Shadow of Vengeance

by Kristine Mason

  “Hear me well, Ms. Davis. I am nothing like Stronach, and you will do well to remember that,” the dean said, his voice low, threatening. He stared at her, his ice blue eyes hard and unwavering. Then he blinked, pushed away from the desk and smoothed his tie. “I believe that what has been happening these last twenty years is as real as you and I. My comparison to Bigfoot was made to prove a point. You’ll find that once you talk to the students and town residents.”

  “I apologize if I offended you,” Rachel said and rested the notepad on her lap. “And not to sound…obtuse, but could you explain what point you were trying to prove?”

  If he wasn’t mistaken, Owen swore Rachel had purposefully goaded the dean. And he liked it. For once, someone else besides him was in the hot seat.

  “My point,” the dean echoed. “The Townies are afraid. The students…” He shook his head and sent them a wry smile. “Young people think they are invincible. They also tend to make light of a serious situation. Like the Townies, they should be afraid. What if whoever is behind this changes direction? Kidnaps a sorority girl? A professor? A Townie?” He returned to his seat. “As I said, some people will compare what’s happening here to legends like Bigfoot. But this is no legend or myth. This is a reality. Stronach foolishly believes otherwise.”

  Rachel picked up her notepad again and glanced at the small page. “Just a few more questions…would you be able to supply us with a list of university employees?”

  “I’ll have human resources give you what you need.”

  “Thank you. Would you happen to know how many employees live in the area year round?”

  “Again, that would be a question for human resources,” Preston said, then checked his watch again.

  Owen suspected their time with Dean Xavier Preston was just about up, which was fine by him. They’d likely have better luck discovering something new if they talked with human resources and campus security.

  Rachel slipped her notepad and pencil into her coat pocket, then looked to him. “I think that’s just about all, right?”

  Nodding, Owen stood. “Thank you for your time. Is human resources in this building?”

  “Yes, first floor. I’ll put a call to that department now. I’ll also be sure to have my secretary give you the name of the alumnus who had donated the security equipment.”

  “Thanks,” Rachel said as she moved toward the door. With her hand on the knob she stopped and faced the dean again. “One thing I forgot to ask…do you happen to know when Wexman University’s no hazing policy went into effect?”

  “Finally, one question I can answer without wavering doubt,” the dean said and stood, then also moved toward the door. “Twenty-five years ago.”

  “Twenty-five…” Rachel furrowed her brows. “Do you know why? I mean, did something happen to prompt the policy?”

  “Yes, Ms. Davis. Very bad things.”

  *

  “Well, that was interesting,” Rachel said as she closed the Lexus’s door. “What did you think of the dean?”

  “I like him about as much as I like Stronach.”

  She chuckled. “Right. At least Preston’s secretary and the guy in human resources were helpful.” She waved the paperwork they’d been given on their way out of the building, then stowed it in her computer bag. “Thing is, I could have saved us the time and just hacked into their system.”

  “So why didn’t you?” he asked as he drove the Lexus out of the parking lot and onto the campus’s main drag. “I could have done without dealing with Xavier Preston. Even his name sounds pompous.”

  “I know. Can you believe how he snapped when I compared him to Stronach?” She shivered. Xavier Preston, though not much more than a half a foot taller than her, probably outweighed her by fifty plus pounds, which she suspected, based on the man’s build, to be mostly muscle. The way he’d gone from calm, almost bored, to angry and threatening, had not only taken her by surprise, but scared the crap out of her, too. Yes, she’d gone through basic training while in the Army and had knowledge of hand-to-hand combat training. But that had been over ten years ago. Since leaving the Army, when she had the time, she’d hit the gym and taken Spinning classes and worked with free weights. Cycling and weight training weren’t exactly going to help her with self-defense, though. The other CORE agents carried a gun, maybe she should, too.

  “Yeah, the way he popped off on you surprised me. Preston has some obvious issues with Stronach,” Owen said, while the unsettling thought of walking around with a loaded weapon, or the possibility of having to use a gun wrapped itself around her brain.

  “There’s an understatement,” she said as an insecurity she wasn’t prepared for coiled through her. Thinking about using a gun, defending herself, being placed in a vulnerable situation had her questioning her original goal of becoming a CORE field agent. If Owen hadn’t been in the dean’s office, would things have been different? While she doubted Xavier Preston would have gone a little bat shit crazy and knocked her on her ass, the possibility had been there. If she did begin to work in the field—alone—did she really want to place herself at risk? Her brother’s bruised and battered face flashed through her mind. Just as she couldn’t imagine her life without Sean, based on their relationship, she was certain he felt the same.

  Owen slowed the Lexus, then pulled into the parking lot of campus security. After he parked and cut the engine, he turned to her. “Are you okay?”

  She glanced away from his probing gaze. “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You haven’t said much since we left the dean’s office.”

  “It was a five minute drive.”

  “Rachel, in the last four years, I’ve spoken to you more than anyone else. I know how fast your brain and mouth work. You could probably recite War and Peace in its entirety in five minutes.” He grinned. “Maybe even less.”

  She gave him a half-smile, then toyed with the three small earrings running up her right ear. He was right. Her mind and mouth did work fast. Unfortunately her mind wasn’t presently on the case, but on whether or not she was even cut out to be a field agent. She could tell Owen this. He was right. The two of them knew each other well. Although he’d hurt her last year, and she made it a point to berate him whenever possible, strange as it sounded—even in her own head—she couldn’t deny their friendship.

  If she set aside her personal issues with him, and looked at Owen as a friend and agent, not a sexy guy she wanted to fulfill every wildest fantasies with, she was certain he wouldn’t judge her for her insecurities, but would likely offer valid advice. Only she suspected Owen would report back to Ian once this investigation ended and give his opinion as to whether she could handle working in the field. She didn’t want him to be in any position where he had to pass judgment on her or play a deciding factor should Ian consider unshackling her from her desk. Adventure had been the reason she’d joined the Army. Intrigue had drawn her to CORE. After working for the private investigating firm, witnessing what the other agents dealt with, if she could step away from the desk, she could have that thrilling combination of adventure and intrigue.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she finally said, “Again. I’m fine. I was thinking about the alumnus who donated the extra security equipment. I’m anxious to find out when he attended Wexman. I also think Preston’s parting remark about the incident that brought on the universities no hazing policy is…interesting.” She really hadn’t been thinking about any of those things, but she should have been rather than deciphering the mixed emotions ping-ponging through her head.

  “I’d definitely like to know what Preston meant by ‘very bad things.’” He leaned his head against the headrest. “I didn’t buy his BS about not being able to disclose what had happened.”

  “Right. It’s not as if we’re dealing with juveniles. Anyone involved in the hazing would have been at least eighteen. If the sheriff had been involved, they would have been treated as an adult.”

  “And if they were arrested, their record would
be public.” He smiled. “Well, they’d be easier for you to hack anyway.”

  She reached for a pencil to chew on, then thought better of it. Her habit annoyed Owen. Besides, her jaw had begun to hurt from the bad habit. “True,” she said when she really wanted to tell him she wished she were back in CORE’s evidence and evaluation room. Her domain. Her sanctuary. There she had access to CORE’s state of the art equipment, multiple TV screens she used to manipulate video footage or photographs for viewing evidence, along with her good old-fashioned dry erase boards where she could list details as she brainstormed either solo or with fellow CORE agents.

  “It’ll take a little longer to hack into the necessary databases, but it can be done.” She grabbed the pencil anyway, but stowed it in her coat pocket right beside her notepad. “I’ll work on it when we get back to Joy’s.”

  He opened the car door. “Let’s get at it, then.”

  Moments later they stood in campus securities command center. While Rachel loved a bit of melodrama, describing the small room that housed two computers, three TV screens and a dispatching radio as a “command center” came off a little over-the-top, even for her. She’d spent many boring years working in the Army Major Intelligence Command Center and couldn’t help being a little snobby over the term. At this point though, she could care less what Wexman’s head of security, Adam Lynch, called this room. With so few leads to go on, she hoped the security cameras from her brother’s residence hall had caught something useful.

  “As you can see,” Lynch said and motioned to the TV monitors. “Our system isn’t much better than what you might see in a fast food restaurant, but it’s better than what we had a few years ago.”

  “Dean Preston mentioned an alumnus had donated equipment to the university,” Owen said.

  Lynch bobbed his balding head. “That’s right. We were able to add cameras to each building entrance and exit, plus we were able to give every building an electronic lock. Not every room, mind you. We could only stretch the donation so far. But we did make sure the dorms and graduate apartments had the electronic locks.”

  “With those electronic locks,” Rachel began. “Can you tell when someone swipes their keycard?”

  “I…ah…” Lynch rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Yes,” a short, portly man said as he entered the room.

  Chuckling, Lynch said, “Well, there you have it. Charlie, here, is more tech savvy than I’ll ever be.”

  She turned to Charlie. “We were told that the electronic locks began to fail—campus wide—Friday night.”

  “That’s right. We’ve been able to restore seventy percent of those locks, but obviously still have work to do.”

  “Did those failing locks include the dorm rooms?” Owen asked before she had the chance.

  “Only at Stanley Hall. It’s a co-ed residence hall for freshman and sophomores.”

  And where her brother and Josh lived.

  “The thing is,” Charlie continued. “Not every lock at Stanley Hall failed.”

  “That’s right,” Lynch said. “Half of one floor went down along with the entire second floor.”

  Her brother’s floor.

  A chill swept through her as she asked, “Can we look at Saturday night’s video footage of Stanley Hall?” There was no need to pull records of the time and number of keycard swipes made to Sean and Josh’s room. If the kidnapper had been behind disengaging the locks, he’d done so the day before the boys had gone missing. Had the locks been working when they’d disappeared, they would have had evidence that someone had gone back to their dorm room to remove the two liter of Mountain Dew and empty any other valuable evidence from their trash can.

  Charlie gave her a big smile. “Adam told me you were coming. I have it cued up for you on screen one,” he said and pointed to the monitor.

  She stood next to Owen and watched the screen. According to the date and time stamp, Charlie had begun the footage from Stanley Hall at five on Saturday evening.

  “I’ve already gone through this,” Charlie said and began to fast forward the video. “Nothing interesting happens until around six.”

  Like scurrying little mice, students quickly came and went. All the while, the security guard, Bill Baker, remained at his post. As the time stamp zipped through, anxiety rolled through her stomach, then slithered through the rest of her body when Charlie slowed the video.

  Owen moved closer, his familiar scent comforted her, while his nearness alone had a calming effect. Something she needed right now as she watched her brother and Josh’s images on the monitor. Just as Bill had explained to them, the boys stood in the foyer for a moment and spoke with the security guard. After they left, Bill swayed, then used the desk to steady himself. He shook his head, then suddenly covered his mouth, bolted from the foyer, running toward the hallway and out of sight of the security camera.

  Seconds ticked by on the time stamp. As she was about to ask Charlie to speed up the recording, the handle of what appeared to be a broomstick filled the screen. It tipped and swayed, then fell out of sight.

  Slowly, the view changed. With each second that passed, the residence hall foyer began to tilt and climb, the objects on camera fading away. First Bill’s desk, then the bulletin board behind it…up the wall, past the clock. Then the slow ascent stopped and the screen filled with nothing but white stucco.

  Her skin crawling with goose bumps, she rubbed her arms and whispered, “Oh my God.”

  Owen touched her elbow. She looked at him, at the concern in his eyes and nodded. “I’m good.”

  His jaw tightened as he turned toward Charlie. “When did you realize someone had tampered with the security camera?”

  “Today, when I was cuing the video for you. I told the guard on duty at Stanley Hall to not touch it. Thought maybe you might want to check it for fingerprints.”

  She shook her head. “It’s obvious they used something to move the camera.”

  Owen shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “Looked like a stick of some sort. Maybe a broom or a mop. Other than custodians, who would have access to supplies like that?”

  Lynch leaned against the doorjamb. “Us and maintenance. But I can tell you that no one from custodial or maintenance services were in that hall Saturday evening.”

  “With the broken locks, I would think maintenance would be working overtime,” Rachel said.

  “They weren’t able to repair any of them without certain parts, which were placed on special order late Friday night and didn’t arrive until yesterday morning. So, no. Maintenance wouldn’t have been there to work on the locks, and there were no other service orders placed that day. As for custodial, Saturday’s they’re gone by three in the afternoon.”

  “Does your custodial service include cleaning dorm rooms?” Owen asked.

  “No,” Lynch answered. “We had an issue with students claiming things were being stolen from their rooms. So, now the students take care of their own cleaning. Even their bathrooms.”

  After thanking the security guards, Rachel followed Owen out of the building and to the Lexus. Once inside the car she finally succumbed to her bad habit and pulled the pencil from her pocket. “This isn’t good.” She chomped on the pencil. “At all.”

  “Nope,” Owen agreed as he backed the Lexus out of the parking spot. “If custodial and maintenance weren’t at Sean’s residence hall that night, and the camera didn’t pick up anyone other than students entering the building, that means only one thing.”

  “Right. Either a student is copycatting Wexman Hell Week or—”

  “Our kidnapper has himself a new recruit.”

  *

  “Meet our longest resident,” the occupational therapist, Olivia, said to a young, pretty brunette as they entered the room. “Jane Doe has been with us for approximately eighteen months.” Olivia glanced my way and offered a pleasant smile, her plump cheeks dimpling.

  The brunette shifted her dark eyes over my limp body as she moved closer to the
bed. “Hello, Jane. I’m your new speech therapist, Elizabeth Cormack, but everyone calls me Bunny.” With a wry smile tilting her lips, she said, “Long story. I’ll fill you in another time. For now…” She turned back to Olivia. “I’m anxious to find out all I can about Jane so we can begin our therapy. It’s my understanding that you’ve taken care of her from the start.”

  “Yes,” Olivia began while I wondered how the pretty speech therapist ended up stuck with what sounded more like a pole dancer’s nickname. “Even when Jane was in a coma I was working with her, exercising her limbs, stretching her muscles.” Olivia’s pale, green eyes softened as she looked at me. Other than Lois, she was the only other person I’ve come to care for in this shitty, smelly, drab institution. She’d shown me nothing but kindness and based on her patience, her compassion, even her frustration at my lack of progress, I honestly believe she cares and wants to see me walk out of this place.

  “Can we pretend I’ve never seen Jane’s case file?” Bunny asked. “I’d love to hear about her from someone who’s familiar with what she’s been through.”

  “Her file is missing things anyway.”

  “How so? All of the medical records—”

  “Right, all of the medical information is in there, but the rest…” She patted my numb leg. “My brother’s a Marietta cop, but he’s got a good friend who’s a deputy with the Washington County Sheriff’s Department.”

  With the way the bed had been raised, I was able to watch the confusion crossing Bunny’s face, along with Olivia’s sympathy and disgust. She should be disgusted. Not for what had happened to me, but the reasons it had happened in the first place. My father had once told me that you make your own bad luck. While bad luck hadn’t brought me to southern Ohio and this dreary institution, blind ignorance, self-absorption and vengeance had. Unknowingly, I had brought this on myself. And while I’d love nothing more than to walk, talk and take a huge bite of a greasy cheeseburger, sometimes I wonder if maybe I deserve my fate. That being mute, paralyzed and forced to wear a diaper was the universe’s way of meting out the ultimate punishment.