"Really? I would have thought a detective would enjoy all the forensic details, solving scientific mysteries, that kind of thing." Andrea scanned a test as she talked, wielding a red pen to mark errors.
"I let the lab technicians do the scientific analysis," Stride said. "I worry about figuring out the art of the possible."
"What do you mean?" Andrea asked.
"Most human acts leave some kind of trail. You have to get from place to place. You have to eat, buy gas, go to the bathroom, sleep. You leave behind skin, hair, fingerprints, fluids. All of those things can be tracked, assuming you can sift through the things that everyone else leaves behind and find the person you want."
Andrea smiled. "Like it or not, Jon, that sounds a lot like the scientific process. You couldn't have slept through all of your classes."
"I wouldn't have slept through yours," he said.
She blushed and looked down at her exams again. They were silent for a while. The only sound was the scritch-scritch of Andrea's marker on the page and the rustle of paper as she shuffled the tests. Stride let his eyes wander around the classroom, then found himself staring at Andrea, her head down, her narrow fingers nervously pushing her blonde hair back behind her ears. He could see smile lines at the edges of her mouth, like crescent moons. The sleeves of her sweater were pushed up, and he saw her bare, tapered forearms, slim but strong.
She felt his stare and looked up. They held each other with their eyes, but they didn't say anything.
He wondered what she saw when she looked at him. He knew, because Cindy had always told him so, that women found him attractive, although he never really understood it. He didn't have smooth, perfect features, but the look of a seaman who had squinted into too many storms. Like his father. Each time the barber cut his hair, he saw more gray littering the floor. He ached when he moved, and he felt the twinge of his bullet wound more intensely now than when he had been shot eight years ago. He was getting older, no doubt about that. But something about Andrea's honest stare peeled away the years from his mind.
She leaned back in her chair, covering her mouth with both hands, still staring at him.
"I'm a little embarrassed," she told him quietly.
Stride was puzzled. "Why?"
Andrea laughed and looked at him with a tiny smile. "I hope you don't think I go around picking up men in casinos and sleeping with them."
"Oh," Stride said. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let that happen. You were drunk. It wasn't fair."
"We were both drunk," Andrea said. "And we both wanted it. You don't have anything to feel guilty about. But the next day, I was scared. I thought I'd made a terrible mistake."
"You didn't," Stride said.
"Do you want to hear something terrible?" she said. "I resented it a little when you told me your wife died."
Stride looked at her strangely. "I don't understand."
"Cindy died, and there wasn't anything you could do about it. It wasn't about you. At least you can still feel good about yourself. That's what my husband took from me."
Stride shook his head. "That isn't your fault. It's his. He sounds like a selfish son of a bitch."
"I know. But I still miss him. You must think I'm a fool."
"Join the club," Stride said. "Look, how about we go to dinner right now? I'm hungry as hell, and Briar Patch makes a one-inch steak that melts in your mouth. And the beer is ice cold."
Andrea nodded. "I'd like that. I think I've had enough for the day. Let me lock these in the department office, and then we can head out."
They walked out together into the empty hallway of the school. He heard distant sounds, like the thump of a basketball, but he didn't see anything or anyone around them. The lights seemed dim and shadowy, and the night outside yawned in at them through the windows like a giant black creature.
They climbed the stairs to the second floor of the school and found themselves in another dark, empty hallway. Andrea unlocked the door opposite the stairs and flicked on the light switch inside. The office was crowded with metal desks and filing cabinets and bookshelves lined with science textbooks. She chose the desk closest to the window, opened the bottom drawer, and dropped the stack of tests inside. He saw a photograph of a man on the wall beside her desk, and he assumed it was her ex-husband.
"All set," she said.
They turned off the lights, and Andrea locked the door behind them.
As they headed for the stairs, Stride saw a crack of light glowing from one of the offices at the far end of the hallway.
Andrea saw him hesitate. "What's up?"
"Probably nothing." But he suddenly felt a wave of anxiety. It came that way after a few years, a sixth sense that something wasn't right.
"Is that light coming from Nancy Carver's office?" he asked.
Andrea noticed the light in the hallway for the first time. "Looks like it."
Stride's eyes narrowed. "This sounds odd, Andrea, but just wait here, all right? I want to check something out."
"If you say so."
Andrea leaned against the wall, waiting. Stride took soft steps down the hallway, approaching the point where the office light shone into the corridor. As he got closer, he confirmed what he had suspected, that the door to Nancy Carver's office was ajar. He waited, listening, but heard no sounds from inside.
Stride coughed deliberately.
He expected to hear whoever was inside react. But the same silence pervaded the hallway.
He edged toward the doorway, close enough to peer inside and see part of the closet that served as her office. All he could see was a corner of her desk, enough to see a woman's shoulder and arm. She seemed to be sitting in her chair, not moving.
"Hello?" he called out.
He watched, but the woman didn't move. Stride gave the door a push. It swung open with a loud creak and thudded against the wall. He moved closer, filling the doorway.
Nancy Carver was inside, sitting motionless at her desk. As he entered, she looked up at him with hollow eyes, rimmed in red. The angry passion he had seen in her brown eyes was gone. Her cheeks were drawn. Her red hair was matted. She looked through him as if he didn't exist.
Stride was so taken aback by her appearance that he didn't notice for several seconds that she had a handgun lying in front of her on her desk, inches from her fingers.
"What the hell is that?" he said and leaped for the gun. He expected her to reach for it before he could get there, and point it either at herself or at him, but Nancy Carver didn't move. She just stared at him as he scooped it up in his hand and spilled the bullets on the floor, where they rolled crazily.
Stride leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. The gun dangled in his hand.
"Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?" he asked.
He didn't add, Do you want to tell me why two women in Rachel's life are trying to kill themselves? Because he had no doubt that was what Nancy Carver was planning to do.
Carver shook her head vacantly. "I could have stopped him," she whispered.
Stride bent over the desk. "Stopped who?"
She looked up and met his eyes. "I thought she ran away," she said.
Stride said nothing.
Tears began creeping down her cheeks. "But instead, she's dead. And I could have stopped him. I knew all about it."
"I have to go," Stride told Andrea.
They were seated in his Bronco in back of the school, near her car. The radio was turned down low, playing a song by Patty Loveless.
"Will you get any sleep tonight?"
"Probably not."
"Why don't you spend the night at my house tomorrow? It doesn't matter what time you come. It felt so good sleeping beside you on Friday. I felt better just having you near me."
"It could be late. I don't know when I'll be done, and I probably won't be much company."