“Too soon to say. Out of curiosity, what kind of alibi does Tom Baker have for the evening of his son’s disappearance?”
“He doesn’t. His story is he was working late, alone, at his office.”
Elliot started to reply, but he noticed the clock in the dashboard read a quarter after seven. He needed to get over to Steilacoom fast or he’d be spending the night at his dad’s. He said reluctantly, “Noted. I’m about to miss my ferry. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Later,” Tucker replied instantly.
Elliot clicked off and turned the key in the ignition. The 350Z purred into life.
It had been harder to disconnect than it should have been. Why? Maybe just the relief that they were actually talking. Elliot was not antagonistic by nature. He didn’t usually hold grudges. Anyway, it wasn’t like Tucker was the only person in the world he could discuss the case with. He could talk it over with his dad, seeing that Roland was the one who’d lured Elliot into this in the first place. Except…realizing his dad had feelings for Pauline Baker made it hard to discuss the grim possibilities objectively.
Besides, Elliot decided as he pulled out of the parking lot, he didn’t want company. He wanted to go home to his quiet, comfortable cabin and spend a peaceful night reading plagiarized essays—
Elliot merged onto the WA-99, busy and moving sluggishly at that hour. Once he reached the I-5 South he punched the accelerator and made excellent time. It took him only slightly over forty minutes to reach the campus. He parked in his usual place in the back lot near the chapel.
The brick buildings were dark, the grounds deserted as Elliot cut through the arboretum. On Fridays the campus emptied out early and there seemed to be no one around. The stands of tall Douglas firs and dawn redwoods gave the illusion of walking in a forest, far from civilization. The sweet scent of damp earth and pungent wood filled the cold night. Elliot’s breath clouded the moist air as he trudged through the museum of trees.
Hanby Hall had that eerie after-hours feeling. Elliot let himself into his office, grabbed the papers from his desk, shoved them in his briefcase. He glanced around, made sure he hadn’t forgotten anything else and turned off the overhead light. Locking his office door, he started for the front entrance. The emergency lights cast a thin glare over the walls and utilitarian carpet as he walked.
A phantom noise down the hall stopped him in his tracks. He turned and listened closely. A cleaning cart sat at the end of the corridor, but there was no sight or sound of any maintenance staff. There were the usual mysterious ticking noises and creaks of any large, institutional building, nothing to account for his sudden unease.
Elliot waited, ears attuned to the silence of the empty hallway.
No sound reached his ears.
Still he waited. He wasn’t, by nature, jumpy. Far from it, but one thing he’d learned during his months of training at Quantico was to pay attention to his instinct.
At last, though, he began to feel foolish. University buildings were secured by key control and electronic card access. The chances of an unauthorized person gaining admittance were slim. Campus security was constantly on the prowl for doors left unsecured or propped open. He pushed out through the entrance door, sliding his ID card to relock it.
The chirp of crickets filled the crisp night air. Elliot went down the steps thoughtfully. It had been after eleven-thirty when Terry Baker had left the library the Thursday evening he disappeared. In terms of how deserted the campus was, roughly the equivalent of nine o’clock on a Friday night—in other words, it would have been pretty much a ghost town as Terry had started back for his dorm. Assuming he had headed for his dorm.
Elliot checked his watch beneath the pallid glow of one of the old fashioned street lamps lining the walkway. At this time of night it shouldn’t take him much more than twenty minutes to make it over to Steilacoom. He had time for some physical investigation.
Instead of heading back toward the chapel parking lot, he turned off toward the gymnasium and tennis pavilion. Behind the green netting of the high fences he could hear the hollow plop of a ball being volleyed back and forth. It was the only sign of life, although he could see lights shining from the residence halls through the low hanging tree branches.
He passed the music building, currently silent, and cut across Otter Circle with its stone benches and odd statuary. As he’d expected, the library was closed.
Kingman Library was one of the oldest buildings on campus. It looked pleasantly Ivy League with its diamond-paned windows and vine-covered brick. Elliot walked its perimeter slowly. The surrounding hedges and stone walls offered a number of places for concealment, but so what? Baker had been an adult-sized male and this was the middle of campus. No matter how deserted it had been that night, it was hard to believe that no one would have heard Baker yelling for help. Campus security wasn’t SWAT but they did put in regular appearances.
Assuming Baker had a chance to yell. But Elliot couldn’t quite wrap his brain around the idea of knocking a young, adult-sized male out in the middle of campus and then lugging him…where?
Besides, this part of the campus was all covered by security cameras.
Maybe Baker had been jumped on his way back to Tetley Hall? Elliot considered the possibility skeptically. It wasn’t impossible, of course. If Baker had been a female, he’d be seriously considering the theory, so maybe he needed to be more open-minded and less sexist.
He decided to walk the path Baker would have been most likely to take.
Tetley Hall was one of the furthest residences, a comfortable distance from the noise and bustle of the main campus. Elliot followed the curving paved walkway through the tunnel of trees. Moonlight caught and illuminated the bowed branches of white birch, leaves cascading in flickering shades of silver and bone.
It was quiet and it was dark. The trees provided plenty of hiding places as well as blocking visibility from the residences, and this part of the campus was not under video surveillance.
It took Elliot fifteen minutes to reach Baker’s dorm, but Baker would probably have done it in about ten.
When he reached the dorm he noted the number of lights still on—not so many on a Friday night—and the blue flicker of television and computer screens in windows. He tried both entrances and, per school security policy, they were safely locked.
But then he didn’t think Baker had been snatched out of his dorm. If he had been grabbed, it would have been in that short stretch when he was out of range of the surveillance cameras and out of view of the dorms. About seven minutes where he would have been invisible.
Of course he could have taken a shortcut, in which case his travel time would be shorter but his time off the security radar longer. But at that time of night most people stuck to lights and walkways. Elliot massaged his knee absently, thinking it over, then he started back the way he came.
If someone had been waiting for Baker here in the shelter of the trees, he wouldn’t have tried to lug his victim across campus to the main parking lots. The most likely scenario was that he would park in the back, probably in the chapel parking lot which was always empty except on church service occasions.
Elliot stopped and tried to calculate the fastest way to reach the chapel parking lot. The safest way—the way that offered least visibility—would be to skirt behind the long rectangle of the ceramics building and then cut right across the chapel garden. The chances of running into anyone would be about nil, although one would have to have observed campus patterns for a while to know that.
Leaving the cement walk, Elliot started across the grass. The campus lawns in general were well-tended, but the ceramic building was on the furthest edge of the school grounds and the gnarled roots of the old trees required that he pay close attention to where he was walking. Tripping and falling was definitely not doctor-approved.
As he’d thought, it was dark as an alley behind the long building. He walked slowly, scrutinizing the bushes and undergrowth for anything that might give indication Baker had come this way, though he realized the chance of finding anything was practically nonexistent this long after the fact.
It wasn’t until he heard the distinct snap of a twig a few yards behind him that it occurred to Elliot his circumstances had changed significantly and he needed to be as safety conscious as any civilian. It gave him an unpleasant jolt. He was used to that obscure feeling of invincibility everyone in law enforcement tended to develop.
Except he wasn’t invincible. He never had been. Nor was he armed—and if he had to run for his life, he’d be shit out of luck.
He turned to scan behind him. The long berm of grass was empty, but that old prickle of unease rippled its way down his spine. As hard to believe as it was, the conviction persisted that he was being watched. Followed.
He waited. Gradually, his eyes picked out a darker shadow from the shade spreading beneath the top heavy hazelnut trees. The back of his neck tingled. Unless his eyes were playing tricks on him, someone was standing right there next to the thick tree trunk.
Right. Well, there were plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons for someone to lurk there in the dark. They might be waiting for someone. They might be uneasy about
afraid
Automatically he reached for his phone. His intention was to call campus security, but as he tried to picture himself requesting help…tried to imagine explaining his safety emergency to a pimple-faced rent-a-cop, putting into words that he thought someone was…what? Staring at him?
He couldn’t do it. Could not do it.
Somehow instead he was dialing Tucker’s number. And how weird was that? Because if there was one person in this world he most did not want to show weakness to, it was Tucker Lance.
And yet he listened to the phone ring once…twice…
“Pick it up, Lance,” he muttered.
“Did you miss the boat?” Tucker inquired suddenly on the other end of the signal, and Elliot released a long, tense breath.
“No. I’m at the PSU campus.”
“Why’s that?”
Elliot scanned the wall of trees. The uneasy feeling persisted, but now he was starting to wonder if he wasn’t jumping at shadows. If there was someone standing under the trees, he was staying as still as a statue.
“I remembered I needed some papers I left in my office. I also remembered it’s Friday. The ferry doesn’t leave until ten.”
“So you went back to the campus to get these papers and thought maybe we ought to get together for a drink and discuss the case?”
Tucker was obviously not serious, but it still caught Elliot off-guard. “Huh? No, I thought I’d walk the path Baker had to take the evening he disappeared.”
Tucker took a swallow of his drink and remarked, “At this time of night? I guess you never watched any scary movies as a kid?”
“Walking it at this time of night is the whole point. I’m trying to get a feel for the set up when Baker disappeared.” Elliot gave a short laugh. “Anyway, in our family
“Nothing? Well, not that I’m not thrilled to hear from you, but why
There was a short, sharp silence before Tucker drawled, “You’re probably giving campus security the most fun they’ve had in months.”
“Yeah. Probably. What are the odds, right?” Elliot kept moving—and kept an eye on the unmoving shadows falling further behind him.
“Are you on the way to your car?”
“Yes.”
“Stay on the line.”
“I plan to.” Having undoubtedly made a total fool of himself, no way was he not claiming the full benefit package. All the same, Elliot felt ridiculously self-conscious as he walked, knowing Tucker was listening in. But he also felt reassured. Which made zero sense. If someone did jump him, there wasn’t a lot Tucker could do and Elliot would have his work cut out trying to defend himself while describing his attacker by moonlight.
It seemed a long way to his car. And this was the shortcut.
“The heavy breathing is a nice touch,” Tucker remarked.
“Go. To. Hell.”
Tucker laughed, that deep, scratchy-velvet sound. “Not that I’m judging, but what do you do to keep in shape these days?”
Tucker had good instincts. Talking was the right idea. It looked natural and it relaxed Elliot. “Jogging is out. Along with rock climbing, tennis, skiing, gymnastics…”
“I don’t recall you playing much tennis. As for the gymnastics…” His sexy growl of a laugh seemed to snag Elliot in the guts. “Yeah, you do have some beautiful moves as I recall. They didn’t require a lot of footwork.”
“How much have you had to drink tonight?”
Tucker’s reply was unexpectedly cheerful. “A lot.”
“Why’s that?”
“Why do you think?” Elliot was still weighing that terse comment when Tucker asked, “Do you still play with the toy soldiers?”
“War game with military miniatures? Yes.”
“Yes. Of course.” There was an unexpected edge to Tucker’s voice. “You like to control things, don’t you, Mills? Including history.”
Elliot had no answer to that and Tucker had run out of things to say. In the prickly silence between them, Elliot said, “I’m unlocking my car door now.”
“Don’t forget to check the backseat for the mad killer with the knife,” the bastard instructed lazily.
Elliot glanced through the tinted window. Good luck with that. That was the downside of tinted windows. He opened the driver’s door, threw a quick look at the seat which was empty of anything but his raincoat. Mocking them both, he clipped, “Backseat secure.”
Tucker snorted.
Elliot tossed his briefcase in, slid under the wheel and dragged the door shut. He clicked the locks and sagged back, managing not to exhale his relief in one revealing whoosh. His back was damp with perspiration. He’d stepped awkwardly on a tree root and his knee was now openly throbbing
He pulled himself together enough to say, “Okay. Thanks for staying on the line. You’ll be pleased to know I feel like an idiot.”
“Try the engine.”
“Now you’re just making fun of me.”
“Well yeah, but try the engine anyway.”
The engine purred into smooth life.
“All systems go.”
“Roger, Houston. Have a nice flight.”
He needed to say something. Given the situation between them, to not speak up was too bizarre. He said gruffly, “Hey. Thanks for hanging on the line.” Tucker’s patience with this attack of heebie jeebies meant more than it should have. Elliot wasn’t sure he’d have been equally patient in reversed circumstances.