Not far from the library, the Arts and Humanities Building, to which I had apparently sold my soul, stood in all its daunting glory. It was a beautiful work of architecture as well, but I had spent far too much time stressing myself out within its many classrooms to associate positive connotations with it. Not to mention I’d had one too many arguments in the office of my thesis advisor, George O’Connor, here. I took one class with O’Connor during my first semester at Waverly and fell in love with his brusque style of teaching. The following semester, I signed on to be his teaching assistant. We had a love-hate relationship. He annoyed me and I annoyed him, mostly because we operated on the same level of sarcasm, but a grudging respect for each other had grown out of our mutual dedication to research and the stories of the past. I’d learned more in the past two years from bickering with O’Connor than from all of my other professors combined. However, in the past few months, O’Connor and I had both been a bit lax when it came to my education. Last semester, he drove me to drink when I couldn’t come up with a topic for my thesis paper. Lately, though, O’Connor had been more and more distracted. It had become a regular thing for him to skip classes, and I was forced to pick up teaching his courses where he had left off. His erratic behavior was a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I was grateful that he had ceased nagging me about my thesis. On the other, the end of the semester loomed closer, and it was starting to look like I’d have to postpone graduation until I got off my ass and found something to write about. Today was the day, though. I’d finally pinned O’Connor down for a face-to-face discussion, and if I didn’t leave this meeting with a solid idea, I was seriously considering throwing myself off the tallest building at Waverly.
I trudged up the stairs of the Arts and Humanities building, dreading the conversation to come, but when I reached O’Connor’s office, I noticed that the door was already ajar. That was unusual. O’Connor almost always locked his office door, even if he was inside. He hated disturbances, but after several failed errands to fetch something from his office, I demanded a key of my own. To my shock, he’d obliged.
I knocked lightly. “O’Connor?” I called, pushing open the door. The office was empty.
I reached into my bag for my cell phone. O’Connor hadn’t been a stickler for punctuality lately, but he’d never flaked on our meetings before. I had a voicemail and a text message from him, but both were time-marked from last night. I checked the voicemail first.
“Nicole, it’s O’Connor.”
Behind O’Connor’s voice, I could hear the sound of a motor running and rain pelting down on a roof. Apparently, O’Connor had been out driving pretty late last night.
“I know this is strange, but I need you to do something for me.” There was a pause, some static, and the screech of tires before O’Connor went on. “Nicole, I’m in some serious shit. I need help. In my office, there’s a—Christ!”
There was a loud thump, as if the cell phone had gone flying out of O’Connor’s hand and hit the floor, then silence.
“What the hell—?” I said. I hung up to check my text messages. O’Connor had typed a note to me, written in shorthand and abundant with typos.
Nicole under my desk theres a safe youneed to open. you already have the code. inside there are sevral docs. take everyting home w/ you. cant give you anymore info. do not attempt to contact me. do what you can w/ evidence. stay safe.
“What freaking evidence?” I muttered. It felt like a violation of privacy wandering over to the opposite side of O’Connor’s desk, but I did it anyway, wondering if this was all some sort of elaborate joke he had concocted to punish me for my lack of thesis work. But sure enough, a small security safe with a code pad and a key override was nestled beneath the weathered oak desk, and I gave an exhausted sigh of resignation before pushing aside O’Connor’s rolling chair to kneel down for a closer look.
“You never gave me the code, you batshit old man,” I said, examining the code pad. For good measure, I typed in the year of O’Connor’s birthday on the off chance that he was that simple of a man. It was a no-go. The pad beeped angrily at me, flashing red. I glanced around the room, wondering if O’Connor had hidden a spare key somewhere. The filing cabinet caught my eye, and I rifled through its poorly organized drawers for several minutes before conceding defeat. I fought similar battles with O’Connor’s bookshelf, the cushions of his old leather sofa, and every other nook and cranny in the office that I could think of. Annoyed, sweaty, and slightly out of breath, I came up empty-handed. Furious, I stormed out of his office, only pausing to lock the office door behind me. If O’Connor returned and found it open, I’d be in serious shit.
But as I reached forward to put the office key in the lock, I froze and raised the key closer to my face. A six-digit number had been etched into the head of the key. I’d always passed it off
