Saunders slowly looked at each of them, ending with Rook. “I’ve been asked to put you on leave.”
Rook’s normally relaxed face tensed. “Why?”
“Oh, Jamie, come on,” Saunders said.
“Okay, okay, I know why, but...why? I did not kill that girl.”
If the room had been silent before, now it was a graveyard. Daily and Lamont swiveled their heads from Rook to Saunders as the men conversed. “The fact that you even have to say that is the problem. There’s a dead student, and...well, you know the rest. The university needs to separate itself from the...situation.”
Lamont, for all his bombastic nature, was quiet when he spoke. “Kade, is this really necessary? We know Jamie didn’t do this thing.”
The provost lifted his hands in helplessness. “It’s out of my hands.”
“The Board of Regents has spoken,” Rook said with a mocking tone. He shoved his chair back as he stood, looking at Heat. “Let’s go, Nik.”
Jennifer Daily heaved the strap of her overflowing briefcase over her shoulder and followed them out, letting the door shut on Lamont and Saunders, who still sat unmoving at the conference table. “Mr. Rook, a minute, please,” she said once they reached the main hallway.
Her bag gapped open, the weight of the papers pressing down on the outer side. If the woman moved again, the soft side of the case would give and the papers would tumble out. Which is exactly what happened next. The professor took a step toward them and the side of the case collapsed, spilling the contents onto the floor.
“Damn!” Professor Daily dropped the strap to the crook of her arm. She sidestepped closer to the wall, put her hand against it, and started to lower herself down.
Rook leapt to her, taking her by the arm and lifting her back to standing. “We’ll get it, Professor.”
She nodded gratefully, leaning her age-worn body against the wall. “Thank you.”
Nikki had already crouched down and was gathering the woman’s work into a pile. Rook quickly helped her, took the stack, and carefully slid it into the case, taking care to zip it up.
“Can we help you to your office?” Rook asked once she was a little less discombobulated.
“Yes, please. That’s perfect. I wanted to talk to you privately anyway.”
He took her briefcase and carried it for her. They walked by her side. Nikki was surprised at the briskness of the woman’s pace. Aside from her stiffness at trying to squat down to the floor for her papers, she was spry for her age and girth. She kept constant tabs on her case, as if it might suddenly vanish and she’d miss it.
Their progress was a bit slower on the stairs down to the lobby from the second floor where they’d been, but once they made their way out into the bright daylight, Daily once again increased her pace. Heat considered talking on the way but discarded the idea. If Professor Daily had something to talk about, Heat wanted to have complete focus. They entered the old brick building, then the stairwell. Daily’s voice echoed as she finally spoke. “This old building doesn’t have an elevator. I’ve requested to move, but it hasn’t happened yet. Still a good ole boys’ network.”
The bane of feminism, Heat thought.
They stopped in front of room 211. Nikki held her breath as Professor Daily unlocked the door and flung it open. They stepped over the threshold and she sighed, relieved. The woman’s office space wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. There were stacks of paper, but only a few, and the professor seemed to have a specific shelf dedicated to those piles. The chairs were clear of papers, and her desk held only the typical office paraphernalia. Daily gestured to the chairs, and Heat and Rook sat.
Instinctively, Heat took her small pad of paper from her jacket pocket, uncapping her fine-tipped pen. The professor had information. Heat would bet her life on it.
“I’ll cut right to the chase,” Daily said after she’d perched on the side of her desk to face them. “I was Chloe’s academic advisor. We met once or twice a month. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Lately less.”
“Why less?” Rook asked.
“She was busy. A lot of kids plan their last semester so it’s a light load, but not Chloe. She was a remarkable girl. Bright. Dedicated. Incredibly conscientious. She was in one of my advanced photojournalism courses, had an upper-division international journalism class, and two independent study courses. I was her advisor for those.”
Heat made notes of everything Professor Daily was saying. “Do you know what she was working on?” she asked. Maybe the woman had information that could help them corroborate the secret society theory.
But the professor shook her head. “As I said, she was busy. I, of course, am always busy, too. When we met, it was usually just for me to ask her about her progress, to see if she had any questions or needed guidance, which she rarely did, and to review her photographs.”
Heat zeroed in on one word. “You said rarely. She did need help at some point?”
At this Daily nodded. “I don’t know if it will help, but that’s why I wanted to speak with you. She came to me about a month ago. She was going through an insecure moment, something quite unusual for her. She sat right there,” she said, indicating the chair Heat sat in, “and she cried. Students cry in here all the time. Far too often for my taste, in fact. We have a generation of young people who do not know how to cope with stress or failure because they’ve been coddled their whole lives. But that was the first and only time I’d seen that side of Chloe. She was tough.”
“What had her so upset?” Rook asked.
“She wouldn’t tell me much, only that she was in the middle of what could be a big story and she was afraid she was in too deep.”
Heat opened her mouth to speak, but Daily interrupted her. “Before you ask if I tried to find out what she was talking about, I did. She wouldn’t give me anything.”
Maybe Chloe had been afraid of getting her professor involved in something she felt had become dangerous. She asked the next obvious question anyway. “Why’d did she come to you, if not to get your advice?”
“Believe me, I’ve given that a lot of thought. If I’d gotten her to share, could I have stopped her death?” She frowned, her chin disappearing into a series of folds. “What I’ve realized is that she didn’t actually want help. She just needed to get her tears out, pull herself up by her bootstraps, so to speak, and forge on. When I think back on that meeting, I see that she was convincing herself to keep at it. I’ve lost sleep over this. Are we doing enough to intervene when we have a student who is genuinely on a cliff? It’s been a topic of discussion in our department and at the university. With suicide rates of college students at an all-time high, it’s obvious we’re not doing enough—”
“Chloe didn’t commit suicide,” Heat said, redirecting the conversation back to their case.
“True. But she was heading into dangerous territory. It’s one thing for students to break down because they’ve been taught they can put in little effort and still succeed, or that they can get redo after redo after redo without consequence. It’s quite another for a student to feel as if she’s taken her commitment to a project so far that she’s in some sort of trouble she’s unable to handle.”
Rook shifted in his chair. “Without knowing what Chloe was investigating, we’re circling around the landing strip.”
Professor Daily maneuvered her ample body off the edge of the desk and went to one of the two tall filing cabinets along one of the side walls. She riffled through the middle drawer, withdrawing a folder. “This is Chloe’s,” she said, returning to her previous position on the desk.
Heat and Rook shared a glance, hopeful that this could help flesh out their secret society theory.
“I saw her last week,” Professor Daily said. “These were her latest photos. I hadn’t critiqued them yet.”
“Photos of... ?” Heat asked.
“Buildings, mostly,” she said. “They supported the article she was working on.”
Daily handed the folder over.
Rook moved his chair closer to Heat’s so they could look together. Inside the file was a series of pictures. They went through them one by one, studying each for some clue as to location. “This was taken right here on campus,” Rook said, pointing to the fourth photo. “That’s the building being renovated, if I’m not mistaken.”
Professor Daily took the picture back, then picked up a small object from her desk. Heat recognized it as a loupe, a powerful magnifier used to view photo proofs and slides. She held it to one eye and examined the pictures.
“I believe you are correct. See that?” She pointed to the front entrance. Barely visible on the left side of the picture, hidden behind a shrub, was the name of the building. Only parts of some of the letters were visible.
Rook peered through the loupe, then looked up triumphantly. “That is clearly a Z there between the leaves. There is only one hall on campus that begins with a Z.”
“Zabro Hall,” Professor Daily said.
“Zabro Hall,” Rook agreed.
They looked through the other twenty-seven photos. There were more outside the same building, and a series inside. Several focused on a particular area of an interior hallway.
There was only one logical conclusion Heat could draw from Chloe’s photographs: this building had something to do with what she was investigating. “Can we take these with us?” she asked the professor.
“Absolutely. It won’t bring her back, but I hope you figure out what happened to her.”
Outside, Heat and Rook looked at each other, each thinking the same thing. Professor Daily may have just given them the vital clue that would break open the case and help them solve it. Without needing to say a word, they turned on their heels and headed for Zabro Hall.
Heat and Rook stood shoulder to shoulder outside the cordoned-off building they’d passed several times during the brief time Heat had been on campus at Cambria. It had seemed like any other building under construction before, but now it felt ominous. It could very well hold the answers they sought.
Rook had one arm folded across his chest. The other was crooked at the elbow. He stroked his chin as he stared at the building. “So we’ve come full circle.”
Footsteps sounded behind them, followed by a familiar voice. “Ah, but this time you have help.”
Rook turned his head and his eyes widened at the sight of Miguel Ochoa and Sean Raley. “Roach!”
Heat stared. “What are you boys doing here?”
Ochoa grinned. “We solved the case, had a day off, and decided we couldn’t leave our man Rook stranded without us.”
Rook put his palm flat on his chest. “You came up here for me? Admit it, guys, you love me.”
“I admit that I loved those barbecue ribs you grilled that one time,” Ochoa said.
“When was that?”
“Last Father’s Day. Remember? All of us. No kids. So you thought—”
Rook chuckled, interrupting. “That’s right. I thought it would be fun to have a non–Father’s Day day. Knowing that it was a memorable experience for you, Miguel, well, that just warms my heart.”
“You need to just take the love where you can get it,” Ochoa said. “In your case, it’s the baby back ribs.”
Raley looked up at the sky, considering. “I don’t know. I think I’m partial to the quiche Lorraine you made on Mother’s Day.”
Ochoa backhanded him on the shoulder. “Man, what is wrong with you?”
Raley took a step back. “What was that for?”
“I’ll tell you what it was for,” Ochoa said. The intensity of his opinion didn’t vary based on subject. He was as indignant about quiche versus ribs as he was about meeting the parents of a woman he was casually dating. “Only you, Raley, would choose eggs over barbecue.”
Ochoa had baited his partner, and Raley bit. “Only me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That quiche has stripped you of a man card,” Ochoa said, dead serious.
But Raley wasn’t done. “If I lost a man card over liking Rook’s quiche, how many man cards did Rook lose for making the quiche in the first place, huh?”
Rook stared slack-jawed at Raley. “Hey, why are you throwing me under the bus?”
“Sorry, Rook.” Raley glared daggers at Ochoa. “Collateral damage. Sometimes my partner just pushes my buttons the wrong way.”
Before anyone else could make another retort, Heat stepped in. “As fascinating as this debate is, could you fill me in on Joon Chin? You got a solve?”
Roach spoke in unison. “We did.”
“You were right, Cap. ‘Coffee’ does not always mean coffee.”
“In this case, it means cheating. Our vic was in it thick...”
“What does that mean?” Rook asked.
Ochoa chuckled. “Rales, get a load of that. The man with a brain like a sponge doesn’t know the meaning of cheating.”
Rook smirked. “I know what cheating is, funnyman.”
Heat put a stop to their ribbing by turning to the most mature of the men. “Rales, tell me.”
“Sure thing, Cap. Joon Chin was part of a group of college kids who wrote essays for their classmates. His work was in high demand. According to one of his fellow ‘cheaters,’ he was tired of splitting his earnings. He wanted to eliminate the middleman, so he went out on his own and formed ‘Coffee Night.’”
“A euphemism for meeting with a client, I presume,” Rook said.
Ochoa tapped a finger to his nose. “You’ve redeemed yourself, Holmes.”
Rook dipped his head, looking far too satisfied.
“What else?” Heat asked.
Raley continued his narrative. “Coffee Night was quite lucrative. Chin expanded by hiring on some of his former fellow ‘cheaters.’ The founders of the original cheating ring were a little pissed about that.”
Heat drew the logical conclusion. “You’re saying Joon Chin was killed over cheating?”
“That he was,” Raley confirmed. “The killers lifted him onto that sculpture to send a message. They didn’t want any other defectors from the original cheating ring.”
“Great work, guys,” Heat said.
“Couldn’t have gotten there without the coffee clue,” Ochoa said, giving credit where credit was due.
Heat explained to Roach what they knew about the Chloe Masterson murder and what had led them to this moment.
Raley gave a low whistle, while Ochoa muttered, “Whoa. That’s a trip.”
“A long strange trip,” Rook said, channeling Jerry Garcia.
Heat was growing impatient. She wanted a solve on this case, too. “Let’s get moving, shall we? I’d really like to go home.” She looked pointedly at Rook. “And by home, I mean Manhattan.”
Rook pressed his palms together, steepling his index fingers and pointing toward the building. “Then let’s do this,” he said.
Heat, Ochoa, and Raley followed him up the walkway. The odds of getting in easily were slim, but they thought they’d try the front door first. As Heat had anticipated, though, it was locked. “Plan B,” she said, leading them over a sagging strand of construction tape strung between sawhorses and around the building. They walked all the way around before finding a haphazardly boarded-up window to try to jimmy open.
Rook peered through the glass and immediately crooned a line from an old Beatles song: “ ‘She came in through the bathroom window.’ ” He followed it up with a second line sung in the same melody: “Does anybody have a crowbar?”
“Oh yeah, I just happen to have one right here in my pocket,” Ochoa said, and then he laughed. “Oh, wait, that’s not a crowbar.”
Heat rolled her eyes. She might be their captain, but to Miguel and Sean, she was also one of the guys. No need for them to censor what they said for her delicate ears. “Nice,” she said.
Ochoa grinned. “I know, right?”
“I’m sure your, uh, crowbar is quite impressive; however, it won’t open a window. Scour the grounds, boys. We need to get inside this building.”
“Did anybody think to ask someone with the university to just let us in?” Raley asked.
“No can do,” Heat said. “We know that Chloe’s father is part of the Freemasons. Rook told me about how Yale’s Skull and Bones is possibly a pipeline to the CIA org. What if Cam U’s Tektōn society is a pipeline to the Freemasons? But not the Freemasons.”
They all stared at her, but Rook spoke for them. “You lost me.”
She looked at Rook specifically. “Remember the pad in Chloe’s nightstand? The one with those random sketches?”
“Sure I do. Eyes and feathers and shapes.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking. She suddenly struck up a relationship with her father, who happens to be a Freemason. She found evidence of Cam U’s Tektōn order. She was afraid about something, and wanted to share her findings with you, Rook, because you’re a known conspiracy theorist. She wanted to know if any of your old notes could corroborate what she’d discovered, or thought she’d discovered.”
“One problem,” Rook said, playing devil’s advocate. “The Freemasons are not a secret group, nor are they into clandestine activities that are less than aboveboard.”
“Are you one hundred percent sure about that?” she asked. One thing she’d learned in the past few hours was that there were hidden levels of every organization. Even the handshake shared between Raymond Lamont and Kaden Saunders hinted at something deeper than an ordinary friendship. It was probably something going back to their college days together.
Rook had to answer honestly. “No, not irrefutably.”
Ochoa cleared his throat. “So what you’re saying is that this college has a secret organization that has some double secret pipeline to the Masons, which has some double secret level that is a pipeline to something else, did I get that right?”
“Sounds far-fetched, I know,” said Heat. It did to her, too, listening to Ochoa summarize it so succinctly. “It’s all we have to go on at the moment, though. Now let’s figure out how we can get inside this building.”
“Spread out,” Raley said. “Let’s scour the area. There’s got to be something we can use to pry the wood off with.”
Crashing Heat Page 19
