Grey Expectations

by Clea Simon

  Except, well, would that have made her new home less welcoming? With the fledgling United States once more allied with England, would that have meant the conservative forces here would also be on the rise? Could she have been in danger here, as well?

  A loud bark caused her to open her eyes. A stooped man, clad in tweed, was waiting. She was blocking the elevator door. ‘Sorry,’ she apologized under her breath, and stepped out.

  ‘Women,’ she clearly heard him mutter as he took her place and the doors closed. Maybe things had not changed all that much.

  Knowing how her identity had been compromised, Dulcie approached the front desk of the Mildon with trepidation. Whatever she did, she wouldn’t leave her bag there, but it was hard not knowing who had been in on the curator’s plot. Of course, it might all be moot, she realized as she approached the white counter marking the entrance. Nobody seemed to be on duty at all, and she pressed the buzzer set there for the purpose, only to see the small mouse-like attendant emerge from behind a closed door. ‘Yes, yes, I’m coming.’ He pushed his glasses up on his nose as he scurried forward and peered up at Dulcie. ‘Oh, it’s you again.’

  Dulcie blinked at the unexpected rudeness. ‘Yes, I’m back.’ She paused, then let her curiosity get the better of her. ‘Are you surprised?’

  ‘Well, we’d heard there were some problems.’ He waved one pale hand. ‘Never mind, never mind. Here to serve. How may I help you?’

  He seemed earnest enough and certainly confident in his self-righteousness. Dulcie wondered briefly if he had been one of the people photocopying IDs – and, if so, if he had been told it was part of a legitimate security proceeding. That wasn’t what she’d come to ask about, though.

  ‘I’m actually trying to get in touch with one of your employees.’ Dulcie remembered, with that, what the little man had said at her last visit. ‘She may be a work-study student. Slim, blonde hair cut kind of short. Pierced nose.’ She might as well be describing her missing friend. All she lacked was a name.

  It wasn’t necessary. ‘I can’t give out personal information—’

  She stopped him with a raised hand. ‘I wouldn’t ask you to.’ She added a fake smile. ‘I’d just like to leave a note for her, if that’s OK?’

  ‘Well, it may be. I won’t make any promises.’ He snorted, a tiny mouse-like snort, but he reached under the counter and came up with a notepad and pencil. ‘Here.’

  Dulcie took up the pencil and thought for a moment. She didn’t want to scare the girl away. She also didn’t want to write anything that might incriminate her. Dulcie’s days of trusting library employees were over.

  Please call, she finally wrote, trying to make her usually cramped handwriting as legible as possible. It’s important we talk. She followed that with her cell number and signed it: Dulcie Schwartz.

  She folded the notepaper in half, but she had no illusions of privacy as she handed it, along with the pencil, back to the clerk. All she could do was hope it was delivered – and that the girl would at least be curious enough to call. Aware that the little man was staring at her, she thanked him and walked away, back to the elevator.

  There, she paused. Where should she go from here? The idea of going back to work seemed too dreary and, really, considering the day she’d had, she thought she could afford to take the afternoon off. But since she was here . . . She paused to consider. Weren’t the conservation offices somewhere down here, too? Maybe she could see where Rollie had worked. Find out more about how he had faked her ID.

  ‘Not any more,’ the clerk at the circulation desk told her, once she had given up and surfaced to ask. ‘Used to be everything was down on Level Two. Now they have their own labs – special equipment and everything – over in the Holder. There’s a tunnel, of course, but . . .’

  He didn’t have to finish. The heightened security that had been installed following the library renovations of a few years ago clearly hadn’t been enough to protect the Dunster Codex. It did, however, make the clerk’s life much more complicated.

  Not to mention her own: Dulcie caught herself up short. The other guard – the one from the day before – was on duty now, waiting to go through the student bags. It was silly, she knew that, but she just didn’t want to face him and so turned, to walk the long hall toward the back exit. As she did, she wondered about those tunnels. It was probably still possible for someone with the proper access to move unhindered among the university libraries. Could someone have spirited the Codex out that way – shuttling it from library to library until it finally made its way through some less well-protected door? It was possible. This hall, for example, was rather dark and often deserted, at least until the guard’s station – a little booth right by the door.

  Which, Dulcie realized, she was approaching. At least it was a different guard. Out of habit, she reached down to open her bag as she walked. Two catches and a zipper could be tricky, but she had the bag open and ready to hand over when she realized another person had gotten there first.

  ‘Taking off early, I see.’ The guard was talking to someone on the other side of the booth. ‘Have a great weekend. Next?’

  Dulcie was coming forward, her eyes on her own opened bag, when a shadow descended, causing her to look up. The woman in front of her was in the doorway, blocking the sun, but as she emerged into light, Dulcie recognized the Trista lookalike.

  ‘Wait! Please!’ Dulcie started to surge past, only to have a wooden barrier crash down to block her way.

  ‘Bag, miss.’ The guard was looking at her, his face stern. ‘Your bag?’

  ‘Here!’ She threw the bag on the counter and ducked under the trestle as pencils went flying.

  ‘Miss!’ The guard sounded alarmed. ‘Miss! Please!’

  But this time, she wasn’t going to lose her. The girl must have gotten the note. Why else leave early? Why else— There! She saw the slim figure turning toward Mass Ave. Dulcie took after her.

  ‘Miss!’ the voice called from inside the guard booth. Never mind, she’d get her bag later. She started off at a run, only to find herself grabbed from behind. She kicked – hard. A male grunt behind her let her know she’d connected. But it was too little, too late. She felt herself being hoisted in the air.

  FORTY-TWO

  ‘Put me down!’ she yelled, pushing at the arms that held her in a bear hug.

  ‘Whoa, there,’ the bear holding her said as he lowered her to the ground. ‘And here she is, perfectly safe and sound.’ She wheeled around to find Detective Rogovoy, an expression of supreme annoyance standing in stark contrast to his relatively jovial tone. Beside him stood Chris, looking paler and more worried than she’d ever seen.

  ‘What?’ She couldn’t believe they’d stopped her. Couldn’t believe her quarry was getting away. ‘Why did you stop me?’

  ‘You disappeared.’ Chris choked out the words. ‘I tried to call. We both did. There was no answer. And after what you said . . .’

  Dulcie could have slapped herself. She had meant to call Chris back as soon as she got somewhere safe. But her preoccupation with Rollie and the blonde had distracted her, and then being in Widener had made her feel so secure that she’d forgotten.

  ‘We were worried, Dulcie. We both were.’ Her boyfriend came forward to embrace her, and she let him fold her in his arms, his old shirt soft against her face. Beside him, Rogovoy glowered. ‘We thought they’d gotten you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Chris. I wasn’t thinking.’ She looked up at him, into eyes wide with fear. ‘There’s just been so much going on.’

  ‘I know,’ he said into her curls as he buried his lips in them.

  ‘I don’t,’ said a gruff voice beside them. Dulcie looked up. Rogovoy was not only peeved, he was sweating. ‘Some of us are paid to protect the university population, and when we get urgent calls and then can’t reach the people who made those calls, we become concerned.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Dulcie apologized again, this time facing the fat man. ‘I wanted to talk to you,
to tell you what happened. I didn’t want to have to explain everything again . . .’

  ‘Never mind.’ He waved one big hand as if he were swatting away a fly, and Dulcie was struck by the impression that the detective was slightly embarrassed. ‘Got me out of the office. Now, your friend here told me something about these two impostors. Why don’t we go sit somewhere, and you can tell me the whole story from the beginning.’

  With a small sigh of regret for her aborted pursuit, Dulcie led the two men back into the library. The guard didn’t dare say anything, not with Rogovoy in attendance, but she felt his icy glare on her as she retrieved her bag.

  ‘Thanks so much.’ She tried to put her heart into it. ‘I’m sorry to have blown past you like that.’

  The guard refused to melt, but he did hand over a pencil. ‘This is yours, too.’

  ‘She’s helping with an official investigation,’ Rogovoy, right behind her, said, flashing his badge. Dulcie made a mental note to be extra nice to the detective as she led them up to the library’s spacious reading room.

  ‘Pretty nice.’ Rogovoy looked up at the arched ceiling. ‘So this is where you work?’

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? But not really,’ Dulcie confessed. ‘I have a carrel down on Level Three, but it’s pretty tiny and, well, conversation is discouraged in the stacks.’

  ‘This isn’t exactly South Station,’ he said in response, following her to a table in the corner. The reading room was nearly deserted, their nearest neighbor snoring gently behind the day’s paper. Dulcie figured they could talk in here, as long as they did it quietly. At least with Rogovoy as a companion, she wouldn’t get into any more trouble.

  ‘So, Chris told you about the two men?’ Dulcie was glad to be telling someone official about them, even if the memory left her shaky. ‘They were waiting for me by my office.’

  ‘The beginning, please.’ Rogovoy held up one of those big paws. ‘Start from when, after everything you’d been through in the morning, you went to meet Roland Galveston.’

  Dulcie turned toward Chris, a spark of anger flaring. Rollie was a colleague, and he was, she was sure, no threat. Chris met her gaze, though, and slowly shook his head. No, she had no right to be angry at him – or to hold anything back. Starting with the phone call, she told the detective everything. Everything except the encounter with the strange old lady and her waking dream about the squirrel. Chris would understand those. Rogovoy never would.

  When Dulcie finally got up to seeing the young blonde fleeing, she was hit by a thought. ‘Chris, have you heard anything? Has Jerry?’

  Another shake of his head. ‘I called him when I didn’t hear back from you. I didn’t really ask.’ He bit his lip, and a wave of sorrow swept over her. How could she have made this dear man worry so? ‘But he would’ve said—’

  ‘Trista Dunlop, right?’ Rogovoy cut in. ‘Yeah, your friend called again about her.’

  ‘Are you still going to make him wait until tomorrow?’ Dulcie turned back toward the detective. ‘I mean, I’m sure that those two goons were the same ones who went to talk to her.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m going to look into that.’ Rogovoy’s voice sounded flat, but Dulcie had the feeling he was angry. ‘I’ve got some ideas about them.’

  But if Dulcie was hoping he would share them, she was to be disappointed. Once he had her statement, he stood to leave.

  ‘What do you want me to do next?’ She stood, too, ready for her marching orders.

  ‘You, Ms Schwartz?’ He looked from her to her boyfriend and back. ‘Hey, it’s a Friday afternoon. Why don’t you two knock off early? Go get a beer.’

  ‘But isn’t there something you want us to do? After all, I’ve seen all the major players.’

  ‘You’ve seen enough for one day, Ms Schwartz.’ He turned to Chris. ‘Is she always like this?’

  Chris smiled, his first real smile of the afternoon. ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Huh,’ he said, shaking his head as he walked away.

  ‘He’s not all that bad,’ said Chris, after the oversized detective had left.

  ‘No, he’s all right.’ She watched him trundle off.

  ‘When he called, when he said who he was, I was so scared.’ Chris made a sound halfway between a hiccup and a cough, and Dulcie turned just in time to take him in her arms. Tucked away in the corner, nobody bothered them, and soon Chris was wiping his face and trying gamely to smile again. ‘I’m sorry. I just got worried.’

  ‘It’s me who should apologize, Chris. Really.’ She took her boyfriend’s hands in her own. ‘I wasn’t thinking, and I caused you pain. I’m sorry.’ She paused, trying to think of how to make it up to him. ‘Would you like to get a beer somewhere?’

  That did it. ‘You hate beer, Dulcie,’ he said with a laugh. ‘And, to be honest, I should go back to work. I haven’t really gotten anything done. Besides, I should’ve known you were all right.’

  She waited, curious.

  ‘Mr Grey would have warned me, don’t you think?’

  With a kiss – and a promise to touch base around dinner time – he left, leaving Dulcie alone in the cavernous room.

  FORTY-THREE

  Rogovoy had gotten one thing right, Dulcie thought as she turned another page. She’d been through too much today to get any work done.

  Dulcie had gone back to her carrel after Chris left, determined to salvage some of the day, if not her thesis. She’d even made herself reread that noxious essay. Now she was going back to the earlier pieces by her author, trying to understand how she had been so misled.

  If only she could have been wrong. Dulcie turned page after page, hoping she had been mistaken. Hoping she had misremembered some crucial phrase, or had gotten two similar styles confused. After all, the flowery prose of the late 1790s could all start to sound alike to a contemporary reader.

  But, no, there were too many specific touchstones. Certain phrases jumped out at her, as if to scold her for her arrogance.

  ‘The education of young ladies, of virtue undimm’d, must be of concern to all . . .’

  ‘The bookish mind, far from challenging the finer qualities, shall enhance them . . .’

  ‘Learning shall be the setting for her jewel’d countenance . . .’

  All those phrases were taken nearly verbatim from her author’s earlier writings. The first two came from The Ravages intact. In fact, they had been central to Dulcie’s initial thesis – that the novel was not simply a fun distraction, but a pointed political argument hidden in a thrilling adventure. Only, now they were used to make the opposite points – that learning was dangerous for a young lady. That education was at odds with feminine ideals. It was almost like the author was purposefully dismissing the earlier works, turning her own words against herself. The question was: why?

  Dulcie shook her head and closed the book. She had some serious rethinking to do. Chris was right; she wouldn’t abandon her degree, not when she had gotten this far. But it would no longer be a labor of love. It would be a job, the thing she had to finish in order to proceed with her career.

  Sitting there, her hand on the collection’s blue cover, she thought of Trista. Where was her friend? Was she safe? Right now, Dulcie found it all too easy to believe that the pressures of finishing the degree might have caused her friend to snap. It was preferable to thinking that those two goons had come back. That she was lying hurt somewhere. Or worse.

  She stood up. Rogovoy hadn’t said much, but she trusted him. He knew about those horrible men now, and he’d be on their trail. But he was wrong when he had said there was nothing else she could do. Trista was her friend, and Dulcie still possessed some specialized knowledge that the large detective had lacked. Dulcie wasn’t getting anything done in the library. That didn’t mean she couldn’t try to track down her friend.

  After being extra courteous to the guard, Dulcie retraced her own steps out the back entrance. She’d been heading to the right – after the blonde girl – when Rogovoy had grabbed her. The elus
ive undergraduate still seemed like her best shot at figuring what was going on. Rollie knew her, clearly, and Dulcie was pretty sure that the girl had recognized Dulcie, too. Else why did she leave so precipitously? And the resemblance between her and Dulcie’s missing friend was uncanny.

  It wasn’t much, but it was the best she could think of. At least it was better than beating herself up about another lost woman, two hundred years’ gone.

  Dulcie started walking, trying to figure out where the girl could have been heading. At the same time, she pulled out her phone. Trista’s voicemail was now full, no surprise considering the number of messages Dulcie figured she and Jerry had put on it. And when she tried Jerry’s cell that answered with a message also.

  Maybe the universe was trying to tell her something. She clicked through to her own unplayed voicemail. Sure enough, multiple messages from Chris and from Detective Rogovoy confirmed their concern – and her own inattentiveness – and Dulcie silently promised to make up for her carelessness toward her boyfriend. He had been truly scared. Besides, she wasn’t sure he had been right, that Mr Grey would have appeared to warn him, had she been in real danger. She thought of the vision she had been given of the great grey cat and the squirrel – a warning disguised as a memory. Her spectral pet had been there for her then, showing her how she could save herself. In the past, he had even intervened directly, throwing his ethereal self into the mix. Why would he have gotten Chris involved at all?

  Silly question, she realized. She had brought the lanky young man into their lives. She should be happy the feline spirit connected with him. After all, she didn’t mind sharing Esmé.