she could pretty much guarantee that wouldn’t be the case. The office was attached to a very large hospital, after all. And hospitals never slept.
But she was also finding it hard to be really scared about the whole prospect with Jack’s hand firmly wrapped around her own. It felt too strong, too secure – too safe. He was a man who had been killing people and getting away with it for a really long time. If he wasn’t worried about this tiny illegal tangent, then she had every plausible right not to be as well.
They made their way across 165th street and up Fort Washington Avenue, crossing beneath several sky-ways as they did so. The architecture of the surrounding buildings was vast and impressive. At several points, Annabelle found herself slowing down to get a better look. Jack let her do so, allowing her a little time to admire something she’d never seen before.
But then he would gently tug her forward, reminding her that they were there for a reason. They had been shot at, beaten up, and Max and Teresa Anderson were both dead. This wasn’t exactly the time to stop and smell the roses.
They came to the end of the block and rounded the corner onto 168th street.
“Which suite was it?” Jack asked her as he led her into one of the tall buildings and to an elevator. They passed various people along the way, all moving quickly and with purpose. Most wore white lab coats, but some wore blue operating room scrubs and others wore plain clothes. A few people even scuttled past in their pajamas. The Presbyterian hospital and its neighboring affiliates were nothing if not busy.
“Fourteen-oh-eight,” she answered, recalling the address on the map that Clara had brought back from her earlier excursion.
Jack waited until they could take the elevator alone and hopped in, pulling Annabelle in behind him. He punched a number on the pad, inserted a key from the ring he’d taken off of Dr. Beckman, turned the key, and waited as the elevator began to take them upward.
When the elevator doors opened again, Jack, pulled the key back out of the wall and led the way out. Annabelle nervously followed him down a carpeted corridor to a double wood and glass door with the suite number 1408 off to the left. The lights beyond the glass were dark. No one was home.
Jack unlocked the doors and let them both in. Then he shut and locked the doors behind them. They waited for a moment as their eyes adjusted to the light.
“What are we looking for?” Annabelle asked.
“Filing cabinets.”
Annabelle spied the tall towers of cabinets along one wall just as Jack did, because he moved toward them before she could say anything. She followed him, being careful not to bump her hip against the desks or tumble over a stray metal trash can.
Jack shined a small pen light on the letters marking the front of the cabinets, moving down until he came across an unmarked drawer toward the bottom.
“Don’t you wanna go through the ‘B’s?” Annabelle asked, gesturing toward the A through F drawer.
“If Brandt did have a file in there,” Jack said, “it wouldn’t be worth reading.” Then he smiled when the drawer he’d chosen wouldn’t open. He nodded. “This is it.”
She moved closer, watching as he found a small cabinet key on Beckman’s key ring and used it to unlock the drawer. He slid it open to reveal a small selection of manila folders; a dozen at most.
Brandt’s was in front. Even when he filed things covertly, Dr. Beckman did it in alphabetical order. Annabelle shook her head, smiling. She supposed that once you got used to something, it was hard to stop doing it.
Jack pulled the folder out and popped it open, placing it on the desk. Inside were Craig Brandt’s application, letters of recommendation, MCAT results, notes on his interview, a copy of his acceptance letter, scholarship information, and copies of his schedule for this first two years, along with grades received.
Out of curiosity, Annabelle reached for the grades. Mostly A’s. She read the scholarship letter. It required that he maintain a 3.75 GPA.
“What was it, exactly, that Beckman believed Brandt was mixed up in?” she asked as she flipped through his schedules next. The sheets listed what students were in each class, who the professors were, and what lab hours were assigned to each study group. Apparently, lab time had to be split up due to space constraints.
“Ecstasy,” Jack answered.
When she looked up at him with a quizzical expression, he supplied, “The drug, not the emotion.”
“Ah.” She said, nodding once.
“Supposedly, Brandt was making it in his apartment and got himself blown up.”
Annabelle’s brow raised skeptically. “With these grades?” She shook her head, disbelieving. “There’s no way. He was here on the good graces of…” She read the name on the scholarship grant. “Mrs. Nadine Armitage and her late-alumni-husband,
Jack’s smile said that he already knew as much, but liked to hear it from her.
She sighed. “So what can we hope to glean from all of this?” She gestured to the strewn papers.
This time, Jack’s expression was a little less confident. “I’m not sure,” he admitted.
Annabelle was about to give him a hard time, just for the sheer fun of it, when her eye caught something on two of the schedule sheets. She leaned in for a closer look, moving the schedules so that they were side by side.
“Look at this,” she said, pointing out Brandt’s name on one of the study group lists.
Jack leaned in, his gaze narrowed. “At what, luv?”
“This woman here – Virginia Meredith – she’s the only female constant in all of his study groups.”
“What are you getting at?”
Annabelle chewed on her lip for a moment. “Cassie said that study group partners in med school usually grow really close.” Annabelle and Cassie had little to do while they worked on graphic design projects at DesignMax but gossip to one another. By now, they each had quite thorough run-downs on each others’ pasts. “They’re together constantly, so they have no choice. She said that it’s not unusual for partners to date – even get married.” Annabelle turned away from the papers on the desk and moved back to the second filing cabinet along the wall.
She scanned the letters on the front, her eyes now having fully adjusted to the darkness. When she came to the cabinet marked “M through R”, she opened it up and searched for Virginia Meredith’s file. It wasn’t there.
She looked up, immediately feeling stupid and blushing hard, but Jack wasn’t watching her. She experienced a mixture of relief and trepidation to find that, in fact, he wasn’t in the room at all.
“Jack?” she called softly, scanning the dark shadows of the room for his tall form.
“In here,” he called back from beyond a thick wood door that she had assumed led to a copy or break
