Grey Expectations (28 page)

‘Maybe.' As she stepped in, she felt something smash into her ankles. Esmé, who must have made a running start, was butting her head against Dulcie and purring like an engine. ‘After all, it seems like someone else has put in a claim on me.'

She scooped the purring cat up and buried her face in the warm, soft fur. Up close, the purr came in waves, rising and falling like a ship far out to sea. ‘You're a wonderful creature, do you know that?'

In response, Esmé threw her paws around Dulcie's hand and bit her.

‘Ow! Bad—' She stopped herself and kept petting the small cat even as she placed her back on the floor. ‘I'm sorry. I left you alone all day, didn't I?'

‘Why don't you two make up?' Chris called from the closet, where he was donning a light jacket. ‘And I'll go get us some dinner. And Dulcie?'

She looked up.

‘Please make sure you lock the door behind me.'

‘
As if we'd let anyone get to her
.' The voice, like the memory of a dream, was lost in the closing of the door.

‘Mr Grey?' She paused, mid-pet, and scanned the hall. Nothing. Nothing except one small cat, who looked up and bit her once again, before scampering away.

FORTY-SIX

B
y rights, she should have been asleep before Chris left for work. The stress of the day, the warm Chinese buns filling her belly. The presence of Esmé, once again purring by her side. But even though Chris had tucked her in before he left, Dulcie found herself wide awake and wondering.

‘Maybe it was that nap I had in the cop car,' she remarked to her feline companion. ‘Is that how it works for you guys?'

Esmé said nothing, only tucking her nose into her tail as Dulcie got out of bed and walked over to her desk. It took her laptop only a moment to boot up. In that moment, she remembered Rogovoy's warning. He and Jerry had seemed appalled that she hadn't changed her passwords, even though Chris had given her system a clean bill of health. In fact, from what Rollie had told her over lunch, a much lower-tech form of identity theft had been to blame. Lunch – she thought of the bagel and lox. Had that all been today?

The weight of the day seemed to collapse on to her. No wonder she'd been so famished when Chris had finally returned, two bags full of goodies in his arms. Then again, maybe it was that second helping of spicy
moo shi
that was keeping her awake now.

Since she was  . . . She typed in the girl's name and her class. Two entries came up. The first had a photo, and it took Dulcie a moment to recognize the girl. An undated photo showed an Ultimate Frisbee team. J. Wachovsky was clearly identified, but the girl Dulcie saw looked worlds apart. Her hair was long instead of feathered short, drawn back in a pony tail. The only piercings Dulcie could see were two studs in her ears. This girl looked like a rough draft of Trista, or her younger sister.

She clicked on the second entry. It was a ‘Work in Progress' feature, a regular in the student newspaper. ‘
Jessica Wachovsky, sophomore
,' it read. ‘
Learning to preserve fragile documents in the Prints and Paper Conservation program.
'

Dulcie was too tired to think it through. She'd eaten too much, and the Szechuan peppers were burning a hole in her belly. ‘Is this just déjà vu, kitty?'

Esmé yawned and stretched, showing the pink cuticles of her extended claws. ‘Am I just imagining things? Seeing connections?'

The cat rolled over, placing one of her paws on Dulcie's thigh before she stretched again. The little claws didn't need to do much to sink through Dulcie's nightshirt, and she gingerly removed Esmé's paw. ‘Is this your way of claiming me, kitty? Is that it?'

That's when it hit her, and she turned toward the cat. ‘Rollie worked in the paper lab. That's where he made the fake ID. And that's why those thugs were using my name.'

It was coming together so fast, Dulcie had to say it out loud. ‘They wanted Rollie to steal Trista's ID because they had a Trista. A fake Trista – or someone who they could make look like her. But Rollie wouldn't, so he gave them my name and ID number to use with her photo. That's why the blue ticket had my name – and why Rollie planted it on Trista.'

She looked at the cat. ‘Trista probably found it and couldn't make head or tails out of it. But those bullies thought Jessica was me. They didn't know about Rollie's switch – or about the fake ID.'

But if they didn't know, then what was going on? From what Rollie had told her, it seemed Professor Coffin had been involved with the theft. Rogovoy, she knew, was less likely to take the fugitive student's word for anything, especially once they confirmed that not only had his phone been disconnected, but also that his apartment had been emptied out of most of his clothes and toiletries – seemingly in a hurry. Now Coffin was dead, and Rollie was on the lam. Trista was missing, and this girl – this Jessica – was in danger. But why?

It was hopeless. Even if Rollie was to be trusted, he hadn't had a clue about why Coffin had needed a fake ID – or might have wanted to steal a book he already owned. And the girl herself had fled. Those two men – Harris and Read – had meant business. Dulcie thought of the knife with a shudder. Maybe memory and fatigue were coming into play, but in her memory it loomed both large and lethal.

‘We want our money,' the smaller one, Read, had said. She thought of him as the mean one. The brains to Harris's brawn. And then it hit her. He'd said he knew the girl. He knew where she lived. But he didn't mean Jessica Wachovsky, or even Trista Dunlop.

He was hunting Dulcie. Dulcinea Schwartz. She could still hear his words. ‘We know where you live.'

FORTY-SEVEN

‘
Y
eah, you told us.' Rogovoy had to be off duty. It was after eleven. But he'd given her his cell number, and she'd called it, spooked. ‘No, I'm glad you called. Shows you're developing some smarts of the other kind, too.'

Now that he was on the phone, she felt a little silly. Those two men were hunting for a little blonde, not for her. Still, the detective's next words were comforting.

‘I've got a patrol going by your place. Talked to your boyfriend about it. He's a good kid, too.'

Dulcie wasn't entirely sure how she felt about being called a ‘kid'. Lucy, she knew, would get all bent out of shape, start fuming about the paternalistic patriarchy and all that. Then again, she recalled with a pang, Lucy had rescinded her own warning. Even after she'd called to tell her mother about Coffin – about all the blood – Lucy had gone on about birth and new beginnings.

Rogovoy was still talking. ‘We're looking into the paper lab, too. Whatever you call it. Seems to me that if two students are able to make fake IDs there, then security isn't what it's supposed to be.'

‘I was wondering about that,' Dulcie broke in, another thought forming. ‘I was thinking about the Dunster Codex and how someone snuck that out of the library. I mean, there would be records, right? If someone had taken it to have restoration work done or something?'

In response, she heard a low chuckle. ‘Dulcie, Ms Schwartz, you are something. You don't have to solve every problem this university has tonight. Give it a rest, kid. Get some sleep.'

She tried, she really tried. But after tossing and turning so much that even the cat abandoned the bed, Dulcie followed suit. A quick peek out the window showed a quiet street. No cars, despite what the detective had said, and Dulcie forced herself not to think about that.

‘I must have just missed them. Right, Esmé?'

The cat, who had started to wash, did not respond.

Dulcie paced around the apartment. One thirty, too late to call anyone. Even Lucy would likely be asleep, unless  . . . She lifted the shade for another look at the sky. No, the moon was still waxing. Lucy would not be dancing at a circle tonight. And Chris, well, Chris thought she was sleeping. She should let him have one night of uninterrupted work after everything he'd been through.

On a whim, she opened her laptop again and entered a search for the Dunster Codex. Most of what this turned up, she already knew – or had learned since the announcement of the theft on Tuesday. The manuscript – more like loosely bound pages than a modern book – was a late medieval treasure, the recounting of a tax role that served to illuminate not only the population but also the social structure of a certain province in what would become East Anglia. The university had purchased it from a private collector, after a substantial fund-raising drive that had drawn heavily from the professor's former colleagues in the private sector. It had been Professor Coffin's latest and largest acquisition.

‘His last, too,' Dulcie noted, skimming over the rest. She'd been surprised to see that the professor himself had been one of the donors, making a gift of some undisclosed amount that had supposedly been critical in obtaining the treasure. More fund-raising, she read, had since been commenced, largely for the purposes of conservation, since the ancient work – about a thousand years old – needed constant attention.

‘That would explain it not being in its case,' she mused out loud. ‘Poor Lloyd, scared by a ghost story.' She typed away at her keyboard, wondering what else she could turn up. ‘I wonder if the restoration work was all done here,' Dulcie mused, tapping her keyboard gently. Lloyd might know, or Darien, their resident medievalist. But, no, this was a bureaucratic question – process and permissions. She opened her email program and typed in: MTHORPE.

Hi Mr T,
she typed.
Would you be able to tell me the dates the Dunster Codex was being restored? I feel like it was in and out all spring. Also, did it ever go off campus?
She looked at her note. She had to give him a little more.
I've been talking to the university police about this, but I don't know if they understand how we work here.

There, that should appeal to his departmental vanity. Besides, it made her sound involved – on the side of the angels. With a satisfied nod, she hit ‘send'. Esmé landed on her laptop just as she closed it, so she picked her pet up and returned to bed.

FORTY-EIGHT

W
riting, writing, writing. She paused to push back an errant curl that had adhered to the dampness of her forehead, felt her eyelids start to close 'gainst the stifling heat. Close, too close, the befoul'd air choked her breath, threatening to steal the very life from out her chest. The heat, like the pestilence itself, closed upon her, the tainted air like curs'd spirits dragging her down. How she long'd to throw open the casements and to breathe anew, to free herself from this hidden room, this prison, this cage.

But, no. She fought against the panic, her heart beating like a caged dove against the bars. This had been her choice, her decision. Driven as she was by forces unforeseen, she had sought this sanctuary. Let them do their worst, steal her name, her very soul. Writing, she was writing. Soon she would emerge, her work complete, to reclaim that very Heritage that she so long'd to pass on  . . .

Dulcie woke, gasping, in the dark. The cat, lying on her chest, looked up and blinked.

‘Esmé, was that you?' She picked some fur from her mouth and wondered. Lucy had taught her all the old wives' tales – but only so she could debunk them.

‘Cats don't “steal” anyone's breath,' she had said with exasperation. ‘They simply like the warmth. Or the smell of milk on a baby's breath.'

Or perhaps, Dulcie thought now, looking into Esmé eyes, they do what they need to in order to wake a troubled sleeper. And after the horror of the day before, it was no wonder she'd had a nightmare. At least Professor Coffin hadn't made an appearance. She'd been so busy yesterday, the full impact hadn't registered. Now, however, it did. Closing her eyes, she saw him once again, laid out and still, the blood pooled around his body. Was this because of the Dunster Codex? Perhaps it was true that the thing was haunted or, perhaps, cursed.

She shivered, fully awake now, and checked the clock. No, Chris would not be home for hours yet. Climbing out of bed, she reached for her robe. The night had gotten cool, the hint of a sea breeze rattling the shade. She looked out in time to see a car cruise silently down the street. One of Rogovoy's, she told herself. Those two thugs had probably been bluffing. They were looking for a blonde, for someone who resembled Trista. And even if they did come by here, they didn't stand a chance.

It didn't help. In need of a distraction, Dulcie went to her computer and opened the file she had started the day before listing all the familiar quotes that had reappeared in that horrible essay.

‘
The fettering of the feminine mind
,' she read. In her dream, the heroine – Hermetria, the author, whoever she was – wanted to throw off her fetters. To free herself. ‘
For fear of losing her ladylike graces
.' The woman in the dream hadn't been bothered by such things. Her strength had been that of a woman, a free woman. A writer setting out to reclaim her name.

Dulcie rubbed her forehead, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on.
The Ravages of Umbria
had never been a hit with the critics. It had never even won the kind of grudging respect given the bigger Gothic novels, books like
The Castle of Otranto
or
Udolpho
. Had its author fought back against the negative reviews and naysayers? Maybe, Dulcie thought glumly, she had sought to win back their favor by writing something different. Something that catered to their traditional – no, misogynistic – tastes.

Her headache getting worse, Dulcie looked back longingly at the bed. Maybe she should have asked Chris to stay home again tonight. She could call him, but then he'd worry about her. No, better to pass the time – and take some aspirin.

Two minutes later, she was sitting by the computer again, a glass of water by her side. Maybe she would ping Suze, see if the soon to be lawyer was up working. Dulcie knew her old room-mate: all through exams, she'd kept up her hours at the legal clinic. There was no reason for her upcoming graduation to stop her now.