Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind. Their leaves are telling secrets.
It was from Hamlet’s desk calendar. Quotes from the Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration, transcribed onto a tear-away-a-page-a-day calendar. Maybe the strangest place I’d ever received a bookish voice communication from.
Okay, I needed to listen to the trees. I moved my eyes back to the tree line I’d already scanned.
I still didn’t see it at first, but at third glance I saw what the voice, and my instincts, were telling me to look at.
A man held too tightly to a young woman’s arm and guided her way too forcefully toward a building on the far side. I was turned around and wasn’t positive, but I thought the building was the one in which Dr. Eban’s anatomy theater was located.
I only slightly recognized the tall gray-haired man as the one I’d seen in the pub the night Mallory was killed, but I couldn’t mistake the tilt to his head. “Dr. Glenn?” I said aloud.
I recognized the women right off. Lola. Lily.
I hurried out of the office, hoping I’d run into Tom and Artair on the way. I didn’t spot them, but I made my way toward the doors I thought they’d gone toward. I pulled out my phone and hit Tom’s number as I set off in a fast walk. As much as I wanted to run, it was a library.
My phone eventually took me to voice mail, and I left a message that was sure to scare him to an unreasonable state, but a killer was forcing Lily into that building. Even if he was her father, he was a killer. I couldn’t wait for Tom and Artair to return before I hurried to help her.
I put the phone into my pocket and took off in a run. Librarians everywhere would be unhappy, but I’d make it up to them.
The distance across the green seemed so far; I started pumping my legs and arms even faster, but it still took forever to get across. Snippets of thoughts ran through my mind: yell for someone to call the police, yell to someone to go find Tom, yell to someone to come help you.
I ruled out the last one quickly; if harm was being done, I wouldn’t want to put anyone else in its way. As far as yelling to call the police or Tom: a request to call the police could cause panic, and it would have taken too much time to try to explain who Tom was and where they could find him. No time. Hurry!
I kept running. Breathing heavily, I pulled open the door to the building and propelled myself inside. I quickly determined that this was indeed the building with the anatomy theater, though I’d come inside it from a different door than before.
I didn’t even consider that they’d gone anywhere other than the theater. I hoped I’d picked the right way. I didn’t see anyone else in the building, and another flash of a thought went through my mind: Dr. Glenn had known the building would be quiet.
As I turned a corner, though, the population in the hallway went from just me to two. With all the grace of someone in too much of a hurry, I ran into Dr. Meg Carson.
Noises of surprise bounced off all the plaster, lath, and linoleum as we both stumbled backward. I was grateful that neither of us went down.
“Goodness, lass, why do I so often come upon you in hallways?” Dr. Carson said after we’d both recovered our balance. “You’re not even a student here.”
I was happy to run into someone fierce. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Carson, but please, let me explain later. For now, come with me if you want, but I need to get up to your husband’s anatomy theater.”
“He’s not there,” she said, a deeply suspicious tone to her voice. Again, I’d heard that tone a few times before from other women who didn’t trust their husbands.
“I know. Please, come if you want.” I started to walk away, but she grabbed my arm and yanked me backward.
“Ouch,” I said.
I wrestled my arm free and sent her my best scowl. “Don’t touch me, Dr. Carson. Come with me or not, but I’m going to the theater.”
I turned and started moving away, the spark of anger giving me renewed purpose.
Dr. Carson double-timed and started walking with me.
“Why?” she asked. “What’s going on with you and my husband?”
“I don’t even like your husband,” I said, but I knew that sounded childish, and wasn’t true. I actually liked what I knew of him. “Nothing is going on. I met him less than a week ago. I don’t know him.”
“Why are you going to his theater then?”
“Because I saw something and I’m worried about someone, and something tells me they went to the theater.”
“In that case then,” she said. I heard the eye-roll.
“You don’t have to come with me.”
“Oh yes I do.”
I should have been paying better attention. Looking back at that specific moment and her clipped words, I should have been paying much better attention to the word everyone had been using to describe her. She wasn’t being sarcastic at all. It’s too bad I didn’t see that at the time.
With a matching double-step climb, we took the stairway in record time.
“Where is everybody?” I asked.
“Classes are over for the day. No Wednesday afternoon classes or labs.”
“That must be why he brought her here,” I said.
“Who are we talking about?”
“I don’t know for sure. I’m not even certain I’m going to the right spot. I hope my instincts are on track, though.”
“Should I call the police?”
“Probably.”
We’d made it to the next floor, but she didn’t pull out her cell phone. She kept walking right along with me.
We reached the theater, and I put my hand on the door as I looked at her.
“Hang on. Let me
