He tried again, mouthing a silent prayer. The car roared to life.
“Yes,” Kevin said. He tore out of the parking space and headed for the exit.
The Mustang roared down the straightaway lining the Sycamore apartment complex until Kevin had to brake for the closed security gate. The ten-foot-high gate slid sideways on a track. The gate always seemed to move slower when he was in a hurry, but it still probably took no more than eight seconds to open fully.
As soon as the opening was wide enough, Kevin accelerated, looked quickly to the left for cars, and turned right onto Gulfton.
A stop sign loomed a quarter mile ahead as he approached Chimney Rock, a major four-lane road split by a median. He’d have to turn left to go north to the Southwest Freeway, the quickest route to the university. As he braked, Kevin glanced at the dashboard clock. 4:43. He wasn’t going to make it. Not unless he took some chances.
The Mustang squealed to a halt. Kevin rested his foot on the accelerator, revving the engine to 3000 rpm. Seconds later, a minuscule hole opened in the southbound traffic, one he thought would be just big enough. He popped the clutch.
The Mustang launched forward, and horns blared from his left. He could feel the back tires losing traction. He lifted his foot slightly, sliding the car gracefully into the northbound traffic, narrowly missing a minivan that had begun to change lanes.
The heavy traffic didn’t leave much room for maneuvering, so he was stuck with the traffic’s plodding pace, changing lanes over and over, looking for any opening he could exploit. Finally, he reached the traffic light at the Southwest Freeway feeder road and turned right to get onto the entrance ramp.
Once on the freeway, he was able to dodge the traffic at speeds 10 mph faster than the 70 mph flow. Thirteen minutes later, he was on the STU campus, amazed that he hadn’t hit any freeway snarls or been stopped by the police. The dashboard clock read 4:59.
Kevin found an empty spot marked “Reserved” right in front of Braden Hall. He took the letter from the front seat and bounded up the steps into the granite administration building and up a flight of stairs to the second floor where he reached a glass door with “Office of Financial Aid and Student Affairs” etched on the front. He had the door halfway open when a woman on the other side of the door reached out to stop him.
“The office is closed,” she said. He recognized the woman immediately. Her name was Teri Linley. She was an undergraduate, maybe seven or eight years younger than he was, with curly, brown hair piled high in front and too much makeup for Kevin’s taste. He knew her because he had graded a first-year chemistry course over a year ago, and she had been the biggest pain in the class, complaining about every little point he took off her exams.
She didn’t give Kevin a second glance and tried closing the door. He held the handle firmly.
“Teri, I have to see Dean Baker,” he said.
Teri examined her watch dramatically. “It’s after 5. We are closed.” Her expression was annoyance mixed with impatience. She wanted to be out of here.
“I know it’s late, but I have an urgent matter to discuss with her.”
She shook her head. “You’ll have to come back Monday.”
“I can’t.” Kevin waved the letter at her. “This says I have to see her before the end of today.”
“As far as this office is concerned,” she said, “the day has ended.”
Kevin pointed toward the office hallway. “I know Dean Baker’s still here. Her light’s on.”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t here. I said we were closed.” Teri pulled on the door again. Kevin wouldn’t let it budge.
“What are you doing?” she said. “Let go.”
Kevin knew that if he got upset with her, it would only make the situation worse. He had to try another tack.
“I meant it when I said my business was urgent.” He smiled. “I’m not letting go of this door until I get to see Dean Baker.”
Teri hesitated, turning her head to look down the hallway.
“I promise you’ll get out of here a lot faster if you let me in.”
She turned back and held his eyes for a couple of seconds with a look of disgusted resignation. She let go of the door and threw up her hands. “Fine. Come on.”
The woman went back to the front desk, and Kevin walked down to the dean’s office.
He rapped lightly on the open door. “Dean Baker?”
Julia Baker, Dean of Financial Aid was younger than Kevin had expected, probably in her thirties, but when she looked up, her eyes peered over reading glasses with the unmistakable gaze of authority. She had straight red hair, an angular face with a dash of freckles, and was dressed in an expensive-looking gray dress accented by a turquoise scarf. He suddenly felt self-conscious about his own appearance but didn’t take off his cap, knowing his hair would look even worse.
“Sorry to bother you so late…” he began.
“Not at all,” Dean Baker said with a smile. “Please have a seat.” She gestured to one of the chairs in front of the desk and Kevin sat. “I’ve been expecting you, Kevin.”
“You know who I am?” he said incredulously.
“Of course.” She ran her fingers along a pile of folders on her desk, then pulled one out, opened it and tapped one of the pages. “I recognize you from your application photo. You’re not the first student at South Texas with perfect GRE scores, but we haven’t had many.” She nodded at the paper in his hand. “That’s why I sent you that letter. I like to make sure our best students get every chance to succeed, no matter what problems they’ve had.”
“About the letter,” Kevin said, waving it. “I came over as soon as I read it.”
“I sent that letter out August 25th. That was almost two weeks ago.”
“I don’t get to my STU mailbox very often. I didn’t take any classes this summer and I work off-campus.”
“Off campus?” She flipped to another page in the folder. “It says here that you were offered a research assistantship with Michael Ward and that you accepted.”
“I did have one with Dr. Ward. Until four months ago. He fired me.”
“Why?”
“There was an accident in the lab. Some equipment got destroyed. Some expensive equipment. He thought it was my fault.”
“Was it?”
“I can’t say for sure. Both of us were in the lab at the time, but I was the one who set up the equipment, so I got the blame. He fired me right after the accident. I didn’t get a chance to inspect the equipment closely.”
“Would you like me to speak to Dr. Ward for you?”
Kevin shook his head. Even if she could do it, he wouldn’t go back to work for the Arrogant Asshole. “No, thanks. After I was fired, I checked with all of the other chemistry professors. None of them had any open positions until the fall semester, so I found a job at Hermann Hospital in the biochemistry lab.”
“You like the job?”
Kevin shrugged. “It’s good experience. And it pays the rent.”
“But not your tuition.”
“I’d need a lot better job to pay $15,000 a year in tuition. That’s why I need those school loans.”
“And that’s why you lied on your financial aid forms about your father?”
The reason for her letter. The reason Kevin had raced over to justify his actions. He shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “No, I didn’t lie to get more money. I did it for personal reasons.”
“Kevin, giving false information about your financial aid status is a serious offense. I could have rescinded your student loans and required you to pay them back immediately. I sent that letter to give you a chance to explain before I acted, which should have been by the end of today.”
Kevin began to speak, but Dean Baker held up her hand. “Unfortunately, I have to finish preparing for a speech I’m to give at 5:30. We’ll have to discuss this further on Monday.”
“But without those loans…”
“Kevin, you’re an outstanding stude
nt. I haven’t heard your story, but I don’t think kicking you out of South Texas is the answer. As I said, we’ll talk about this on Monday. The office opens at eight. Now, please close my door on your way out.” She went back to reading the papers on her desk.
Kevin tried not to let her see him sigh with relief. “Thank you,” he said, gently closing the door behind him.
Teri was waiting by the door as he entered the main office. She was talking to a huge body-builder type, no doubt her boyfriend. When she saw Kevin, the disgusted look returned to her face, accompanied by a scowl from the body builder. She nodded in his direction and whispered “Finally.”
Kevin pretended to ignore them. He smiled, pushed the door open, and strolled down the hall, feeling much better than when he had run through it ten minutes before.
His life wasn’t over after all. He had just dodged a bullet.
* * *
David Lobec closed the bedroom curtains in case someone happened to drive by on the otherwise deserted suburban street outside. Their car was on the other side of the house where it couldn’t be seen from the street.
Richard Bern spoke from behind him. “So did Ward say anything important?”
He turned to see Bern carefully place Michael Ward on the bed next to his wife. Ward had already been stripped and put into his pajamas. Irene Ward, dressed in a negligee, looked as if she were sleeping peacefully next to him, belying the fact that Lobec had smothered her with a pillow.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“When he was whispering right before he died, it looked like he was telling you something.”
Lobec’s expression didn’t change. “No, he was babbling.” He took an unopened switchblade out of his pocket and threw it to Bern, who caught it with ease.
“I thought you were kidding about this,” Bern said, his eyes wide.
“It’s your bullet,” Lobec said. “Therefore, you will take it out. Would you like to explain to Mr. Tarnwell that there is incriminating evidence linking us to Dr. Ward’s murder?”
Bern’s slowly shook his head, pondering the thought. Tarnwell was a bear of a man, a stout six foot six, and still every inch the football player he used to be. Everyone in his employ feared him. Everyone except Lobec. He had his own reasons for obeying Tarnwell.
Lobec handed Bern a pair of thin rubber gloves and put a pair on himself.
“I didn’t think so,” he said. “When you’re through, wipe down everything in the room that we might have touched. Then come down and remove the slug from the office ceiling.”
Lobec left the bedroom and stopped at the upstairs smoke detector. He took the battery out and slipped it into his pocket. He would do the same to the others. It wasn’t uncommon for firemen to find brand new houses burnt to the ground with the occupants still inside because they had forgotten to install batteries in their smoke detectors. The Wards would be another sad story the firemen would use to warn second graders and their parents.
It was possible that the coroner would be able to determine that the victims’ lungs contained no smoke from the fire, but Lobec thought the likelihood was minimal. Once Lobec and Bern were through searching the house and Ward’s computer for anything associated with Adamas or the missing $10 million, flames would consume the entire building long before the fire department could arrive on the scene. Fortunately, the Wards had elected to use gas in their kitchen appliances. Two smokers in a house with a gas line and smoke detectors missing batteries was a recipe for tragedy.
Lobec smiled at his luck. With the gas fueling a raging inferno, the bodies might not even be identifiable, let alone capable of providing a definitive cause of death. Unless, of course, the coroner found a bullet in one of the corpses. And Bern was taking care of that.
Several issues still troubled Lobec, and he stopped smiling at the thought. Who was N. Kevin Hamilton? And what was the message Ward sent to him? He’d noticed Ward surreptitiously press a key as they walked into his office, but Lobec had thought little of it at the time. Now it could be a severe problem. He had checked the computer, but the message hadn’t been saved when it was sent. Of course, the message may have been incomplete, but it was bothersome nonetheless.
Lobec needed to know more. After emptying the other two smoke detectors, he headed for Ward’s office. The next item on the agenda was to look for anything regarding N. Kevin Hamilton. Unless they found him quickly, whatever was in the message might find its way to the police. He couldn’t let that happen. In more ways than one, their involvement would be disastrous for Lobec.
* * *
Reggae blasted from the stereo of the stifling, overcrowded house. Kevin opened the window he’d been looking out of, leaving the screen to repel the late summer mosquitoes.
It was 8:00 and Nigel Hudson was throwing his traditional beginning-of-the-semester party. Before coming over, Kevin had returned to his apartment, showered again, and put on khaki Bermuda shorts, a white V-neck pullover, and a pair of beat-up Bass Rangeleys with no socks.
Someone tapped his shoulder from behind.
“Is she coming?” said Nigel, handing a beer to Kevin.
“I can tell you’ve been drinking,” Kevin said. “Your accent’s back.”
Nigel, an immigrant from Jamaica who’d been a US resident for 15 years, was meticulously stylish and probably the most gregarious person at South Texas. He was also one of the few friends from his undergraduate years at Texas A&M that Kevin kept in touch with.
Nigel shot him a bemused look. “Don’t change the subject. You’ve been looking out the window ever since you got here.”
“You mean Erica?” Kevin shrugged and looked around at Nigel’s business school friends, most of whom he didn’t know.. “She’s still got two weeks left on her ER rotation. You know how busy med students are.”
“But she did say she was coming.”
“She said she’d try to come. It wasn’t like I asked her out on a date.”
“Why didn’t you? From what I can tell, there’s not a single thing wrong with her. What’s the problem?”
“There is no problem. We eat lunch together in the hospital cafeteria. Sometimes we study together at the library.”
“Nothing else?”
“We went to a picnic a few weeks ago, but we were with a bunch of other people. We’re just friends.”
“You, my friend, are a terrible liar.”
“It’s the truth,” Kevin protested a little too vehemently.
“Okay,” said Nigel, with a definite air of skepticism. “So why do I hear that she’s been over to your place three times already?”
“Who told you that?”
“You’re not the only person I know that works in the hospital.”
Kevin knew when he was caught. “Those visits were purely platonic.” That was the truth, unfortunately. “She makes a good stir-fry.”
“Sure,” Nigel said, drawing the word out. “What’s her pager number?”
“I’m not going to page her just to see if she’s coming to a party.”
“So you do have it.”
Kevin had it memorized. “So what?”
Nigel threw his hands up in defeat. “I was just making a suggestion. Do you want something to eat? There are chips in the kitchen.”
“No thanks. I stopped at McDonald’s on the way over. Besides, all you ever have is those ‘light’ chips.”
“Some of us don’t have time to go to the gym five days a week like you. I wish…”
Something over Kevin’s shoulder caught Nigel’s eye, stopping him in mid-sentence. Kevin turned to catch a glimpse through the window of someone approaching the door outside.
“Take a look at who’s coming in,” Nigel said.
Kevin’s breath caught slightly in spite of himself.
But as he saw the door open, he let his breath out in disappointment.
A voluptuous blonde, maybe five feet tall and shoehorned into a low-cut black leather dress, walked over to Nigel, hugged him t
ightly, and gave him a peck on the cheek.
“How are you, Nigel,” she said with exaggerated flair. “I haven’t seen you in hours.” She turned to Kevin and smiled up at him. “And who is your friend here?”
“Kevin,” Nigel said, “this is Heather.”
They shook hands. She had a surprisingly firm grip for someone her size, but then Kevin realized that a limp handshake wouldn’t get a business school graduate very far.
Nigel said something about getting her a drink and walked away, leaving Kevin and Heather alone.
Heather said something which Kevin couldn’t hear over the music. He said, “Excuse me?” and bent down to put his ear closer to her mouth. Her spicy perfume and the tequila on her breath engulfed his nose. The combination almost overpowered his senses, and he had to swallow a cough.
The cut of her dress wasn’t sleazy, but it left little to the imagination. He turned his head so he wouldn’t give the impression that he was staring into her cleavage.
“I said you’re cute,” she repeated, raising her voice. “You’re not in the business school, are you? I would have noticed you before.”
Normally, Kevin’s stomach would be fluttering by now from the compliment, but tonight it was oddly silent.
“I’m getting my Ph.D. in chemistry. Nigel was my roommate last year.”
“Nigel’s great, isn’t he? I’m taking a class with him. He helps me a lot with my homework.”
I’ll bet he does, thought Kevin.
“Did you go to South Texas for your undergrad, too?” she asked, putting her hand on Kevin’s arm to balance herself.
“No. A&M.” He held up his class ring, the words Texas A&M encircling the border. South Texas and A&M were huge rivals. “Some people don’t speak to me when they find out.”
She tilted her head and one end of her mouth turned up. “I won’t hold it against you."
The Adamas Blueprint Page 2
