by Leah Rhyne
I was a little touched by his obvious concern for Lucy. I felt like a secondary character in a romance novel, watching the hero race away to rescue a damsel in distress. The thought made me grin that hideous smile, but it didn’t matter that I was a bystander, a red-shirt. Lucy deserved a good guy, especially after all I’d put her through, and considering the fact that she’d been kidnapped. I wouldn’t allow the idea of her being dead or, worse, like me, to enter my head. Somewhere, she was alive and well, and we were going to find her. No problem.
Then she could help Adam learn to control his temper, and they’d find Eli a new girlfriend after he’d had time to adequately mourn his last one, and they’d all live happily ever after. It was a cozy little fantasy, something straight out of my Sixteenth-Century Lit class, if I ignored the fact that I wasn’t in it.
It was getting on toward noon, and the sun was high in the sky, making the ice on the roads slick. We passed several salt-spreaders out doing their jobs, but still Strong had to work hard to keep the car on the road. In the back seat, Eli flipped through one of the electronics catalogs I’d passed to him through the bars of the squad car divider. “Huh,” he said, when we were still about twenty minutes away from campus. “I wonder if this is how they’re powering you.” He pressed the open catalog up to the divider, and I turned to look, ignoring the way my neck sounded like a ripping piece of paper when I moved.
It was a picture of a large pump with wires coming out of all sides. It looked almost like a heart, and I shrugged. “Maybe? Who the hell knows what I’ve got going on inside. Maybe I’m running on bananas!”
For the first time in ages, Eli laughed a little, a sound that made me feel better, like this really would work out okay in the end. At least for my friends. “You’re a freak,” he said.
But Eli’s laugh had the opposite effect on Strong. He slammed on the brakes again, and Eli pitched forward into the back of my seat, knocking me forward as well. “What the hell,” Eli said, rubbing his shoulder from the floor of the back seat.
Strong turned to glare at us. “You’re laughing. I’m sorry, but do you two think this is a joke?”
“Hey…” I started to interrupt, but one look from Strong shushed me.
“We have a clue. We’re on our way to investigate, even though I know it’s a dead end. Now please shut the hell up so I can focus on not getting us killed on this stupid ice-covered road? I’d rather stay alive long enough to actually find your friend.”
“Calm down, man,” said Eli. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I want to save her too.” His voice was velvet. He’d used it many times on me in the midst of an argument.
Strong shot him a dirty look, then started to drive again. “Just keep your mouths shut. We’re almost there and I swear to God, Jo’s about to make me puke.”
The address on the postcard led us to a cluster of on-campus faculty housing. Strong parked the squad car in front of a tiny, boxy, bright yellow house with deep green shutters. Unlike those around it, no one had shoveled this home’s front walk or the tiny porch. There were no footprints in the snow. It was vacant.
I looked up and down the street; classes were in session, with people walking here and there by the classroom buildings. No one walked nearby, but I wrapped my scarf around my mutilated face. Just in case.
Strong got out of the car first, then opened the door for Eli. Eli opened my door, and together we walked up the front stoop, tracking through the knee-deep snow. Eli shivered in front of me, and I patted his shoulder as we walked. He didn’t flinch.
When we reached the front door, I looked at Strong. “You’re the cop. Do we knock first?”
He shook his head, and then reached for the knob. It turned easily in his hand and swung inward, revealing a small living room. Dust had settled on most surfaces, and Eli sneezed as a cloud of dust flew up in the cold breeze that stayed with us as we stepped inside. “Should we take our shoes off?” I whispered. I didn’t want to track in snow and mud.
Eli just shot me a look and walked inside, tracking gray snow on the cream-colored carpets.
The room was dark once Adam closed the door behind us, so I walked to a set of heavy drapes and pushed them aside, letting light flood in through the grimy windows. They made visible a space furnished with a mix of antiques and Goodwill pieces, but devoid of any piece of the person who last lived there. No photos, no pictures on the walls, no shoes on the floor by the front door.
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s lived here in a while,” said Strong. “We should take a quick look around, and then get back to looking for Lucy. We won’t find anything useful here.” He used the very tip of his finger to nudge the lone pillow on a nearby couch. A cloud of dust puffed around it when it flopped over onto the couch cushions.
“How do you know no one’s been here?” said Eli. “Jo, you look around the kitchen. Strong, you take the bedroom. I’ll look in here and the bathroom. Let’s see if we can’t find something. Whoever lived here knew something. They moved to the cabin in the woods. So let’s find out…who’s Sandy?”
I found the kitchen small, and mostly clean. Cabinets were polished, floors were swept, but everything was covered in that thin sheen of dust that settles on every surface of an empty house.
While the living room had been furnished, the kitchen was barren. Neither spoon nor knife, cup nor plate, graced its cabinets or drawers. The microwave stood empty. The refrigerator was empty, though it hummed quietly, standing guard, ready to do its job and make things cold as soon as someone moved back in. It seemed to long for a cheery souvenir magnet or even a cold bottle of beer.
I headed back to the living room with nothing new to share, into the room where bookshelves stood empty and closet doors hid absolutely nothing. Eli grew frustrated, shoving aside couch cushions and curtains hoping to find something, anything, that could lead us to Lucy. Finally, he flopped onto the couch, and Adam soon joined him.
“Nothing,” he said as he slid down beside Eli. “Absolutely nothing. Like I told you.” He looked satisfied.
“Ditto.” Eli leaned his forehead onto his hand, a gesture of defeat.
I’d just seen something, though. In a dark corner, hidden mostly behind the brick mantel that jutted out into the living room, stood a coat rack. At first glimpse it looked empty, but when I looked again, I saw something hanging from a hook, tucked away beside the bricks.
I walked over to it.
It was a cardigan, big and cable-knit. It was the brightest shade of orange I had ever seen.
Except, I had seen it before. I knew the cardigan. It happened to be the favorite cardigan of my favorite professor.
“Sondra,” I whispered, mostly to myself. “Sondra, Sandy.” I turned to Eli. “Holy crap, Eli, it’s Sondra Lewis!”
The men jumped to their feet.
“What did you say?” said Strong, walking to me. His face was white, his eyes were wide. He looked as though he’d seen a ghost.
“What do you mean?” echoed Eli, following.
I held out the sweater in front of me. “It all makes sense now!” I said. I was excited. “No professors ever go visit their students just for something stupid like the flu! She was checking up on me! Sondra Lewis, English Department! It’s how she knew my email, it’s how she knew where to find Lucy! Sondra is Sandy, and she’s my professor, and she’s the freaking bad guy!”
Strong’s face grew very red in the sunlight that poured in deceptively cheerful buckets through the open blinds. Eli smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Why didn’t we see it sooner? Jesus, Jo, teachers don’t make dorm calls. She was spying!”
“And nobody wears a sweater this bright and garish except for Sondra Lewis! She even talked about it the first time she wore it. Her sister, her sister, knitted it for her, but she said they’d had a falling out and hadn’t spoken in years. She sounded sad about it. This is her awful sweater!”
“Come on, guys.” Where Eli and I were excited, anxious and tur
ning for the door, Strong was calm, cool behind that reddened face. “Look, I’m a cop, and my life is about evidence. An ugly sweater doesn’t make an innocent person a villain. What if you’re wrong? You’re standing here accusing someone just because you found an ugly sweater. The world is full of ugly sweaters. That doesn’t mean this one implicates your teacher!”
“Look,” I said. “I know you’re scared. I know you have rules to follow, and I know you want to find Lucy as bad as Eli and I do. But still, I know this. I know I’m right. Look at this sweater! No tag. Handmade. Sondra Lewis is our bad guy. Or at least, she’s one of them.”
I didn’t need further evidence. I’d been in the lab when the weird, disjointed voices spoke to us through the sound system. Now that I knew, I realized, one of those voices was her speaking. I could close my eyes and go back in time to the terror of those minutes, and the voice, though distorted, was hers. Her syntax. Her diction. Hers.
I knew.
And I had led her straight to Lucy.
Strong shrugged, unconvinced, but Eli stood strong by my side. “We have to find her,” he said. “Even if Jo’s wrong, and I don’t think she is, it won’t hurt anyone to talk to her, right? So can’t we go to her office? Like, now?”
“Yeah, let’s go!” I said. “Find her, and I bet we can find Lucy. Eli, what time is it?”
“One thirty. Tuesday.”
“Great!” I stepped up to Strong and looked up into his eyes. “She has office hours Tuesday from noon to four. I used to meet with her every week almost, just to chat and talk books and such. She’ll be there now. She’s always there. I can take you to her.”
Strong’s face cleared, the internal doubt storm past. He took a step back, looking apologetically at my lack of nose and crumbly face, and said, “I can even do you one better, if you’re sure. Are you sure?” I nodded. He took out his phone and dialed. “Williams, it’s Strong. Go ahead and put out an APB. We have a suspect in the missing girls case. Are you ready?” He turned and walked toward the front door, gesturing us to follow. “Okay. Sondra, s-o-n-d-r-a, Lewis, l-e-w-i-s. She’s an English professor at Smytheville. Look her up on the web site. Yep, we’re headed to her office now. Yes, I doubt we’ll need it but you better send some backup, just in case. Right. Yes. Okay, yeah. Out.” He turned back to us as we headed out into the snow. “You kids better be right, and this better lead us to Lucy. I’m done with red herrings.”
We reached Shepherd Hall in less than five minutes. I was positive Sondra Lewis, aka Sandy, would be waiting for us, heavily armed. I glanced around nervously, eyeing each student and professor who passed, before allowing myself to be pulled inside the building.
“But where’s your backup?” I asked Strong as he led the way through the automatic glass doors that parted, inviting us into the bustling classroom building.
“They’re on their way,” he responded, then tugged on my arm. I stumbled. Of course I stumbled. “Come on, let’s go. We’re wasting time.”
Wrapped in winter clothes from head to toe and flanked by Strong and Eli, my legs barely held me up. I wanted to crawl under the floor and hide. Around me, the building vibrated with energy and life as students walked the halls in between classes, chatting and debating in corners, the air humming with constant voices. Through the scarf, which I wore like a veil, I saw friends and classmates, and I struggled against the instinct to call out to them. Everyone gave us wide berth, from either the presence of a uniformed police officer, or the stench I emitted. I wasn’t sure I cared either way.
“This way,” I mumbled, forcing myself to take the lead. It was the best way to make sure I wouldn’t run. Not like I could run. My gait was zombie-like, lurching, and Eli kept a fistful of my coat in his hand at all times, rescuing me when I stumbled. Beside us Strong was stoic, silent.
I headed to the elevator, since Sondra Lewis’s office was on the fifth floor and my legs couldn’t handle the stairs. Like the Red Sea did for Moses, the sea of students parted for us as we pushed forward toward the shining metal door.
When the elevator arrived, we three climbed in. I pressed 5. Before the doors shut, a handful of giggling girls walked toward us. The first one stepped in, but made a terrible, ugly face. She turned away, pushing her friends back, as if they’d hit a force field. They left, but not before eyeing me with green-tinged, nauseated faces.
The doors closed.
“Do I really smell that bad?” I asked.
“Yeah, you do,” said Eli. “Positively ripe. Right now I’m just praying the elevator doesn’t get stuck. That would suck.”
The stars aligned in our direction for once; we didn’t get stuck. I heaved an unnecessary sigh of relief. Strong and Eli stared at me, and I’d have blushed, if I’d had blood with which to do it.
“What?” I said, opening my arms wise. “A girl’s gotta breathe sometimes.”
Then we rushed to Sondra’s office, the one with the vase of fresh flowers hanging on the wall outside. Normally they were fresh and sweet-smelling; now they were dried and withered. Like me.
Also, the door was closed.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “It’s never closed during office hours. Even when someone’s in there. She’s an open-door kind of professor.” I tried to knock, but my dried, gloved hands only succeeded in a muffled thud. “Professor Lewis? Are you in there? It’s Jo Hall.” But my voice was so quiet, so raw, I doubted she could hear me through the thick wooden door.
“Allow me,” said Strong. He nudged me aside and took hold of the doorknob. “Police, open up!”
This door, like the door at her old house, opened easily, but her office looked much more chaotic than the house. Student papers lay half-graded on her desk. Books sat piled in corners, topsy-turvy. A purse lay open on the ground.
Eli looked around and shrugged. “Looks like somebody left in a hurry.”
Strong stepped out to make yet another phone call, but Eli and I looked around.
I rifled through a few papers on her desk, where I found a memo matching the ones I’d seen back in the house. Same font, same paper. I thought of the folder of papers I’d left unread at the dorm and wondered what clues they held, if only I’d taken the time to read them. This time, I thought. This time, I’ll read it right now.
From the Office of the OoA Advisory:
Re: The Search for Subject 632G-J
The search for Subject 632G-J has been successful in location. Subject is no longer at large, and is in custody, awaiting the arrival of our new founders. Agent AS keeping close tabs on Subject, simply awaiting the signal now to bring her into the facility.
Subject 645-L has been apprehended and awaits new equipment readiness to begin transfer. Subject is held at facility under lock, key, and constant guard.
Subject 651-S still thrives.
New founders are expected at 16:00 hours. Arranged pickup by Agent SL.
Cleanup efforts to begin at old facility as soon as police reports are properly filed.
Until then, continue to report to facility every three hours for check-ins. We need constant manpower on the streets to avoid any other untimely scenes.
All hands must be on deck at all times right now.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me. What the hell is this? Some kind of bad sci-fi flick? Who are these assholes, anyway? And why the hell are they handing out paper memos? This is the twenty-first century!”
“What did you find?” Strong stood in the doorway, his face once again red and inflamed. For someone who’d just met her, he was definitely taking Lucy’s disappearance hard. It seemed every piece of news, each new discovery, was a salt in a raw, open wound. “Hand it over.”
I bristled, but did, and then watched his face get redder and his eyes grow wider as he stared at it, and Eli read over his shoulder. Both were silent, and then Eli looked at me, a smile almost appearing on the corners of his lips.
“I know, right?” I said. “Ridiculous. Don’t you just want to punch someone?”
I grinned at him, my face cracking and flaking. “I have that effect on people sometimes. You know, making them want to punch someone.”
He reached out and rubbed my shoulder. “Well, at least now we know we’re on the right track. Let’s get out of here. I can’t handle your stench in this little room.” He still smiled, though, and I knew why. It was a bit of a thrill, getting closer to finding our friend.
Everything’s going to be okay.
Outside the office, Strong remained red, but his voice sounded calm. “I’ll call this in on the way out.” He reached out and took my arm and jerked me out of the office.
“Where are we going?” I said.
“To find Lucy. My buddies have a lead.”
The initial excitement I felt at finding a lead withered as Strong drove the car further and further away from school, from Primrose Path, and from everywhere we already knew was connected with finding Lucy. The day was passing by too fast. Lucy had already been gone for at least eight hours, and all the TV shows I’d ever seen said you only had forty-eight hours to find a kidnapping victim. After that, their survival rates plummeted.
We were wasting time, driving through New Hampshire mountain country, further and further away from civilization.
But Strong pushed away any questions from Eli or me. “It’s where they said to go,” he said over and over, and remained vague about who “they” were. His partners on the police force? FBI? CIA? Other sources not yet identified? I didn’t know, and he wouldn’t say.
After an hour of driving in pensive silence, during which time we drove deeper and deeper into the White Mountains, further from our home and school and hope, Eli spoke up. “Strong?” he began tentatively, as if unwilling to rock the boat. “I know you seem to have a plan, but could you let Jo and me in on your secret? Like, say, where we’re going?”
