The Professor
Authors: Cathy Perkins
The Professor
By Cathy Perkins
The Professor presses his palm against her flank, the warmth of her blood, hotter than her skin. Hot, like the life force that he has claimed. The power over life and death is the ultimate thrill.
Someone is murdering women on college campuses. Agent Mick O’Shaughnessy’s mission is simple: stop the killer. Following every lead, he meets Meg, the faculty advisor for one of the victims, who can help him track the killer through her campus connections.
Meg Connelly is focused on getting her master’s degree to show her estranged family she doesn’t need anybody’s help to succeed. There’s something about Mick she can’t resist, but the last time she let someone get close to her, it cost her everything.
As the investigation heats up, so does their relationship. But Mick’s interest in Meg doesn’t just endanger her heart—it puts her in the sights of the killer.
Once he gets her alone, he can take all the time he needs…
92,000 words
Dear Reader,
In 2012, we’re committed to bringing you an even wider variety of stories. With our January releases, we celebrate the diversity of the genres Carina Press has to offer. We’re publishing books across a variety of romance and non-romance genres, including mystery, cyberpunk, fantasy, male/male romance, paranormal romance, contemporary romance, science fiction, historical romance and more.
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For Chuck, for always believing in me.
Many people offered support and encouragement along my path from story idea to publication, but I’d like to offer special thanks to several groups: the guys at the South Carolina Writers Workshop (Steve Vassey and Bill Kaliher) for accepting the neophyte; the Yakima Ladies (Marilee Brothers, Donna Scofield, Mary Patrick and Betty Van Ryder) for loving my characters and encouraging me to pursue publication; the Beach House Crew (Nina Bruhns, Tracy Montoya, Virna De Paul, Misa Ramirez, Alex Sokoloff, and so many others), who taught me about character, conflict and the importance of friends and laughter; and the wonderful crew at Carina Press for taking a chance on a debut author, especially Denise Nielsen, who believed in the story.
One woman stands out from all the rest in her friendship, support and hours talking “story.” My heartfelt thanks to Renee Rearden, my friend, critique partner and sister-to-be.
Wednesday afternoon
The body lay in dappled shade. Patches of light caught pale flesh—an ankle here, a hip there. Resurrection ferns spread lacy fronds, partially concealing the limbs. Mick wondered if the irony was deliberate.
This deep into the woods, the trees blocked the breeze and the humidity increased as the air sucked moisture from the thick mulch spread across the forest floor. The noxious mixture of smells pressed against him in a cloying layer that was nearly visible amid the shifting patterns cast by the overhead branches. Pausing at the edge of the clearing, he batted at the flies circling his head. He hated flies. He associated them so strongly with death that a fly in his condo drove him crazy.
Two local detectives looked up, acknowledging Mick’s presence. His short hair marked him as a cop as much as the holstered pistol and gold badge clipped to his belt. The locals would already know who he was. He hadn’t been able to escape the publicity surrounding the murders—the Captain kept putting him in front of television cameras. The Greenville, South Carolina, stations had been particularly relentless in their quest for footage, repeatedly lurking outside the upstate SLED—State Law Enforcement Division—field office.
The medical examiner crouched over the body, obscuring the head and upper torso. He stood when Mick approached, revealing the now familiar pose. Emily Geiger—if the nude corpse was Emily Geiger—lay on her back, arms opened with the hands palm up in a welcoming gesture. Her legs were spread, bent at the knee, a blatantly sexual posture. Frozen in full rigor, the body would have to be photographed and transported in this degrading position.
Until the Newberry police department asked SLED for assistance, Mick had no authority at the scene. He listened as the ME reported his findings to the local detectives. While they talked, he studied the men, looking for the best way to interact with them. Detective Larry Robbins looked like an oak tree, stocky rather than fat—the kind of guy Mick would want on his side in a bar fight. His twenty years of experience showed in his eyes: weary, heard-it-all-before cynicism. Jerry Jordan, on the other hand, was a greenhorn. He was trying to project confidence and experience while keeping his lunch down. The effort sharpened his jaw and squared his shoulders, but he still looked like a kid in over his head.
The ME estimated the time of death as sometime Monday night. “Lividity’s fixed. Rigor’s just starting to relax, so it’s been less than forty-eight hours. I’ll be able to narrow it down when I get back to the lab, but she’s been here at least twenty-four hours.”
“How can you tell?” Robbins asked.
The doctor gestured at the sample he’d collected. “Blowflies. They show up within fifteen minutes of exposure and lay eggs in the natural orifices and open wounds. The egg stage lasts twenty-four hours. These are blowfly larvae.”
Jordan looked even more nauseous.
“A dump site.” Robbins gave the clearing a disgruntled look.
The ME continued. “Lividity indicates she died lying faceup, but see the dual pattern on her arms and legs? They were repositioned after the blood pooling started, but before rigor set in.”
“What time would you estimate she was moved here?” Mick asked when no one
else did.
“Early Tuesday morning, roughly six hours postmortem. I expect he moved her while it was still dark.”
“We’ll canvass the area,” Robbins said. “We have some early risers around here.”
Mick nodded, noting the unspoken commentary.
This is our city. We know our people.
Fine, he thought, as long as they tell you something. The locals sometimes resented SLED’s involvement, but with a multi-county case like this, the state police’s participation was essential.
Greg Lewis, the responding patrol officer, called from the edge of the clearing. “Crime Scene van’s here. You ready for them?”
Robbins looked at Mick. “Are you lead, Agent O’Shaughnessy? Or one of us?”
“I’m advisory at this point. But my gut says she’s number three.”
“Okay.” Robbins turned to Lewis. “I’m lead. Send ’em up.”
Outdoor crime scenes needed to be processed quickly. Animals carried off evidence. Storms washed away footprints, blood and semen. The wind scattered everything. There were no walls or locked doors to keep out trespassers. It would get dark before they finished, further complicating the search.
Mick and Lewis followed the dirt road toward the cluster of marked and unmarked police cars parked at the entrance to Lynches Woods Park. Rolling hills extended in all directions, covered with pines, oaks, sassafras and poplars. The cooler October nights were turning the poplars yellow, but overall the place still felt like a quiet, green retreat. In a rural area—which included most of Newberry County—a park like this wouldn’t draw as many visitors as a similar oasis in a larger city. A murderer would be practically assured of privacy.
“The park’s inside the city limits?” Mick asked. Newberry was a small town. He’d expected to find the sheriff’s department in charge.
Lewis nodded. “Conservation Corps built the place in the thirties. It’s not very big—only a couple hundred acres. We don’t have much trouble out here. Used to be, you’d only see one or two cars on a weekday. There’s more now that we hooked up with the Palmetto Trail.” He gestured at a sign marking the trailhead. “’Course Central Tech backs up to the property. You get some students over here.”
“Walk-ins?”
“There’s no perimeter fence. They’ve cut some paths over from the campus.”
Mick motioned to the chain blocking access to the park’s interior. “That’s always there?”
“The maintenance guys have a key, but everybody knows this road’s closed. They stay on the main drive to the parking lot.”
The dirt roads were well-maintained. The killer wouldn’t have needed four-wheel drive. Flags along the road’s shoulder marked the car’s path. Tire tracks. Mick smiled. Finally, physical evidence to work with. Other flags marked scuffed-over footprints. Several of the prints remained clear enough to cast.
“The guy who found her…”
Lewis consulted his notebook as they approached the parking area. Just beyond them, a dejected-looking man sat on a picnic table with his head in his hands. “His name’s Phillip Lyles. He started his ride at noon, did the Main Loop, then backtracked to
the Spur. Picked up the dirt road to ride out as a cooldown. Said the smell about knocked him off his bike.”
They glanced at the cyclist who still looked as green as the diamonds decorating his spandex jersey.
“He served in Iraq. He knew exactly what it was. Called nine-one-one from his cell.”
“When?”
“The call came in at 12:57 p.m. The time’s right if he rode where he said he did.”
“Sounds like you ride.”
Lewis nodded. “I try to go midweek. The weekends get crowded.”
“Did he say whether anybody else was here when he arrived?”
“Had the place to himself. We got here about five minutes after the call came in. I walked in far enough to confirm the body, then backed out and secured the scene.”
Lyles glanced up when they ducked under the perimeter tape, as if hoping they could tell him he could finally go home. Mick stored an impression of tired eyes, wiry muscle and sweat-matted hair before the man resumed his inspection of the dirt at his feet.
Mick left Lewis talking to the cyclist. He exchanged his sports coat for a nylon SLED windbreaker and rejoined the Newberry police. By the time the CSU completed its grid search, he was tired, filthy and sick of swatting bugs. They needed a hard freeze to kill the damn things, but they weren’t likely to get one for another month. He drove to his motel, stripped and dropped his clothes directly into the laundry bag. The shower washed the stench from his hair and skin, and the warm water loosened the tight muscles in his back.
Emily Geiger had vanished Monday morning. Tonight, someone, probably her father, would identify her body. At the autopsy tomorrow, the coroner would confirm both the corpse’s identity and whether this was victim number three. By tomorrow, his captain would notify him of the Newberry PD’s official request for assistance. He wished he had more to offer than frustration and an inability to locate the monster who’d raped and killed three young women.
Wednesday night
The library closed at midnight. Normally, the doors closed at nine, but during midterms, students and faculty had access to the reference materials, space, and quiet for three extra hours. Tucked away in a third-floor carrel reserved for graduate students, Meg Connelly had been grading papers. Occupied with the chore, she hadn’t noticed the building gradually empty.
The librarian locked the door after Meg stepped outside. The library’s rosy brick facade contrasted with the wireless technology hidden behind the
Gone With The Wind
exterior. A small liberal arts school in a small town in South Carolina, Douglass College had a respectable academic reputation, but at times it seemed as if the second half of the twentieth century had passed unnoticed.
Meg paused at the top of the limestone steps that descended to the quadrangle. Mature oaks and magnolias flourished above the magnificent azaleas lining the brick pathways. A long rectangle, the quad extended east from the library to the Admin Building. Silent, darkened classroom buildings surrounded it. A shorter, north-south corridor crossed midway. The quiet splash of the intersection’s fountain murmured
beneath the other nocturnal sounds: frogs, insects, and an occasional bird. A gaudier fountain on the northern leg marked the center of Greek housing. Meg’s apartment, one of six carved from an old Victorian, stood on a cross street just beyond the sorority houses.
During the day, the quad’s lawn formed an outdoor living room for students to read, nap and dream away the afternoon. After dark, it was simply dark. The widely spaced, decorative lampposts left enigmatic pools of shadows that shifted against the thick shrubbery. The leaves whispering in the breeze urged caution.
Meg clutched her messenger bag and surveyed the deserted area. Normally, the dark didn’t bother her. After three years, she could walk across campus blindfolded. Douglass was a cocoon of safety, isolated from the violence delivered by television and newspapers. Half the time, people didn’t lock the doors. But earlier this week, Emily Geiger had been kidnapped from nearby Windsor College. Only thirty miles separated the schools, and everyone was on edge.
She eyed the shadowy expanse and wished she’d called the campus escort service before leaving the security of the brightly lit reading room. Now the library was closed and Meg couldn’t afford a cell phone. She descended the stairs, acutely aware of the thud of her sneakers against the stone, and reached the path that angled northeast across the quad.
“Hey, Connelly!”
She jumped and spun around, then forced her tense muscles to relax as she recognized Tony Baldwin and Dino Famiglio. Both were in her statistics class. For
s they weren’t bad guys. A fifth-year senior, Tony was concentrating on school this fall instead of football. For once, his bulk felt welcome rather than intimidating.
“How come you were at the library?” Tony asked.
“Maybe the better question is, why weren’t you?”
He shrugged. “I was earlier. We took a break and went into town for pizza.”
And beer, by the smell of it, she noted.
Tony moved closer. “Do we really have to turn in the stat project this week?”
Meg adjusted her messenger bag. “It’s been on the syllabus since the beginning of the term.”
“I don’t suppose I could talk you into helping me? Maybe some private tutoring?”
She rolled her eyes. “Stop by my office if you need help. During regular hours.”
He dropped his arm around her shoulders. “I could get ideas from you.”
“You already have too many ideas.” She laughed and shrugged off his arm. “Remember we talked about boundaries? Me, teacher. You, student.”
“Go long,” he said to Dino, who obligingly sprinted ahead. Tony faked a football pass and Dino mimed the catch and score.
Tony turned back to Meg. He smiled slyly and pulled the ribbon from her hair. The curly auburn mass tumbled around her face. “You should wear your hair down. You look like a nun with it pulled back.”
“Boundaries, Tony, boundaries. Besides, maybe I secretly am a nun.” She reached for the band. “Give that back.”
He dangled it above her head. “You should listen to my ideas. I have great ideas. Lots of them involve you.”
“You say the sweetest things. I can’t imagine why girls aren’t falling all over you.”
The problem was girls did fall all over Tony, and he couldn’t understand why she didn’t. He had been trying all semester, with varying degrees of effort, to get into her pants. She constantly blocked his moves. Sometimes she wanted to suggest indifference as an effective strategy to the girls who struggled to attract his attention.
Meg grabbed the ribbon and followed Dino’s path. They caught up to him as he finished his victory dance. Abruptly, Dino stopped and turned his head. “Sounds like a party at the Trev.”
Feminine giggles came from the direction of the Greek’s fountain. Alumni from some forgotten class had installed an elaborate fountain the students immediately dubbed the Trev. As in the Roman incarnation, Neptune rose amid swirling waters, riding a chariot drawn by winged sea horses. Unlike the original, the Trev sported mermaids around the perimeter. Water gushed in a noisy cascade from the seashells poised in their hands.