by Diana X Dunn
“Dr. Freeman will be doing his best to determine what happened to Mark,” Robert said loudly. “In the meantime, we still have a lot of material to cover and the days are flying past. Sara is going to start reviewing today’s exercise with you all tomorrow. She found everyone except for Luke, which means you all have a great deal to learn.”
“She didn’t find Mark, either,” Tamara said sadly. “If she’d found him first, he’d still be here.”
Sara bit her tongue. There was no point in blasting the girl, even though she wanted to.
“Does anyone want to say anything about Mark?” Robert asked.
A few of the students made vague comments. Sara didn’t bother to add anything.
“First round at Michael’s is on me,” Luke said as everyone headed for the door a short while later.
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” Tamara said with a giggle. She grabbed Luke’s arm and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m ever so sad about Mark. I may need you to comfort me all night long.”
Luke shrugged. “I plan to get too drunk to see straight and then sleep until noon tomorrow.”
“That might be fun, too,” Tamara said eagerly.
“I think everyone should go down to Michael’s,” Robert said. “Raising a glass to Mark’s memory seems appropriate.” He looked straight at Sara. “You’ll come?”
She nodded and then took a step toward the door. Ethel caught her arm.
“I won’t be coming to Michael’s,” she said in a low voice. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to teach tomorrow, either. I hope that won’t be a problem.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Sara told her. “You couldn’t possibly have known that Mark was in a tree.”
Ethel nodded, but didn’t look convinced.
“Let’s get you to your suite,” Robert said, sounding concerned. He offered Ethel his arm and she took it with a grateful smile.
“I’m getting too old for this,” she sighed as he escorted her out of the room.
Sara followed, worried about Ethel who suddenly seemed incredibly fragile. A short while later, she was back in the meeting room, waiting for the others.
“The bus is on the way,” Candie announced as she swept into the room. She looked at Sara and laughed. “Sorry, I was expecting the room to be full of students eager to get to the bar.”
“I was surprised to be the first one here, too,” Sara told her.
The students all seemed to arrive at once, with Robert at the rear.
“Ethel is having an early night,” he told them all. “I did invite Mr. and Mrs. Henderson to join us, but they didn’t feel it was appropriate for them. Dr. Freeman is, of course, otherwise engaged.”
The group was quiet as they filed out to the bus. Luke caught Sara’s hand and squeezed it.
“I want everyone to know that we’re together,” he whispered in her ear as they climbed into the vehicle.
“Everyone or just Tamara?” she whispered back.
He laughed. “Mostly Tamara. She followed me back to my room and made several suggestions as to how we could spend our evening. I finally told her that you and I were having a thing.”
“A thing?”
“I didn’t want to try to define it.”
Sara sat back in her seat and thought about Luke’s words. He was probably right. There was probably no point in trying to define their relationship. When she glanced around the bus, she noticed that Tamara was glaring at her.
“She isn’t happy,” she told Luke.
“No, she wasn’t happy when I told her. She said something about having wasted several days with Mark and suggested that she’d be better in bed than you are.”
Sara laughed. “I doubt that very much.”
Luke grinned. “We could test the theory.”
“Here we are,” Tamara said brightly as the bus stopped at the door to the bar. She jumped up and led the rest of the group off the bus. It only took them a few minutes to get drinks and get settled in at several tables along one wall.
“To Mark,” Tamara said sadly. She downed her drink in a single swallow and then got to her feet. “I’ll get the next round,” she said as she headed back to the bar.
“She’s going to have to be carried back to the school,” Sara said.
“We’ll pump her full of neutralizer once she’s reached her limit,” Luke replied.
“I think she’d rather be drunk tonight,” Jeff said from across the table. “She and Mark were close.”
“Mark and I were very, very close,” Tamara interjected as she came back with the drinks. She looked around and then sighed. “My seat is all the way over there,” she said sadly. “And I want to sit here.”
Jeff grinned. “You can have my seat,” he suggested. He pushed his chair back, but before he could get to his feet, Tamara dropped into his lap.
“Thanks,” she giggled, resting her head against his chest.
Sara frowned. “I’m not sure…” she began.
Jeff held up a hand. “It’s all good,” he said.
Sara might have argued further, but Luke spoke in her ear. “Jeff’s a good guy. He’ll take care of her.”
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Lacey said suddenly. “He was so vibrant and alive, you know? It doesn’t seem possible.”
Bill was sitting next to her. He leaned over and patted her shoulder awkwardly. “He wouldn’t want us to be sad,” he said.
“On the contrary, I think he would love to see us so sad,” Donna snapped. “He wanted to be everyone’s best friend, especially Jake’s, of course, but he really wanted to be loved.”
“I loved him,” Tamara said with a small sniffle.
Sara rolled her eyes at Luke, who sighed.
“He tried hard to help us all,” Lloyd blurted out. “I’m going to miss him.”
“We’re all going to miss him,” Lacey suggested.
After the second round of drinks, everyone was ready to head back to the compound. Robert had tried to lift the mood a few times, starting various conversations, but they’d all died out quickly. Sara watched everyone as she tried to work out what had really happened to Mark.
“Class will start at ten tomorrow,” she told them all on the bus back to the school. “We’ll start by talking about what you all did well and not so well with the zoo exercise. Then we’ll move on to other topics.”
She hung back as the students left the bus. Luke was the last one off and he waited for her at the door.
“Come back to my room for another drink,” he suggested loudly.
“I’m tired, and I have to get ready for tomorrow. We have a lot to talk about after today’s exercise and all I have at the moment are very rough notes.”
Luke sighed. “Maybe I should have taken Tamara up on her invitation.”
“I believe she went back to Jeff’s room with him,” Robert said. “Maybe she can persuade him to stay.”
“More likely, she’ll drive him away even faster,” Sara muttered.
Robert gave her a wry smile. “You could be right about that. Good night.”
Luke walked Sara to her door. “Good night,” he said, giving her a mostly innocent kiss before he walked away.
In her room, Sara sat down and began to work through her lesson plan for the next day. Analyzing the video that Candie had sent was a priority, but she decided to wait to do that with Luke. That was assuming he actually turned up for their meeting, of course.
At half past eight, she began to pace around her room. “Ah, Hades, why not,” she said out loud some fifteen minutes later.
She changed into jogging clothes and pulled on her running shoes. While she usually preferred exercise machines to outdoor exercise, the run from the housing building to the weapons range would be good for her. The range was probably two miles away and she’d left herself ten minutes to get there.
Chapter 13
It was dark, with a sliver of crescent moon high in the sky. Sara took a few deep breaths and then
began a light jog by starlight. Within minutes, she was running fast, pushing herself as hard as she could. She reached the weapons range feeling as if she could go on for hours. Her eyes had adjusted to the limited light, and she stared at the building for a moment before continuing.
A quick circuit of the building left her feeling slightly apprehensive. Where was Luke? She jogged around the building a second time, moving quietly and listening intently. Nothing seemed to be moving anywhere. She pulled out her M-ped to check the time. It was two minutes past nine. Jogging in slow circles around the building helped her use up her nervous energy. On her fifth loop, she spotted someone coming toward her.
“Sara? What are you doing out here?” Luke called as he got closer.
“I was restless and thought I could do with some exercise and fresh air,” she replied.
When he reached her, he pulled her into an embrace. “There are cameras everywhere,” he sighed before he kissed her thoroughly.
When she could breathe again, she pushed him away. “How about a race?” she asked.
“What do I get if I win?”
“What do you want?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
Sara felt herself flush. “Let’s just race,” she muttered.
Luke grabbed her hand. “I think we both want the same thing,” he said quietly.
“I’ll race you to the entrance gate,” she said, ignoring his words and the hum of electricity that was running up her arm from his touch. “First one through the gate wins.”
He nodded and then let go of her hand. “Ready, set, go,” he called before he took off down the road.
Sara dashed after him, keeping him in sight, running at a steady pace. She was pretty sure that he’d started too hard and would end up dropping back. The gate was in sight before it happened, but as Luke began to slow, she put on more speed. He shouted in frustration as she ran through the gate a few steps in front of him.
“Need to cool down,” she called as she kept going, now slowing her pace to a jog. Once her heart rate was back to normal, she dropped to the ground, sitting on a grassy slope under a tree. Luke plopped down next to her, lying down and breathing hard.
“Did I wear you out?” she asked with a laugh.
He grunted and then rolled closer to her. In a moment, he’d pulled her down on top of him. She thought about fighting her way out and then decided against it.
“I thought you’d fight me,” he said after another passionate kiss.
“That was more fun than fighting.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“And now we’re way out here, far away from Robert’s cameras and all alone.”
“So who killed Mark?”
“I’m hoping we might get some answers from the recording from the surveillance that Ethel and Candie were doing. I have it on my M-ped.”
“If they really were tracking all of the students, then it should eliminate some suspects, anyway.”
“Unless, of course, Mark truly did have an accident.”
“I don’t know what to believe,” Luke sighed. “An accident seems too convenient, but I’m not sure how anyone would have been able to get Mark into the gator enclosure, either.”
“Unless someone simply convinced him to climb the tree and then shot him with a stun gun or something,” Sara suggested.
“Climbing that tree was a crazy idea.”
“Yeah, it was, but Mark wanted to win.”
“He did. So much so that he did other stupid things, too.”
“Like what?”
“I told you I was going to try to stick close to him. I did my best. As soon as we got into the park, he headed for the animal holding section at the very back of the park.”
“The one that was meant to be off-limits?”
“Yep. He disappeared into one of the buildings. I stopped right outside and got a message from Ethel reminding me that I wasn’t meant to go any further. I don’t know what they told Mark, but he walked back out a few minutes later, looking angry.”
“Then what?”
“I followed him around for a while. He kept ducking into corners and he tried to climb up the side of one of the buildings, too. One of the staff shouted at him and he came down quickly enough. If you’d have been anywhere in the area, you’d have spotted him for sure, though.”
“Did Candie or Ethel have to come to get him out of trouble?”
“No, he talked to the woman for a few minutes and then walked away. I have no idea what was said. I was trying not to let Mark know I was watching him, of course.”
Sara nodded. “What happened at the alligator pond, then?”
“I wish I knew. I followed him up there, but then he vanished from almost right in front of me.”
“Really?”
“As I said, I was trying not be spotted myself. Mark knew what I looked like. We’d done our makeup next to each other on the transport. I hung back on the way up to the alligators, because it was a long straight path and it wasn’t all that busy. I actually stopped for a few minutes to give him space. By the time I followed him, he’d disappeared.”
“Did you go looking for him?”
“Yes and no. I kept my eyes open, but there were only about fifteen minutes left to the challenge, so I wanted to keep moving. I did a very slow circuit of the pond and then walked back down the path. There was a bench where the path rejoined the main track. I was sitting there, trying to decide where to go next, when someone came past me talking about a man in the gator enclosure.”
Sara nodded. “Let’s see what we can see on the video, then,” she said. It took her a minute to open the file that Candie had sent. All it showed was the screen that the women had watched while the challenge had been taking place. Basically, it was just a large map of the zoo with small colored dots to represent each person taking part in the exercise.
“There we go,” Luke said. They watched as the students left the van and entered the zoo. Five minutes later, Sara followed. Turning up the volume, let Sara hear the conversation between Candie and Ethel. They seemed to be chatting about all manner of things, none of which were relevant to what was happening on the screen in front of them. That stopped when Sara tagged Bill.
“That was quick,” Candie laughed.
“He already looked nervous when he left the transport. No doubt he was jumpy and obvious out there,” Ethel replied.
“I wonder if Sara will be able to help him improve.”
“I’m sure she’ll try.”
Sara watched as Bill’s dot on the screen returned to the van. A moment later, she watched as Lloyd was tagged. Mark was already at the back of the complex. A moment later his dot disappeared from the map.
“Mark just walked into the restricted area,” Candie sighed.
“I’ll message him. You deal with Luke. He’s right on the border,” Ethel said.
A few minutes later, Mark returned to the map.
“You just walked right past Jeff,” Luke told her.
“He was very well disguised. If he hadn’t started shouting at a zoo staff member, I never would have spotted him.”
“He’s had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, or so I understand.”
“And he’s leaving tomorrow.”
“I suspect he might give the school another chance, now that he and Tamara are together.”
“You think she’s that much of a draw?”
“I think he felt as if he needed to make a statement but once he’d done that, he was looking for an excuse to stay. I don’t know why he’s here, but I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere,” Luke told her.
“I don’t know why he’s here, either. He’s clearly already had far more training than what Robert is offering.”
“A mystery for another day, maybe.”
“Yeah, let’s get back to Mark for now,” Sara agreed. She pushed play on the video she’d paused and they resumed watching.
The conversation in the van got loud
er as more of the students returned from the park. Sara tried to sort out individual conversations, but it was difficult. At one point she was sure Candie said, “You didn’t miss anything,” but it wasn’t clear whom she was addressing. Sara replayed the clip several times, but nothing she did helped.
“What are you watching so intently?” Luke asked after the third replay.
“Nothing, sorry, just something someone said that confused me,” Sara said, sitting back and letting the video resume. “We’re nearly to the end, aren’t we?”
“There we go,” Luke said. “Mark is heading for the alligator pond now.”
They were silent as they watched him walk along the path. Sara saw Luke stop to let Mark get ahead. A short while later, as Mark continued, they could see that Mark’s dot had stopped. On the map, it appeared that he was right in the middle of the pond full of alligators.
“What’s Mark doing now?” Candie demanded. “It looks like he’s in the damned enclosure.”
“He can’t be,” Ethel said. “Unless maybe that enclosure is shut? Can we check that some way?”
“It isn’t,” Lacey’s voice was clear. “I went up there. It’s a giant pond full of alligators.”
“Mark isn’t moving,” Candie said.
“Let him have ten minutes,” Ethel suggested. “The challenge is nearly over anyway.”
“You don’t think he’s really in the gator pond, do you?” Candie asked.
“Of course not, but I can see him throwing his wrist-con into the pond,” Ethel sighed. “There’s no way Sara could tag him if he dropped his strap in the pond, is there?”
“That’s cheating,” Donna said.
“Not if it was an accident,” Ethel suggested.
“There’s no way it was an accident,” Lacey scoffed.
“Let me message him,” Ethel said. “I’ll just remind him to keep moving. If he doesn’t reply, we’ll know he isn’t still wearing his band.”
“Sara hasn’t found Luke yet, either,” Candie said. “He’s at the gator pond, too.”
A short while later, Sara watched as her dot walked up to the pond, just missing Luke as he walked down the path on the opposite side of the pond. The video stopped as Candie began to shout about an accident.
