needed to explain why his wife was collapsing onto the floor. “Come on, Marsha.” He squeezed his wife’s shoulders. “We’ve got to look, honey. I’m sure she’s here.”
“You might go to the Student Learning Center,” said Shelley, leaning over the desk. “It’s a new building and a lot of students study there, too. It’s that huge really tall building on North Campus. I think that they might have a PA system.”
“Thanks,” said Frank, “We will.” He turned to the Bakers. “If I find Star and Jenny is with her, I’ll have her call you.”
Clyde Baker nodded. His wife burst into tears.
Chapter 9
The Student Learning Center was a huge building. One of the tallest on Bartram’s campus, sprawled out over the hillside like a giant yellow brick dragon. Searching it would take hours, if not days. Surely there would be an intercom system.
“It would be better if I searched and you went home to get some sleep,” said Frank, not taking his eyes off the building. “You have a long day tomorrow.”
“I couldn’t sleep, waiting to hear from you,” Diane said. “We’d better get started.”
They climbed the main entrance steps to the enormous carved double doors. Diane had the feeling she was up the bean stalk visiting the giant. Through the massive oak doors that opened amazingly easily, they stepped into a ballroom-sized foyer with a polished floor of what appeared to be salt-and-pepper granite. A plaque on the wall said the stone was diorite mined nearby in North Georgia. What had Mike, the geologist at her museum, said diorite is? Something like mafic plutonic rock. She remembered thinking it sounded more as if it had come from another planet than from the bowels of the earth.
Beyond the foyer the floor was tile and the walls yellow brick set at off angles, giving the same uneven effect as the outer walls. Despite the uncomfortably hard appearance of the stone floor, several students were sitting on it studying with their backs against the wall. Some were curled up sleeping with their heads on their backpacks. Frank asked one of the students who was awake where the main office was. He was greeted with a stare.
“Main office?”
“Is there a main office? I mean, its classrooms.”
“Yeah, there’s one,” said his companion, a yellow-haired kid who looked about the same age. He pointed to a hallway closed off by glass doors. “But it’s closed. They’ll be open tomorrow if you need to reserve a classroom or something. You wouldn’t happen to know the equation for slope?” He flipped through the pages of his book. Frank kneeled to eye level with the kid, took the notebook from him, and scribbled an equation. “Oh, yeah,” he said, turning it around and looking at what Frank had written.
“What kind of test are you having?” Frank asked.
“Calculus.” He hesitated a moment. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I? I should know slope.”
“Sometimes it’s better to get a little sleep than it is to keep studying all night,” said Frank as he stood back up. “Let your brain relax.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right, but I have my Hope scholarship to think about.”
It occurred to Diane that this would be ripe territory for dealers of speed. Floors and floors of kids who need to make the grade and have to stay awake all night to cram for exams. She wondered if the meth lab had supplied students here. As she looked for Star, she’d keep an eye out for dealers. She would like to take some of these kids who used drugs to the morgue and show them the consequences of the drug business. Explain to them that the reason some of the bodies didn’t have heads was because the heat from the fire caused pressure to build up in the skull until it exploded.
“Is there an intercom or PA system for the building?” asked Diane.
“Sure,” answered the calculus kid.
“Is it open so we can use it?” she asked.
“You’re asking if they put a PA system where any one of us can use it when we want?” said the other kid. “Yeah, they’d do that.”
“What was I thinking?” Diane smiled at the two of them. “Thanks for the information.”
“Sure, thanks for the equation.”
They started walking down the hall. Frank retrieved his phone from his jacket pocket.
“I’m going to try Star one more time,” he said.
“That won’t work in here,” called the calculus kid. “They blocked cell phone signals in this building so they won’t ring in class.”
“Sure enough, no service.” Frank pocketed his cell.
“But isn’t that a hopeful sign?” asked Diane. “I mean, surely, that’s why Star’s and Jenny’s cell phones don’t answer. They’re here somewhere.”
She could see in Frank’s face that, like her, he really wanted that to be the case, but he was afraid to raise his hopes… and afraid not to.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s hopeful. OK, we have to find them if they’re here. I suppose it’s wing by wing and floor by floor again. You’re sure I can’t talk you into going home?” He grabbed her hand and squeezed it.
“It’ll take half as long if I help,” she said. “You take the right side of the building and I’ll take the left.” Diane lowered her voice. “Keep a lookout for other things, too.”
Diane told him her thoughts about this being a good place to sell speed. He nodded.
Many of the rooms were dark and locked. The ones that were open had students studying at desks, at computers, around tables, on the floor. They studied in groups and alone. Many had brought sleeping bags and were asleep in corners with empty snack wrappers and drink cans littering the area around them like a nest. The Student Learning Center had been turned into a giant campground, and it looked like three-quarters of the campus was holed up here.
In each room that contained people Diane asked if anyone knew Star Duncan. She found two or three who knew who she was but didn’t know her well and didn’t know where she was. Unlike at the library, Diane didn’t hear as much gossip about the explosion and tragedy. She wondered if they didn’t know. It had happened on Saturday night; if they were here all weekend, they might not have heard.
Diane was only on the second floor and she was exhausted and depressed. Her back ached. She wanted to sit down and close her eyes, but there were so many rooms to go.
She pushed on, refusing to allow this search to bring the other search, the one for her daughter, Ariel, to the front of her mind. She couldn’t relive that again. Not now. Not while they couldn’t find Star.
She walked into a computer lab. Several students were on computers connected to the Internet. One was playing a game. None knew Star. The next room was a lounge with vending machines. There were only two people-young women who were maybe nineteen, surely not older. They could have been from the same family. Both blond, both much too thin, as seemed to be the style these days. Both were well dressed in expensive jeans and sweaters. They were sitting opposite each other at a snack table. One of them looked as if she was slipping something across the table to the other, who had folded money between her fingers. They stopped talking when they saw Diane. The one without the money held her hand flat on the table, palm down, as if hiding something under it.
“Do either of you know Star Duncan?” asked Diane, pretending to be oblivious to their transaction.
“Star who?”
“Duncan.”
They looked at each other and shook their heads and looked back at Diane.
“No.”
They kept their eyes on her as if suggesting that she should be leaving now.
Diane walked over to the vending machines and looked at the choices-candy, peanuts, snack cakes, beef
