“Good.” He led her to an unoccupied room and closed the door. Taking her arm, he pushed up her sleeve. “Did you show the officer this bruise?”
She tugged her hand free. “Yes. Listen. Last night I researched Buckland, found this article on your case is his first front-page article ever. Everything he’s ever done has been in Metro, just like that first article about Martha’s suicide.”
“So he bullies and blackmails to get ahead? Extreme, but it’s been done.”
“I thought so until I came here today and filed my complaint. Guess what? Officer Michaels knew him. Turns out Kurt is about fifty and that everyone called him Looey.”
Noah frowned. “I know Looey. He’s good at darts. He’s Buckland?”
“Apparently so.”
“So, then… who is the guy who took all the pictures? And who threatened you?”
“That’s what somebody needs to find out. This is personal, Noah. Against you.”
“Wonderful,” he muttered. “Another distraction.”
“So what will you do?”
“About Buckland or whoever he is? I want to find this guy and make him pay, but right now I can’t. Right now, I’m going to let the officer you talked to do his job. And right now I’m going to follow you to school. Jack and I have to talk to Donner.”
“Then we need to go, because I’m late.”
But neither of them moved. “I never got to kiss you last night,” he murmured.
“You did, at Sal’s.”
“That was a little one-sided. You never kissed me back.”
“I was too surprised,” she said, shivering when his thumb caressed her jaw.
Jack was waiting for him and they had so much work to do, but Noah needed a minute, just one minute for himself. For Eve. For both of us.
“Consider this fair warning then.” He covered her mouth with his, willing her to respond, and after a few pounding beats of his heart, she did. Lifting on her toes, she kissed him as she had in the coffee shop, nothing held back. Her arms wound round his neck and he pulled her closer, fitting her body to his. It was sweet and it was hot and he wanted so much more. But this wasn’t the place, so he forced himself to stop.
She was breathing hard, her eyes closed. Her fingers trembled as they trailed down his arms. Pressing his palms together, she rested her brow on the tips of his fingers.
“Why?” she whispered so softly he had to lean forward to catch it.
“Why which?” he asked, gruffly.
She lifted her head, her expression devastated. “Why me? Why do you want me?”
“That’s a longer answer than I have time for now. Have dinner with me tonight.”
“I have to work.”
“Then after. I’ll wait.”
“All right.” She pushed his folded hands gently to his chest. “I need to get to class.”
Wednesday, February 24, 10:25 a.m.
“Detectives, I’m so sorry I missed you yesterday. Please have a seat.” Dr. Donald Donner waved at two chairs on the other side of his very disorganized desk.
“You’re a hard man to find,” Jack said. “We looked for you yesterday.”
Donner smiled distractedly. “My wife and I went to see her mother, who’s been ill.”
Noah kept his expression mild-a hard thing to do when he thought about Donner’s last interaction with Eve. But after getting his first look at Donner, Noah had crossed him off his list. Donner might have access to the list, but he didn’t have the physical strength to hoist a woman from her ceiling. “We’d also like to talk with your assistant, Mr. Lyons, but we can’t find him either.”
At this Donner frowned. “He took the afternoon off yesterday and didn’t come in this morning. That’s not like him. He’s very reliable. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
You’d have to get another weasel to do your dirty work, Noah thought with contempt for the older man. But he and Jack were after alibis and for now would play nice.
“One of your studies has come up in the course of an ongoing investigation,” Jack said. “The study in which participants play a game called Shadowland.”
“Yes. That’s the work of one of my graduate students, Eve Wilson.” His lips thinned. “But I guess you already knew that. No matter. How can I help you?”
“You can start by telling us where you were last night,” Noah said. “All night.”
“Why?” he asked, seeming genuinely confused, and Jack frowned.
“We’re investigating murder, Professor. Four women have been killed.”
“What does that have to do with my study?” Donner asked.
“All four victims were participants,” Noah said, wondering if the man’s confusion could possibly be real. “All four were heavily into the Shadowland game.”
Donner sat back heavily, disbelief etched in his face. “You’re joking.”
“We don’t joke, Professor,” Jack said, “especially not about something like this.”
The color drained from Donner’s face. “Four women?” he whispered. “In my study?” Then Noah’s first question seemed to catch up to him as twin flags of crimson appeared on Donner’s sallow cheeks. “Am I correct in understanding I am a suspect, Detective? That you want me to provide an… an alibi?”
“We’re asking everyone connected with the study, Professor,” Noah said. “It would make our jobs a great deal easier if we could just cross you off quickly.”
“Of course,” he murmured, distractedly. “I was with my wife asleep.”
Noah jotted it down. “What about Monday morning between midnight and five?”
“Asleep. With my wife.”
He was becoming agitated. “All right,” Noah said calmly, and Donner appeared to try to regain control. “We think whoever is killing your subjects has access both to your participant list and to the questionnaires they filled out when the study began.”
“Why would you think that?”
“He uses information from the questionnaires to torture them,” Jack said flatly.
Donner flinched. “Torture them? He tortured them? Who are the four women?”
Noah frowned. “Don’t you read the paper, Dr. Donner? Three of the victims were listed yesterday. On the front page.”
Donner gestured weakly to his journals. “I don’t read much news.”
Okay. “The four victims are Samantha Altman, Martha Brisbane.” Noah stopped when the remaining color drained from Donner’s face. “Professor?”
“Martha Brisbane, did you say?” Donner asked unsteadily. “Dear God. I thought she’d committed suicide.” He abruptly went silent, as if realizing he’d said too much.
“How did you know that, sir?” Jack asked quietly. “You don’t read the paper.”
“My graduate student, Eve… she told me. I didn’t believe it was related to our study at the time. The others? Who were they?”
“Christy Lewis and just last night, Rachel Ward,” Jack said.
“I see.” He looked at Jack. “What do you need from me?”
“Anybody who would have had access to the list and those questionnaires.”
“I… I don’t know. My assistant entered the names, but the committee separated them into groups. I only saw results by subject number. Nobody was supposed to see everything. That’s the purpose of a double-blind study.”
“What about the questionnaires? How were they used?” Noah asked.
“They’re part of a baseline measure. They form a profile, a personality index.”
“Did anybody read them?” Jack asked.
“Various students,” he said. “But nobody ever saw the subjects’ real names. They were to input the answers in a standardized protocol.”
There was nothing here they could use, Noah thought. He and Jack stood. “Thank you,” Jack said. “We’re trying to keep Marshall and Shadowland out of the press. We’re hoping the killer doesn’t know how much we know. We’d appreciate your cooperation.”
Donner nodded, his face gray. “Of course,” he murmured. “If you see Miss Wilson, tell her… Tell her I’m sorry. I should have listened to her.”
“I’ll tell her,” Noah said. “If your assistant calls you, let us know immediately.”