Roxy leaned back in his chair and stretched out her legs, only to bang them harshly against something under the desk. I sighed, closing another cabinet. Every file, every drawer was filled with articles and research. Clearly, he had moved all his private research to his computer, and that was inaccessible. I slowly looked up at the maps that still covered the ceiling and walls, practically untouched over the decades. Apparently, he still needed that kind of visual reference—
“Care to explain this?”
Roxy was holding up a photograph, black-and-white and badly faded, of two people sitting together at a table. They were not touching, but they leaned in towards each other. I walked over and stared at the picture of myself and Dr. Richards
“Where did you find that?”
“Stuck on top of the safe under this desk. Which is locked, I might add. But that’s you, Lynn Roseworth. And I assume that’s Dr. Richards. So the question is—why does he have a minisafe with your picture stuck on top?”
“Are you sure it won’t open?”
“Yes, I’m sure, I tried it. And please answer my question.”
I looked around. The light was fading rapidly, and I began to run my fingers over the maps on the walls. I looked up and grabbed a chair to stand on.
“What are you doing?”
“Try this,” I gave her a key tied to a pushpin on the ceiling. She took it and knelt under the desk. “Did it open?”
“I think so.”
“Can we lift it?”
Roxy peered out. “We’re stealing now?”
“I have to see what’s in it, and we’re out of light.”
“It’s not heavy. It’s made out of that plastic stuff that won’t burn.”
“Stick your head out the door, see if anyone is out there.”
“Fine. But I want to know how you knew where that key was.”
I pointed up.
“Yes, I see it, it’s a star system. The fool has them all over this wacked-out office.”
“See the red pushpin?”
“Yes.”
“That’s where the key was hanging.”
“How did you guess it would be up there?”
“Because the pin marks my star.”
“What?”
“He named a star after me,” I said. “Let me carry the safe.”
At our room at the Hilton Garden Inn, on a table usually reserved for brochures on Champaign’s historic sites and loose change, sat takeout food from P.F. Chang’s and the safe. Roxy devoured her General Tso’s Chicken while I mostly played with my vegetable rice.
She at last put down her plastic fork. “Well, we’ve committed breaking and entering and burglary. If that’s my last meal before jail, I’ll be happy.”
“We’ll return all this tomorrow. No one will know.”
“Are you sure he won’t come back to his office tonight? Or first thing in the morning?”
“You saw the look on that girl’s face. I don’t think he’ll be coming back anytime soon.”
“What’s in this safe, Lynn?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you have your suspicions. Why was your picture taped to it?”
“Open it, Roxy. Tell me what’s in it.”
She stood up and slid the key into the safe. I continued to look out the window.
“Lynn.”
At the tone in her voice, I closed my eyes, afraid to turn around.
“Lynn, look at this.”
Roxy slowly slid a map out of a folder. It had yellowed and weathered, a relic now of a time before satellite mapping. The map was on a grid, with latitude and longitude markings. There were faded pencil marks, with arrows pointing to a forested area near a small square.
I recognized my home immediately.
Roxy was already sifting through dozens of newspaper clippings, all of which featured pictures of my family on election nights. The pile included the Southern Living magazine with William on the cover.
She reached out and took my trembling hand. “We need to go to the police with this.”
“We can’t.”
“We most certainly are.”
“I didn’t come here… because I suspected he might have taken William. I came because of his research into missing people. He’s spent his whole adult life dedicated to it. But when we showed up at that office and I saw that girl’s expression, I knew something bad had happened. I had to get into his office to see if I could find his research—or, more importantly, my own. But when you found that picture, and now this… I’m afraid he’s been gone from this university since William disappeared.”
“How did this happen, Lynn? When did this happen? You have to go to the FBI.”
“With what? A hunch? And destroy my marriage and what’s left of my family?”
“Why would it destroy your marriage and your family? This guy is obsessed with you, obviously—but that’s not your fault.”
I placed the Southern Living cover on the old photo of Dr. Richards and me, covering up my face. Side by side, Dr. Richards and William had the same dimples, the thick hair, the soft chin.
“Because it is my fault,” I said softly. “Dr. Richards is William’s grandfather.”
NINE
We sat in silence in the cab of Roxy’s pickup, nursing coffee and fogging up the windows. The safe sat on the floor by my feet. Roxy turned on the defroster to once again clear the windshield, revealing the astronomy building in the blue morning light.
“I hate to ask again, but are you absolutely sure…”
I nodded. “I’d always hoped Anne was Tom’s. But seeing that picture of Steven and that cover photo of William…”
“Lynn, I’m going to say it again: We should be taking that safe to the FBI, or at the very least the local police. I watch enough Dateline. And we should go now.”
“We have no idea what we’re doing, let’s not pretend otherwise. How are we going to explain that we broke into his office and found it?”
“You had a hunch. And you proved to be right. And once the police see it, they’ll agree. So we need to leave this parking lot. The professionals need to see it. We don’t need to put it back.”
“The police aren’t going to buy this. Neither would the FBI.”
“Are you nuts? This seems to me to be the most tangible evidence anyone has come upon since William went missing.”
“But why? Why would he take William? It doesn’t make sense. I know something is wrong, but I can’t believe he would do it. Why he would do it? Steven researches missing people. He wouldn’t do anything to put a family through this.”
“Now we’re calling him Steven? And that’s the other thing,” Roxy huffed. “I don’t get how an astronomy professor is somehow this expert on missing people. If he taught criminal justice or something, I would get it.”
“I had hoped at this point you would figure it out, so I wouldn’t have to say it.”
“Well I’m old and I’m tired, so my usual razor-sharp mind is dulled a bit. He has a map of your property, Lynn. He has pictures of you and your family. He has the magazine with William’s picture. He’s obsessed with missing people. And while it’s hard for me to even say it, he’s likely William’s grandfather. But I get it; I get why you’re afraid to go to police with this, because of the can of worms it’s going to open—”
“You don’t get it. The reason I feel like I need more proof is because if I go to the police now, they will roll their eyes. Because of what Steven does.”
“He’s a professor—”
“He investigates alien abductions.”
Roxy choked on her coffee, then wiped her lips with the Starbucks napkin. “Pardon my French, but what the hell, Lynn.”