Come and Get Me

by August Norman

  Caitlin shook her head. “Ah to be seventy and horny. Come on, professor. It could be another twenty years before I’m back here. Remind me how this thing works.”

  He relented, took her lighter. “The things I do for my students.”

  Caitlin watched the joint’s tip turn cherry-red.

  Scott exhaled a cloud of pot smoke with a practiced sigh. “I caught your ceremony.”

  “Yep, I’m a graduate now.” Caitlin took her turn, concentrated on the drug, not the reminder of her public admission. “This is great stuff.”

  “Those in need will always find weed.” His palms bumped the railing, and a low, metallic tone escaped like a sigh. “I also caught the Q&A.”

  Caitlin looked back out at campus. “I thought you had a hot date, Scott.”

  “Not something you planned to talk about? Finishing that story?”

  She groaned. “I don’t even know how the words got past my teeth. Not only were they unplanned, but I have no idea what the hell I meant. Just verbal vomit, as they say.”

  He nodded. “You know, vomit is the body’s way of eliminating toxins.”

  Caitlin genuinely liked the man, but this wasn’t the time. “Or staying pretty. Let’s not ruin a beautiful evening.”

  “Fair enough. How long are you in town?”

  Caitlin took another hit, already closer to calm. “Two days, then back home.”

  “Alas, this must be the only moment we share.” He handed her a business card. “In the event your two-day trip evolves into something more, come by my office, and we’ll really get down.”

  On one side, his name, phone number, and office address; on the other, three simple lines.

  If you have the words,

  write them down, speak them often.

  Your words are your strength.

  Haiku format, but none of the expected reflections of nature. Caitlin liked a writer who didn’t sweat the rules.

  “This has truly been a pleasure, Scott.” She tapped out the joint, tucked it in her purse, and put on her game face. “But we mustn’t keep the ladies waiting.”

  * * *

  Mary celebrated Caitlin’s entrance with a full glass of wine and another vise-like hug. Scott’s pot kept Caitlin social enough to shake a dozen hands and forget double the number of names. The Dean of Students popped by twice, once with a provost, again with the chancellor—all female. Each expressed their regrets for Caitlin’s hard-to-believe-it-happened-here assault and pledged their support for an open dialogue. Their intentions felt noble, though Caitlin caught the subtle protective feelers.

  The university takes every complaint seriously …

  … complex issue all colleges deal with . . .

  Will you be writing about the experience?

  Caitlin assured those concerned she had no intention of making the school or herself poster children for campus abuse. She wasn’t on assignment, nor did she have a deadline. The story she’d mentioned unintentionally would be a personal journey only, ending Sunday morning.

  During a respite an hour in, the student with the slight British accent from the Q&A cornered her on a couch, with a full wine glass in each hand. “You’re drinking the red blend, correct, Miss Bergman?”

  “You certainly do your homework.” Caitlin tapped the nearest cushion. “Lakshmi, right?”

  The girl smiled, sat. “Lakshmi Anjale. I’m one of Dean Lubbers-Gaffney’s students.”

  Caitlin took a glass. “What’s on your mind? Looking for a mentor, perhaps a grad school reference? We can talk about anything you want as long as it’s not sexual assault.”

  Lakshmi leaned closer. “I wanted to know if you had any theories about what happened to Angela Chapman.”

  Again, the name sounded familiar, but Caitlin didn’t remember the context. Lakshmi reached into a bag, came up with an iPad. Caitlin took the tablet, saw a compilation of news articles and links to broadcast clips.

  “Student Goes Missing, Presumed Dead.”

  “Statewide Search Underway for Missing Indiana Girl.”

  “Reward Offered for Information Leading to Missing Student.”

  Caitlin looked up, saw hope in the girl’s brown eyes. “Your friend?”

  “My best friend.”

  Caitlin knew she meant it, no hyperbole. “How long has she been gone?”

  “Since our sophomore year, two years in May.”

  “I remember something about this, Lakshmi, but I’m sorry to say I haven’t paid attention. If you’ve read my book—”

  “Several times.”

  Caitlin smiled. “Then you understand I’ve had my hands full the last two years.”

  Lakshmi’s shoulders dropped. “I knew it was a long shot.”

  Caitlin swiped at the screen, saw two photos of Chapman. The older, a shot from a family Thanksgiving, showed a makeup-less, medium-height teenager with long brown hair, wearing an Indiana Softball sweatshirt and a reluctant don’t-take-my-picture smile. The second image, maybe two years more recent, featured the same girl lost in a search for herself. She had short, dyed-black hair in a tomboy cut, a nose piercing, and a tattoo of a hummingbird on her neck. Her hands held a lit cigarette and a red plastic party cup, and her mouth opened in what must have been laughter.

  Mary Lubbers-Gaffney’s arrival brought Caitlin back to the party. “There you are, Caitie. Got time to meet the Broadcast Department?”

  Lakshmi reached for her iPad. “I’m sorry to have taken your time.”

  Caitlin saw the young woman’s confidence losing its battle with hopelessness. “I’m sorry something took your friend.”

  She tapped the iPad’s Mail icon, typed her personal email address in the “To” field, then handed the tablet back. “No promises, but send me what you’ve got.”

  The girl’s smile went supernova, but Caitlin didn’t have to dodge a hug. Lakshmi Anjale had the bearings of a pro. “Thank you, Miss Bergman.”

  “Please,” Caitlin emptied the rest of her wine, “call me Caitlin.”

  After two generous refills and another hour of pleasantries, she found her way back to her hotel room and slept like she hadn’t told a room full of people she’d been raped.

  CHAPTER

  4

  BY TEN THE next morning, Caitlin’s pedometer app showed 2.2 miles, and her head no longer pounded.

  She stretched her hamstrings, waiting at an empty stoplight out of habit from years of dodging angry Los Angeles drivers. The corner of Park and Second hadn’t changed much. A row of single-story Craftsman homes built in the twenties for stonecutters lived on as rental properties. Green recycling bins overflowed with beer cans, evidence the local culture still studied the classics by lite lagers.

  The green signal sent her two more blocks to Bryan Park. Noticeable improvements peppered the park, from the state-of-the-art playground to the huge public pool complex. She jogged southwest, leapt a tiny stream, and felt her heel dig into mud, the suction a reminder of the storms that had preceded her arrival. She stopped in a picnic shelter and caught her breath.

  She knew she wouldn’t make it to Tapp Road, wondered if she even should. Two and a half miles on the pedometer, two and a half back to campus. Coffee with Mary, then her book signing. Her showdown with the scene of the crime could wait. She started back toward the hotel.

  She slowed when she saw the sculpture. An amorphous limestone rhinoceros looked to the east from atop a three-foot pedestal, and a good memory jumped back to life.

  Twenty years old, blissful, half a bottle of Soft Rosé from Oliver Winery in hand, Caitlin helped Darren Thompson onto the smooth, cool stone. They straddled the surrealist beast, passed the bottle back and forth. She still felt the buzz in her head, the buzz in her pants from the night she got sex right. Darren Thompson, number two, the one right after the yearlong relationship that had never quite worked in the bedroom. Darren Thompson could move his lips, his hips, and his tongue.

  God bless that stupid kid from Ohio.

  A
fter an hour and a half of ecstasy, they’d stumbled down to the kitchen, grabbed the bottle of wine, and ended up barefoot in the wet grass, then on top of the statue. When the wine ran out, they stripped naked behind a tree and started all over.

  Forty-two-year-old Caitlin couldn’t stop herself. She pulled her sweaty body onto the rhino that’d seen it all, wrapped her arms around its neck, and hugged the past. She leaned into the stone, not surprised to be a little turned on, but the tears running down her cheeks came out of nowhere and didn’t stop until she’d run back to the hotel.

  * * *

  Attendance at her signing exceeded her expectations. A pair of girls in matching pink sweatshirts, both under Caitlin’s height, five foot seven, stepped forward for signatures thirty-three and thirty-four. The last person in line, a young man with a goatee behind them, would make thirty-five. Off in a chair to the side, Lakshmi Anjale waited as well, though Caitlin didn’t see a book in her hands.

  Girl thirty-three started. “We loved your book.”

  She and her friend moved in tandem, copies out and open.

  Thirty-four took over. “Totally. I read anything about angels. Vampires too.”

  “Vampires, huh?” Caitlin laughed. She’d finally figured out why thirty-five starving students had shelled out good drinking money for a book about LA police corruption. “You’re students in Mary’s class, right? How does the assignment work?”

  The first girl looked relieved. “Extra credit if we bring in a signed copy of your book, one free retest on any of our exams if we write a summary.”

  Caitlin would have to take Lubbers out to dinner. Requiring her students to buy the book would sell all thirty copies she’d lugged along, plus the bookstore’s pile.

  “If you’re doing summaries, here’s a hint. The title Fallen Angels refers to both the victims of a prostitution ring and an ex-cop who had to expose his partner to save them. No actual angels make an appearance.”

  The girls giggled their apologies, then escaped with their grade boosters.

  Mister thirty-five, the guy waiting behind them, opened his copy. “Would you mind?”

  His thick goatee, darker than Caitlin would have expected from a man with sandy-blond hair, covered a series of unfortunate pockmarks near his lips. She caught herself staring and reached for her blood-red marker.

  “Not at all. Who should I make it out to?”

  His green eyes blinked away. “Just your signature would be great.”

  Caitlin noticed more scar tissue on his neck. Not from acne, maybe a burn. “Are you a collector?”

  His eyes returned, brightened. “A collector?”

  “Sure, autographs. I hate to say it, but I doubt my signature will make you any money.”

  He closed the book, held it to his chest. “You did so much without help from anyone, and I spend a lot of time alone. Maybe if I keep a piece of you, your strength will rub off.”

  “People mean well,” Caitlin said, “but the only person I count on is me.”

  He thanked her and left, weaving through the bookstore’s racks briskly, despite an uneven gait and slight limp, clutching her book like a religious tome. After last night’s admission and the morning’s crying jag, Caitlin wondered if he wasn’t already the stronger of the two.

  The bookstore event staff began their cleanup, and Lakshmi finally approached.

  Caitlin started. “I’m sorry. I haven’t had a chance to read any of the Chapman material—”

  “I know. You would have rung,” Lakshmi said, serious.

  “Because?”

  “Because you would be angry, and you would want answers.”

  Caitlin sighed. “Lakshmi, I like you, but that doesn’t change what I’m about to say. Horrible things happen in life, to us and the people we love. Answers to questions this big take time, no matter how angry we are.”

  “I don’t need you to find Angela, Miss Bergman.”

  “Good, because I’m sure the police and every news agency in the Midwest have already done exactly what I would do.”

  Lakshmi rolled her eyes the way only a young woman could. “No, they wouldn’t, but that’s not my point. A body’s been found.”

  The words hit Caitlin in the gut. “Is it her?”

  “I don’t know. They said they’ll only give information to professional news outlets.”

  The frustration in the girl’s voice hit even harder.

  Caitlin checked the time. “I can give you two hours.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  SUCH A WOMAN.

  The young man stared at the signature, the book propped against his mirror.

  Firm strokes, deliberate, practiced. Nowhere near as refined as the note he’d slipped under her hotel room door, but made by a sure and steady hand.

  A woman. Not a girl acting mature, but sure of herself, strong, and confident. A survivor.

  The note had been a risk, an unplanned, spur-of-the-moment aberration, but standing in that conference room, seeing Caitlin Bergman’s naked pain, he knew he had to reach out and let her know she’d been seen. Even after the mad dash down the hall and the perfect synchronicity of happening upon the paper and envelopes, he’d almost dared to go one dangerous step further and sign his name. He’d calmed himself, content with the knowledge he’d meet her at the signing.

  Seasoned, real mileage to her; sweat, not perfume; blood, not makeup; wrinkles everywhere. If you licked her skin, she’d taste like alcohol and daring.

  How random. Six months back he’d heard an interview on National Public Radio about the reporter who had not only uncovered a human-trafficking ring run by cops but who’d had to fight her way out of the Hollywood mansion they’d turned into a brothel. He’d bought the book that week but had seen the notice for the signing on a campus light pole only two days back. Now he’d met the woman face to face.

  Well, almost.

  He stroked his goatee. He thought the facial hair made him look like a dork that spent time in coffee shops, loudly comparing whatever the baristas gave him to what he’d gotten that magical summer he’d spent in Italy—an easily forgotten man with some equally forgettable name—a real Chet Watkins.

  He pulled the corner, slowly. The layer of latex under the hair came up as designed, leaving only his scars. He reached for the scar tissue on his neck, pulled it off, inch by inch. He hated to lose the last remnants of Chet, but he’d been seen and had to burn. However insignificant Chet’s half-beard might’ve seemed to casual observers, the damaged skin beneath gave them an additional reason to look away. Even a young woman he’d recognized from campus had walked by at the signing, with no more than a passing glance.

  Not Caitlin Bergman. She’d noticed the raised tissue and returned his gaze.

  Are you a collector? she’d asked.

  In that second he thought she’d peered through his latex camouflage and seen the real him, maybe even knew the answer. Maybe he was that obvious.

  Was he a collector?

  He wanted to be, but knew how collections worked. They started small with simple, elegant pieces, then built to top-shelf items through judicial choices, no room for greed.

  He grabbed his copy of Caitlin’s book, stared at her photo on the back cover, tapped his fingertip on her face. Might be a risk to keep the book, but he and Caitlin Bergman had shared a moment, and he’d learned that some moments meant everything.

  Caitlin Bergman, I didn’t expect you. Didn’t plan for you. You’re out of my budget—for now.

  CHAPTER

  6

  “YOU HAVE A wraparound graphic on your car asking for information about Chapman’s disappearance?” Caitlin didn’t know cars but could tell Lakshmi’s once-red Toyota Corolla was old enough to apply for its own driver’s license.

  “Angela’s mom donated the car.”

  Caitlin did a quick phone search. “We can’t roll up to a crime scene in this thing and be taken seriously. Take me to College and Third.”

  The rental ch
ain gave Caitlin a deal—twenty-five bucks a day for a white hybrid that she could drop at the Indianapolis airport on her way back to California.

  She threw Lakshmi the key fob. “Bring me up to speed while you drive. I need my hands for my phone.”

  Lakshmi pulled into traffic. “Right, the police found a body—”

  “Which police? Campus, Bloomington PD, State?”

  “The Jackson County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “In a different county than we’re in. And why do you know this?”

  “The Seymour Tribune.”

  Caitlin searched the paper’s website, found the one-line blurb.

  The Jackson County Sheriff’s Department confirms that hunters found human remains in a cornfield outside of Seymour.

  Caitlin held out her hand. “Stop. Where are we driving, and why?”

  “The coroner’s office in Seymour. I thought maybe we could—”

  “See the remains? That’s not going to happen. Pull over.”

  Caitlin scrolled through her contacts and hit the “Dial” icon.

  Lakshmi edged the car onto the shoulder of the two-lane road. “Are you calling him?”

  “Who?”

  “The ex-cop from your book. Mike Roman. I loved how you described him: a cop built on the frame of a marine grown from a boy scout.”

  Caitlin smiled, remembering the rest of the phrase her editor had trimmed: Who’d do anything, legal or not, to earn his merit badges.

  She’d worked with Roman a few times since the events of Fallen Angels. He was a solid investigator and a better bodyguard, but without a badge he’d be useless with a dead body in southern Indiana. “Roman’s a blunt instrument. I’m looking for a scalpel, particularly one that owes me favors.”

  She switched to speaker, heard the warm tenor tones of Jim Martinez’s official FBI phone voice. “You don’t usually call through the switchboard,” he said, hushed.

  Caitlin preferred the man’s bedroom voice, a few notes lower and a lot less professional.

  “I didn’t want to give you the impression this was a social call, Special Agent.”