"Thank God!" she murmured, pulling a business card from her wallet. It had Jack's business and home phone number printed on it. Dialing the first number nervously, Diane prayed that he'd be there to help her.
"Hello?"
It was Jack!
"Jack? This is Diane Hathaway," the blonde said as evenly as she could. "Listen, I'm in trouble."
"What's the matter?" Jack asked, a little startled.
"It's my husband, Jack," Diane started to say, then broke down sobbing.
"Hey, kid. What's the matter?" Jack asked, still puzzled by Diane's attitude. "He find out anything?"
"Oh Jack, you won't believe this. But I don't know whom else to turn to. Please listen to me. I swear to God, I'm telling the truth," Diane said softly, turning around and noticing that several patrons in the restaurant had noticed her crying.
She told Jack everything that had happened from the rude awakening she'd received from Matt, through the beating, and finally to her passing out while tied to the overhead beam.
"Jesus Christ!" Jack exclaimed when Diane had finished with her story.
"I've got to have some place to hide. I've left him, Jack. I can't trust him any more. But I don't know whom I can trust. Please, can I stay with you, Jack?" Diane asked in a small voice.
"You just try and stay somewhere else. You know where I live?" he asked as Diane sucked in a deep breath and sighed happily. She'd be safe, if nothing else, for a few days. That would give her time enough to think out where she should go permanently and what she should do. Maybe Jack knew the name of a good lawyer.
Diane jotted down Jack's address and the directions to it. Only after hanging up did she realize that she had to go past the university to get to it. What if she should meet Matt on the way? How could she explain to him where she was going? But that was absurd! It was rush-hour traffic. There were thousands of cars on the freeways and roads of Los Angeles. It was absurd that she should worry about seeing her husband on the road.
Diane ran back to her car and started it up, pulling out of the parking lot and heading toward Jack's apartment. She was so relieved, she almost felt like singing. As she passed hundreds of cars on the road, Diane felt as if she were starting a new life. A terrible, oppressive weight had been lifted off her shoulders. With Matt out of the way now, she could start living a happier, more relaxed life.
Just as she approached the intersection of the university drive, Diane felt her blood suddenly freeze up. She saw Matt's car pull out of the side drive and pull onto the main street. He was only two car lengths in front of her. If he glanced into his rear-view mirror, he'd see her, and then God-only-knows what would happen. She had to get off that street.
Looking around in a near state of panic, the blonde realized that the only place to turn was into the university. She felt as if she were going into a wolf's den. But where else could she go?
Diane turned quickly and sped into the university compound, driving fast up the narrow brick mad past the tall buildings almost completely obscured from the entrance street by tall pines and eucalyptus trees that lined the front lawn. Diane felt chills up her spine as she slowed down and headed toward the Fine Arts section of the campus. Overhead, dark, rolling thunderclouds were beginning to slide across the sky. A strong, steady breeze was blowing leaves, twigs, papers and dust across the hilly campus. Everything seemed threatening to the nervous blonde as she stopped in front of the Art building.
Jennie had mentioned that Matt had turned a lot of his students on to his particular sexual trip. She wondered just what he was doing on campus. Did he have a little chamber somewhere here? Was he whipping and tying up coeds in some basement on campus? Diane knew that she should drive to the other end of the university and get out and over to Jack's apartment. But her curiosity was killing her. She had to find out to what depths her husband had sunk.
Pulling into Matt's parking spot, Diane turned off the ignition and stepped out of her car. Most of the lights in the three-story red brick building were out. Only the hanging portico light over the steep entrance steps and hall lights on each floor gleamed brightly in the dimming daylight. Diane felt a few drops of rain sprinkle on her cheeks as the wind suddenly picked up to a strong series of gusts. The blonde pulled the collar of her light trench coat tightly around her throat as she ran up the steps and pulled the door open.
"Ughhh!" Diane murmured, shaking her head and brushing a few dead leaves out of her hair. The rain started to come down now as she walked slowly down the silent halls. The sounds of her heels clattering against the polished red-tiled hall floor rang up and down the corridor as Diane moved quickly toward Matt's office. Like the wives of all faculty members, she had a key to his room. Something told her that she'd find an answer to her question somewhere in his office.
Here you go, Diane said to herself as she opened her purse and pulled out a key chain. Looking nervously up and down the corridor, the blonde inserted the correct key and pushed open the door to her husband's office.
It was a small room – about fifteen feet by twenty feet and filled with stacks of paintings, papers and books tossed about everywhere. A pleasant, slightly stale and sweet smell of cherry pipe tobacco lingered in the still air as Diane walked slowly up to the big polished oak desk at the back of the room. The lights both from the hallway and the footpath directly outside the narrow window gave off enough illumination for Diane to see what she was doing. She shuffled through stacks of term papers on Matt's desk, unsure of what she was looking for, or what she'd do if she found it.
It wouldn't be out in the open, Diane said to herself, not sure of what "it" was.
As she pulled open the top drawer and started fishing through layers of notes and articles, Diane heard the front door open.
"My God!" the blonde hissed to herself as she ran to the office door and peered out into the hall. It was a university guard. Even as the wife of a faculty member, Diane knew she'd have a hard time explaining why she was rifling through her husband's office. He might even want to locate her husband and have him come down to pick her up! Diane closed the door and locked it, standing with her ass pressed tightly against the wall as the guard walked by and tried the doorknobs of each of the office doors.
It seemed like an eternity before Diane heard the door open and close again. She sighed with relief, then went back behind the desk and searched more frantically than before. With the kind of risks she was taking, she wanted to find something to make it worthwhile.
"Damn it!" Diane muttered after several minutes, finding nothing except grade books and compositions. As Diane was about to close the top drawer and go on searching through the files, her eyes lighted on something that looked like a map. Part of it stuck out from the back of Matt's master grade book. Pulling it out and moving over to the window to where she could see better, Diane saw that it was a diagram of the basement floor of the Physics building across the way. There were the usual dimension figures and room sketches. But there was something odd about this map. Matt had etched in what looked to be another room that was beneath the boiler room. It might have been nothing. But Diane wasn't so sure of that.
There's got to be a key, Diane thought to herself, digging through the pile of papers in the top drawer again. She accidentally brushed her fingers against a small plastic box that popped open. Inside was a key with a small piece of red tape attached to the top. Diane smiled wryly, sure that this was part of her husband's recent sick humor.