Secret Sanctuary

by Amanda Stevens

  She opened the door and glanced inside. Paul Fortier, wearing a white lab coat, stood with his back to her, busy with something on one of the worktables.

  “Dr. Fortier?”

  Obviously he hadn’t heard them come in because he spun, startled, and a test tube he held in one hand dropped to the pristine floor and smashed.

  Red liquid splattered against the white tile.

  Chapter Eight

  “I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  After his initial stunned reaction, Fortier managed to get his emotions under control—except for a slight muscle twitch in the side of his jaw. “Dr. Douglas! Don’t you believe in knocking?”

  “The door was unlocked,” Elizabeth explained. “And I’ve never had to knock before entering the lab.”

  “Yes, well, it’s not a good idea to sneak up on someone.”

  Not a good idea to hit on your students, either, Elizabeth thought. She’d heard via the rumor mill that some of them actually reciprocated his advances, but for the life of her, she couldn’t understand the attraction. At best, Fortier was an average-looking man, around forty or so, with dark hair frosted at the temples and a neatly clipped beard and mustache. His eyes were a grayish green and closely set. His only outstanding feature was a rather prominent nose, which gave him a hawkish look, as if he were constantly on the lookout for prey.

  Elizabeth took a step toward him. “I’ll help you clean up—”

  “No! No.” He looked vaguely alarmed by her offer and quickly turned back to the worktable. “Just leave it. I’ll attend to it myself.” He picked up a plastic holder which contained several more glass vials, all filled with a red substance, and then walked over to store them in a nearby refrigerator.

  The sight of the test tubes reminded Elizabeth of the one she and Cullen had found in the cooler room at the mortuary last night. And thinking about it brought back the same question. Who had left it there? In spite of what Cullen had said, Elizabeth knew there was no good reason for anyone on the staff to have a test tube in the cooler room. Fluid extractions and injections would be handled in the embalming room.

  But if not someone who worked there, then who had brought the test tube into the cooler room? The killer? That didn’t make much sense, either. If he’d wanted a sample of Bethany’s blood or other bodily fluids, why not get it at the time of her murder? Judging by the condition of her body, he’d kept her for several days.

  Elizabeth’s gaze went to the broken test tube on the floor, then back to Fortier. She had no idea what kind of experiments he conducted in the lab. He’d always been very secretive about his work. Secretive about everything really.

  The only thing Elizabeth knew about his private life—aside from the occasional dalliance with a student—was that he’d once been associated with a large lab in Boston specializing in gene therapy. Elizabeth’s parents knew him slightly, and they’d hinted once that he’d given up research for teaching because he hadn’t been able to cut it in the real world. Why else would one choose to teach? their disdainful tones had implied.

  Fortier caught her staring at him and frowned. “Was there something you wanted, Dr. Douglas?”

  “I’d like you to meet Professor Lucian LeCroix. He’s the new chairman of the English Department. This is Dr. Fortier, chairman of our Biology Department.”

  “You’ll excuse me if I don’t shake hands.” Fortier held up his hands, encased in thick latex gloves.

  When Lucian didn’t respond, Elizabeth glanced at him. He was staring at the red stain on the floor. He seemed almost mesmerized. “Is that blood?” he finally managed to ask.

  “Animal blood,” Fortier assured him. “But the lab rat was unharmed, so no cause for alarm.”

  Unharmed? Elizabeth glanced at the spill on the floor. No lab rat had given up that much blood and lived to tell the tale. She started to ask him the nature of his experiment, but thought better of it. Fortier was not only secretive about his work, but he could be resentful. Vindictive even. If he thought Elizabeth was prying into his business, he might get downright nasty.

  “Elizabeth.” Lucian’s voice sounded urgent. He put a hand on her arm.

  “Are you okay?” she asked quickly.

  His hand crept from her arm to his throat, where he seemed on the verge of tearing open his collar. “Would you mind…if I waited for you outside? I think I need some air.”

  “Of course, but—”

  He turned and hurried from the room before she could finish her thought. Fortier gave a low chuckle. “The new professor seems a little squeamish at the sight of blood.”

  “Luckily, he won’t need to come into contact with it in the English Department,” Elizabeth said dryly.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Some of today’s literature is quite violent. Don’t you keep up with your reading, Dr. Douglas?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not much into fiction.” Which wasn’t at all true. She had a passion for certain kinds of fiction. She thought briefly about the prized volumes she kept under lock and key in her bedroom. “Don’t you want some help with that?” She indicated the mess on the floor. “I feel somewhat responsible.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Was there something else you needed?” He seemed anxious for her to leave.

  Elizabeth hesitated. “You weren’t at the Pierces’ masquerade ball last night, were you?”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. Why do you ask? Did anything noteworthy happen?”

  Her gaze again strayed to the stain. There’d been no blood at all on Bethany’s body. Nor on the floor beneath where she’d been hanged. No visible marks on the body…

  It’s almost as if the killer went out of his way to…preserve her, she’d told Cullen. The thought of that was almost as horrifying as mutilation.

  Elizabeth glanced up. “As matter of fact, something did happen. A young woman was found dead. The police suspect foul play. It was Bethany Peters.”

  Fortier’s gaze seemed to freeze for a moment, then he turned quickly back to the counter, busying himself with a notepad and pen he kept handy. But Elizabeth didn’t think he was taking notes. He acted like a man who was buying himself some time. “Bethany Peters?” he finally asked in a voice that sounded determinedly calm. “My God, what happened? Did they find who did it?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “How did she die?”

  With his back to her again, Elizabeth noticed several reddish brown smudges near the right elbow of his lab coat. The sleeve was ripped as well.

  “The police don’t know yet,” she told him, her gaze on the rent. Had someone grabbed him and torn his coat? Someone with bloody fingers? “They’re waiting for the autopsy.”

  Fortier turned then and his gaze met hers. Something about the way he looked at her—his eyes guarded, his expression absent of emotion—caused Elizabeth to shudder. One of his students had been found murdered last night, and he seemed at best mildly interested. “How do they know she was murdered?”

  “She was hanged from a steel beam in the solarium at the Pierce estate.”

  “Hanged? Then I would think cause of death would be obvious.”

  “The police think she was dead before she was hanged. They believe she was killed elsewhere and brought to the Pierce mansion.”

  One dark brow lifted. “Why would someone go to that much trouble?”

  A strangely detached way of putting it, surely. “I don’t know.” Elizabeth hesitated again. “Bethany was a student of yours, wasn’t she?”

  His gaze turned icy, narrowed. “I hope you’re not implying—”

  “I’m not implying anything. I just wondered if she’d been absent from class the last few days.”

  He shrugged. “Come to think of it, she did miss a couple of classes last week. I just assumed she had the flu. It’s going around campus. You had the bug yourself a few weeks ago as I recall.”

  True enough. She’d been sick that d
ay when she’d bumped into him after a faculty meeting and thought he’d made a pass at her. Elizabeth had been in a feverish haze that day, not to mention highly medicated, and it was possible she’d dreamed the whole encounter. But in light of what had happened to Bethany, the exchange, real or imagined, took on an even more macabre sentiment.

  She glanced up to find him watching her with that same odd speculation he’d had that day after the faculty meeting.

  “The police may be around to talk to you,” she said quickly, trying to dispel her sudden unease.

  “The police?” He frowned. “Why would they want to talk to me?”

  “They’ll want to interview anyone who may have seen Bethany in the last day or so before she died. They’ll want to know who her friends were, if she had a boyfriend, things like that.”

  Fortier’s scowl deepened. “How would I know about any of that? She was just my student. A mediocre one at that.” He struggled with his latex gloves for a moment, then tossed them to the counter. “What’s your interest in all this anyway?”

  “Bethany was a student here. Why wouldn’t I be interested?”

  He studied her for a moment. “You sound more than just interested. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’re trying to interrogate me, Dr. Douglas.”

  “Not at all.” Elizabeth’s heart started to pound. She knew it was time to leave, but she hadn’t gotten all the answers she wanted. “I’m just asking you a few questions, preparing you for what the police are going to want to know.”

  “How good of you.”

  “So…you don’t know anything about Bethany’s social life?” she persisted.

  “I don’t keep tabs on my students any more than you do, Dr. Douglas. Although…”

  “Yes?”

  His expression turned coy. “I seem to recall a rumor going about a few weeks ago that Bethany had been seduced into a cult.”

  “A cult?” Elizabeth repeated in surprise. “What kind of cult?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t even know if it’s true. You know how students talk. You hear things that more or less go in one ear and out the other. I never put much credence in rumors.”

  Elizabeth somehow doubted that was true. She had a feeling Fortier paid very close attention to the latest talk on campus because, more often than not, the juiciest morsels involved him.

  She turned toward the door, then paused. “By the way, Dr. Fortier, you seem to have torn your lab coat.”

  He grabbed his right elbow, although Elizabeth had made no mention of where the coat was ripped. “Ah, yes. I snagged it on a nail earlier. I’d forgotten all about it.”

  “Did you cut yourself as well? That looks like blood on the fabric.”

  He looked faintly surprised. Then almost amused. “Blood? It may well be. You know how experiments can get a bit…messy at times.” He turned back to the counter, away from Elizabeth’s probing gaze. “Good day, Dr. Douglas.”

  “Good day,” Elizabeth responded, glancing once again at the blood that had been spilled on the floor.

  LUCIAN GAVE HER a sheepish smile when she came out of the building. “Sorry for running out on you like that. I, uh, just needed to get some fresh air.”

  Why couldn’t he just admit the sight of blood made him ill?

  Elizabeth thought back to the previous night, to Cullen’s discomfort in the solarium. He obviously suffered from claustrophobia, but for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge it. Why couldn’t men just own up to their weaknesses? Why try to hide them? Didn’t they know such peccadilloes often endeared them to women?

  “Are you okay?”

  His grin widened, displaying teeth that were dazzlingly white in the sunshine. “I’m fine. Never felt better. Shall we head back?” They started walking toward the library, keeping a brisk pace against the cold. “How well do you know Fortier?”

  Elizabeth adjusted the stocking cap over her ears. It had been warm in the lab, but she was glad to be back outside, even in the freezing wind. Paul Fortier had that effect on her. “He’s been here for several years, but I can’t say I know him all that well. Why?”

  Lucian’s expression turned pensive. “He struck me as an odd sort, that’s all.”

  “He is a little on the strange side,” Elizabeth agreed. “I’m sure you’ll hear the stories about him soon enough.”

  “What kind of stories?”

  She hesitated. “I really shouldn’t spread rumors about my colleagues. I wouldn’t want them talking about me behind my back.”

  “Yet you did bring it up,” Lucian pointed out. “You must think it’s something I need to know.”

  “Heathrow is an all-girl school as you well know, and there aren’t that many eligible young men in Moriah’s Landing. Sometimes hormones…”

  “Run amok?” he supplied.

  Elizabeth blushed, thinking about her own rampaging hormones the night before with Cullen. “There’ve been rumors about Dr. Fortier and some of his students.”

  “Are you saying he’s had affairs with students?”

  “Maybe. There was an incident a few years back that almost got him fired. A student claimed he’d assaulted her. She later recanted, admitting that she’d wanted revenge for a failing grade. Dr. Fortier was completely exonerated, and the student transferred to another school. The talk died down after a while, but it never went away completely. I’ve always wondered…”

  “You’ve always wondered if he really did assault that young woman and then somehow bought her off.”

  Elizabeth drew a long, cold breath. “I really don’t think I should say any more about it.”

  “I understand.” They walked along in silence for a moment, then Lucian said unexpectedly, “What kind of experiment do you think he was working on?”

  “His field is molecular biology, and I know he has a lot of training in genetics. He used to work for the Massachusetts Institute for Human Gene Therapy.”

  “Interesting,” Lucian mused. “What brought him to Moriah’s Landing, do you suppose?”

  Elizabeth gave him a sidelong glance. “I don’t know, but I could ask you the same thing.” She paused. “Your resumé is quite impressive, I understand. You were tenured at a very prestigious university. You could have gone anywhere, Professor LeCroix. Why Heathrow?”

  “It’s Lucian, remember? I thought we agreed.”

  “Lucian, then.”

  She waited for him to reply to her original question. He took a moment to consider it. “I needed to get away.”

  She glanced at him in surprise. “From what?”

  “Boston.” He lifted a shoulder. “Without going into a long, sordid explanation, let’s just say the offer from Dr. Barloft came at an opportune time.”

  “I…see.” But, of course, she didn’t. His answer was vague at best.

  As if sensing her curiosity, he shrugged again. “I was in a relationship. It ended badly.”

  “Oh.”

  He gave her an amused glance. “To put it bluntly, I was involved with a married woman. I gave her an ultimatum, and she decided to stay with her husband. A graceful exit was all that was left to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “So now you know why I came to Heathrow.” He stopped and when she gazed up at him, he said softly, “I can’t help wondering why you’ve stayed.”

  “At Heathrow? I told you. It’s the first place I ever truly felt at home.”

  His gaze on her deepened. “You had an unhappy childhood?”

  She hesitated, not certain how much she wanted to reveal about herself to a stranger. “I had a lonely childhood.”

  “You were an only child?”

  “Until four years ago. Now I have an adorable little brother.”

  He seemed intrigued by the notion. “Why did your parents wait so long to have another child?”

  “I’ve wondered that myself,” Elizabeth admitted. “I think it was because—” They’d given up on m
e, she almost blurted. “They were both approaching middle age. Maybe they had some sort of crisis. Instead of buying sports cars or having affairs, they decided to have a baby.”

  As he stared down at her, something flashed in his eyes. A look of regret. Was he thinking about the woman he’d left behind in Boston? Was he wondering if he’d done the right thing?

  “I’m not sure how we got off on this topic,” Elizabeth murmured. She turned and resumed walking toward the library.

  “Neither am I. You were telling me about Dr. Fortier. He used to work in genetics—” Lucian broke off, and Elizabeth glanced up at him. He was gazing straight ahead, his expression wary.

  She turned then, following his gaze, and her heart almost leaped from her chest. Cullen was at the bottom of the library steps, pacing back and forth in the cold. He had on his long, black overcoat, not elegantly fitted as Lucian’s was, but loose and flowing, hem flapping in the wind. He didn’t wear a hat, but he wasn’t impervious to the weather. His complexion was ruddy with cold, and his hands were shoved deeply into his pockets.

  When he spotted Elizabeth and Lucian, he stopped pacing and strode toward them. “Elizabeth.” He gave her a curt nod.

  “Cullen.” What was he doing here? How had he known where to find her? Or was she being presumptuous? Maybe his being here was just coincidence, and he wasn’t even looking for her.

  But his expectant expression told her that he was. Elizabeth remembered in Technicolor detail the way he’d looked at her last night, his obvious fascination with the low cut of her gown. Then he’d fled her house in great haste because…why? He’d realized suddenly that she was a woman? That he might be attracted to her?

  That he wanted her?

  A thrill of adrenaline shot through Elizabeth’s veins. It was a heady experience, the possibility of having a man—two men, she amended, glancing at Lucian—interested in her.

  But at the moment, neither of them was paying her the slightest bit of attention. They were too busy sizing one another up. And by the look on Cullen’s face, he wasn’t all that impressed with Lucian. The latter was harder to read.