It was late, nearly midnight, when I reached the doors of Research Hall. They were locked of course, but I could see Stan, the elderly night guard, sitting behind the lobby desk and reading a newspaper. I rapped on the window of the door, and when Stan glanced up from the paper, I gave him a sheepish wave. What with his decrepit bones, it took him ages to neatly fold the paper, haul himself off his stool, and amble over to the door.
As the lock clicked open, Stan pushed the door open just enough to allow his voice to carry through. “Can I help you, miss?”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, doing my best to sound exasperated. “My professor left a really important file in Dr. Flynn’s office. He needs it tonight. Is it okay if I go upstairs to get it? I’ll be quick, I promise.”
“Do you have your student ID card?”
I hesitated, biting my lip, then produced my ID card for Stan to inspect. Hopefully, his vision was too terrible to make out my full name, or maybe he was senile enough not to remember it tomorrow morning. He handed it back with a satisfied nod then opened the door wider to let me in.
“Quickly, quickly,” said Stan as I stepped over the doormat and a gust of wind blew snow into the lobby.
“Thanks again,” I said to Stan and hurried up the staircase.
Flynn’s office was much easier to find the second time around. I paused outside her door, listening for any signs of movement inside, but all was quiet. The antique knob refused to turn, locked from the inside, but I expected this. I knelt down, took two bent bobby pins from my pocket, and went to work. I’d learned to pick locks during undergrad after I’d forgotten the keys to my dorm room one too many times and ended up in a rainstorm in a white T-shirt. That day, I’d learned a life lesson and a new skill. When I coaxed the bobby pin into the keyhole and the lock clicked into place, I grinned.
Once inside, I closed the door behind me and headed straight for the crow sculpture on the bookshelf. It was heavy, and the books that it had been propping up tumbled to the side like dominos as soon as I moved it. Swearing under my breath and making a mental note of how the bookshelf had been arranged, I flipped the crow sculpture over to examine the bottom.
“No shit,” I muttered. It was almost too easy. A twelve-letter puzzle, similar to the one on the wooden box, adorned the bottom of the sculpture. I manipulated the dials into place, nec plus ultra now stored permanently in the files of my long-term memory, and a small, spring-loaded lid flipped open to reveal that the inside of the crow was hollow. Like the puzzle box, it was lined with purple velvet and boasted the raptor emblem. There was a ring as well, this one slightly bigger but still with a feminine flair.
I closed the sculpture’s secret compartment, spinning the puzzle dials back to a random selection of letters. Then I straightened the books on Flynn’s shelf and replaced the crow. There was no doubt in my mind that Catherine Flynn was the Morrigan, but Wes would be harder to convince. In addition, I still had no idea what the Morrigan and Pluto had conspired about in those secret coded letters to each other. I needed more proof.
I went behind Flynn’s desk and woke up her computer. The password page blinked at me, and wondering how many times I could get lucky in one night, I typed nec plus ultra into the appropriate bar.
“Morons,” I uttered under my breath as the computer immediately allowed me access to Flynn’s private work computer. It was common knowledge to never use the same password for multiple access points, but Flynn had apparently never been clued in on that. I navigated to her desktop email application—she had never logged out of it, once again placing a little too much faith in her password protection—and quickly searched “Pluto.” A series of emails popped up, all of them to or from the elusive Pluto. With my cell phone, I took a few pictures, making sure the Morrigan’s sign-off and Pluto’s email address were both visible in the photos. I logged off of Flynn’s computer, looking around the office for anything else that might benefit my research.
The tall filing cabinet in the far corner demanded my attention. I swiped a letter opener from Flynn’s desk and crossed the room. Filing cabinets were even easier to break in to than doorknobs. I inserted the skinny end of the letter opener into the lock, jimmying it until it clicked, then rotated the letter opener. The first few drawers of the filing cabinet held nothing of interest—Flynn’s lesson plans, student essays, textbook copies, et cetera—but the bottom drawer contained several file folders simply labeled “BRS.” I knelt down, rifling through one of the thicker files. Inside, several bank statements referenced enormous sums of money being transferred back and forth between multiple accounts. Each statement was stapled to a photocopy of a letter between the Morrigan and Pluto. As I compared the statements to the letters, I suddenly understood. Even in code, it wasn’t hard to decipher the point of the letters. They discussed whatever monetary deal was being made under the table, and the bank statements were attached as proof of purchase, but why Flynn kept records of her shady transactions with Pluto in such a conspicuous place as her own office had me questioning her judgement. Did she really not expect anyone to find out about it?
A door slammed in the hallway. I shoved the documents back into the file folder, hastily closed the drawer, and turned the letter opener again to lock the cabinet. Then I tiptoed over to the office door, opened it a hair, and
