Grey Dawn (14 page)

‘Not my notes,' he told the napkin. ‘I mean, I shouldn't even be asking for them. But, well, they're important.'

‘Whose notes are they, Josh?' She just couldn't be afraid of this man. He couldn't even look her in the eye. ‘What are you talking about?' She left the question open and took another bite.

‘They're Mina's.' The name came out so soft that at first Dulcie didn't hear it. ‘Mina's,' he repeated before she could ask. ‘Mina was working on something – on the history of someone, well, of a woman, and the notes are important. At least, I think they are. I mean, she said they could be a vital part of her research.'

The chart. Suddenly the burger turned to dust in Dulcie's mouth, and she reached for her water glass to choke down the bite. She'd seen the branch that represented Josh's family. She'd seen the angry scribbles that obscured it, the pencil dropped – or thrown to the floor in anger. That was damning evidence, and he wanted it.

‘Her research?' Now she was the one barely making a sound. She couldn't help it, though. She had no breath left, and as soon as the words were out she wished she could swallow them back.

He nodded, and Dulcie managed to swallow, her mouth now as dry as that burger. He was still staring at the napkin, and so she turned to it as well. In light of what he'd just admitted, it took on a different meaning. Not the nervous fiddling of a worried suitor, but an act of destruction. He had literally taken the napkin apart. Destroyed it with those admittedly pale and soft-looking but still quite large hands.

So much for judging by appearances.

‘I know about the research, about the family.' Dulcie was whispering. She didn't know why – nor did she know why she had just admitted to what could be dangerous knowledge. ‘I mean, I saw it. Just this morning,' she tried to cover. ‘I went over to see Emily, because …'

She stopped herself. Of course Josh would know that Emily had been attacked.

‘She's upset, isn't she?' He looked up at her, his eyes big and blue. Seemingly guileless.

‘Well, yes, and she …' Dulcie stopped. Emily hadn't wanted to report the attack last night, and this could be why. She might be afraid of Josh. Dulcie couldn't let on. ‘She's upset over all that happened, and she was supposed to lead a section for me.'

Josh nodded, and Dulcie found herself exhaling some of her tension. ‘She's very attached to Mina, I know. I think that's why she took it so badly. Why she was so shocked …' Now it was his turn to let a sentence trail off, only Dulcie wasn't going to let him get off so easily.

‘So shocked at what, Josh?' She leaned over her plate, her cooling burger forgotten. ‘Shocked that you …' It was the hot sauce. It had to be. Just as Dulcie was about to drop the bomb, she hiccuped. ‘'Scuse me!' The apology was automatic, but it gave Dulcie a moment to think. If Emily didn't want Josh Blakely to know that she knew who had jumped her, she certainly wouldn't want him to know that she'd revealed his strange fixation with his girlfriend's genealogy.

‘That you are so upset about Mina.' It was a lame save, but it was the best she could do. In the meantime, she dabbed at her mouth with her own napkin, hoping that would camouflage any obvious embarrassment.

To add to her confusion, he nodded again, and when he looked up, he had tears in his eyes. ‘I just hope I'm wrong about it all. It's just so terrible.'

Dulcie nodded. It was terrible. Terrible that a young man could get so obsessed about his girlfriend that he would hurt her rather than lose her. Terrible that he would take some connection between their ancestors so seriously. Unless, it occurred to her, the distant connection had just been an excuse. Maybe Mina had wanted to break off from this chubby, awkward man. Maybe she wanted to accept someone else's attention. Emily had said that Josh was very attached to Mina – not vice versa.

‘Were you trying to get the chart from Emily?' Dulcie kept her voice soft. She didn't want to give anything away, but she did want to get at the truth. ‘Is that what happened last night?'

‘What?' He shook his head. ‘Last night? No. We spoke, remember? I taped Lukos's talk. There's another one tonight, right?'

She nodded, remembering what Josh had said. How Josh had assumed his girlfriend wasn't attracted to the dashing professor. ‘Does Mina hate Renée Showalter, too?'

He shook his head. ‘No, all that connectedness stuff? She loves it. She says she really likes to see the author as a person. I guess that's not considered a good thing in the English department any more. That's one of the reasons why she … Why she …' He buried his face in his hands.

Dulcie had to resist the urge to comfort him. Instead, she waited.

Finally, Josh looked up. ‘It's been so hard,' he said. ‘They aren't allowing visitors. She's still unconscious, and they say they don't know if … When …' He reached for another napkin and blew his nose. ‘But I know Mina. She's tough. She's from hardy stock.' He smiled, as if at a private joke, and Dulcie found herself shrinking back. Everything he said: about fury, about toughness, it all could be interpreted against him. And she'd been about to pet this monster's hand.

She needed him to say more. To dig himself in deeper. ‘Anyway,' he was still talking. ‘I wanted to ask if maybe you could help me get those notes. I know Mina would want them to be safe.'

Dulcie was confused. If this was a scheme to enlist her help in destroying the family tree, it was pretty elaborate.

Josh kept talking. ‘I don't know the details, but there's something important she's found. A letter or something – she called it a primary source – about a woman, about her family history. She wanted to get some advice about it. Not from Lukos; you know what she thought of him. But she thought if this other professor, the one speaking tonight, gets the position, she might be more open to helping her with it. Maybe she'd even switch back to English.'

‘Hold on.' He was getting off track, and Dulcie needed to rein him in. ‘She found out something about
her
family history?' She paused, letting him reconsider his own words. ‘Or yours?'

Josh shook his head in apparent confusion. ‘I'm not explaining it well,' he said. ‘It has something to do with blood.'

‘And Emily?' Dulcie tried to quell the shiver that word – ‘blood' – sent through her. She had to be strong about this, if she was going to get him to say something – anything – that was real.

‘Oh, Emily doesn't understand any of it.' Josh was shaking his head. ‘She just doesn't get why Mina cares, so I'm hoping to keep this quiet.'

‘Keep
it
quiet?' She was close to a confession; she could sense it. But even as she phrased the words, she heard a familiar ring. Her phone. And even as she dug into her bag to turn it off, she caught the looks from her fellow diners. ‘Hang on,' she opened her bag, hoping to find the offending instrument. When she did, the number of the incoming call reminded her of what she had promised.

It was time for some fast thinking.

‘Detective Rogovoy!' She looked at Josh as she spoke.

‘No, Dulcie. This is Chris.' Her boyfriend, on the other end, sounded mildly confused.

‘Detective Rogovoy, how good of you to call.' She'd explain later. ‘I'm having the most interesting conversation with Josh Blakely at Lala's Café in the Square, but I was thinking of calling you.'

Just as she suspected, Josh froze, his pink cheeks turning white as he shook his head. ‘No,' his lips formed the word, silently.

‘Dulcie …' Chris was talking, but Dulcie had more of her charade to play.

‘You'll be right down, Detective?' She wasn't letting the young man out of her sight. ‘Is that what you said?'

‘Dulcie!' A little louder this time.

Josh, meanwhile, had gone silent, though she could see him shaking his head and repeating the word: ‘No.' As she watched, he raised his hands and stood up. She stood too. ‘Not yet,' he said, and started backing away. She stepped around the table, still holding the phone. For a big man, Josh was moving quickly through the crowded room.

‘Miss? Oh, Miss?' She turned. The waitron was standing over her table, a peevish look on his face. ‘Did we forget something?' He was waving her bill, and she reached back into her bag for her wallet.

‘Dulcie Schwartz!' The voice in her ear startled her as she threw a five on the table. Chris sounded angry. ‘Didn't you promise me you weren't going to mess with this? Isn't that what you promised me just last night?'

‘Yes, but …' She looked up. Everyone in the café was staring at her. And Josh Blakely was gone.

‘C
hris, it's not what you think.' Taking her phone out to the sidewalk, Dulcie tried to placate her boyfriend. ‘I've been trying to disengage. You see, I had just spoken to Emily.' She heard him start to interrupt and cut him off. ‘She's my student, Chris, and I just dropped by to make sure she was okay.'

‘Just dropped by?' Chris knew her too well. ‘And, what, you couldn't talk her into going to the cops?'

‘Well, no. And she really should have.' Dulcie gave up any pretense. ‘But I left it at that. Honest, Chris.' The silence on the other end of the line reminded her that he didn't know everything. ‘She did say something that made me wonder about her room-mate's boyfriend, though. And then I ran into him – I was at Lala's and he walked in. He sat down at my table, Chris. So I pretended you were the police. And it worked – he took off.'

‘Was he threatening you? Dulcie, this is why I didn't want you to get involved.'

‘He wasn't threatening me, per se.' Dulcie thought back over the brief, strange interaction. ‘He just wanted me to help him with something. I think he wanted me to get something for him out of Emily and Mina's suite.'

‘Dulcie, I don't like this.' In the background, Dulcie could hear an aggrieved ‘mew'. Maybe Esmé was chiming in. More likely, Chris had been distracted from filling her food dish.

‘I don't either, Chris. I said I wouldn't do it.' Pedestrians were weaving around her. ‘And he started to get weird. That's why I pretended you were Detective Rogovoy.'

That's when Chris surprised her. ‘Maybe you should really call him,' he said. ‘I mean, if this guy is dangerous and he thinks you're talking to the cops, well, Dulcie, I didn't want you to get in deeper. But maybe you already are.'

‘I don't know.' Dulcie heard what Chris was saying with a sinking feeling. She didn't want this to be happening. Now that their brief, strange conversation was behind her, she found she still couldn't see Josh as a violent man.

‘Dulce, don't tell me it's because you're still thinking … you know.' The sidewalk was getting loud, and Chris's voice trailed off.

‘What?' Dulcie put her hand up to cover her other ear. ‘Did I miss something?'

‘You know, your other theory? About Thorpe being some kind of, I don't know …'

‘A werewolf, Chris?' A woman stopped at that, which caused the bearded man behind her to plow into her. Dulcie turned to face the wall. ‘Weren't you trying to convince me there were no werewolves?' If there were other pedestrian pile-ups behind her, Dulcie didn't want to see them.

‘Yes …' Chris sounded tentative. ‘I didn't know if it had worked, though.'

‘Well, something was odd.' Dulcie thought of the howls she had heard – and of Thorpe's disheveled appearance. ‘But the attacks happened over the last two nights, and neither of those were the full moon.'

‘They also weren't fatal attacks.'
The voice, so soft and yet so close, caused Dulcie to spin around.

‘… thinking rationally.' Chris had started to respond.

‘What? I'm sorry.' Dulcie turned back toward the shelter of the wall. ‘It's noisy out here.'

‘I just said, I'm glad that you're using your brain, Dulcie. That you're not letting Lucy get to you.' Chris paused, and Dulcie knew she was supposed to respond. ‘Dulcie, you're not are you?'

‘What? No.' Not Lucy, but that voice …

‘So, maybe you should go talk to Rogovoy? Since you're involved anyway.'

Unless Josh really was innocent, and someone – or something – else was responsible for the attacks. ‘I don't know, Chris.' Dulcie couldn't tell him what she was thinking. Not yet. ‘Maybe you were right the first time. I should just let it be.'

He didn't sound happy, but he had let her go, and Dulcie found herself wandering back toward her office, mulling over what she'd learned. Emily had been shaken up. Scared. That was true. But because of that, she might not be the best judge of character right now. And no matter how you sliced it, genealogy wasn't a likely motive for attempted murder. Was it?

Halfway through the Yard, Dulcie stopped. She'd intended to get back to work. She hadn't yet entered the strange fragment from this morning's research into her computer, and tonight she'd be going to hear the second Newman lecture. But maybe, just maybe, this time, work could wait. In truth, she knew little about the initial attack, and none of it first hand. She'd gone to visit Emily this morning. Was there any reason she shouldn't try to see Mina? Josh hadn't been able to see her, but that didn't mean the same prohibition would still apply – or, at any rate, apply to a non-suspect like Dulcie. Maybe the girl would be talking by now, and all of this would be cleared up. At the very least, maybe Dulcie could get some answers. Then she'd be able to concentrate on her own mystery: the puzzle of that tantalizing manuscript.

‘I'm sorry.' The orderly on duty didn't look apologetic. ‘What did you say your name was?'

Dulcie had made it up to the fifth floor of the university health services. It didn't look like she was going to get any further.