Grey Dawn (32 page)

‘Dulcie! Are you all right?' She jumped to her feet and stumbled back down, clasping the box to her chest.

‘You!' It was Josh. She pushed herself back, away from him. ‘Leave me alone!'

‘What? No, Dulcie.' He dropped into a squat, hands raised before him. ‘I'm not … I saw you, and I came to help. Honest.'

She looked at him. Took in his stricken face and the fact that his hands were empty. That he was, in fact, now kneeling in the gravel, about five feet away from her.

‘I'm going to call 911.' He reached inside his coat, and she shrunk back.

‘No, I'm okay,' she said. He stopped and looked at her for further direction. ‘Just – just help me up.'

He stood and held out both hands to her. She took them and scrambled to her feet, a little unsteadily.

‘Here, lean on me.' He offered his arm, but he was looking at the box on the ground by her side. ‘What's this?' He picked it up. From inside they both heard a small ‘mew.' Strangely, that made Dulcie more confident, and she took his arm.

‘It's a kitten,' she said, perhaps unnecessarily.

‘Oh.' He was nodding. ‘I thought I saw …'

He broke off, prompting her to ask. ‘What? What did you think you saw?'

He shook his head. ‘There were a lot of shadows. I heard you yell, and I saw you fall. Someone was behind you, holding a stick or something. Then – I don't know … whoever did it must have run off.'

Or was chased off. But by what?
The question was on the edge of Dulcie's tongue, but she held back. She'd been hit on the head. She hadn't seen – or heard – anything clearly.

‘Do you want to go to the police? To the health services?' Josh was asking.

Images were crowding Dulcie's mind. The health services, where Mina lay prone. The university police … ‘I was just at the police station,' she said. She took a few steps back toward the street, leaning on Josh's arm. Inside his box, the kitten had grown quiet once again. ‘This detective I know was waiting for someone to come by.'

She reached back to the back of her head. It was tender, and she could tell there'd be swelling, but the wetness was sticky now. What had she been hit with, a stick? A baseball bat? Something else?

‘Josh, tell me something.' None of this was making sense. ‘You said something about Mina getting strength, about her being strong.'

‘She is.' He was nodding. ‘She's one of the strongest people I know.'

‘You didn't tell me she has a prosthetic foot.'

He shrugged. ‘Sometimes I forget. When you know her, it's not relevant.'

‘But it must affect her walking, right?' Dulcie didn't wait for an answer. ‘Did she use a cane?'

‘Sometimes, yeah.' He was looking at her strangely. ‘When she was tired. Why?'

Dulcie wasn't sure she understood, either. ‘And her room-mate, Emily?'

‘What about her?' They were moving, albeit slowly, to the street. Dulcie's head was ringing, but she needed to talk to Rogovoy again. What she would say exactly wasn't clear.

‘Does Emily use a cane?' It made no sense. Maybe it was because her head was hurting, but Dulcie felt like she was talking about different people: Mina, Emily, Josh … which versions were the real ones?

‘I don't think so.' Josh was looking at her, concern in his round face. ‘Dulcie, are you sure you're all right?'

‘No.' She shook her head slowly. Anything more hurt. ‘I'm not. But I've got to talk to Detective Rogovoy right away.'

‘Okay.' Inside his box, the kitten mewed. ‘If you say so.'

Another mew. That little orange fellow was as demonstrative as … Esmé! Dulcie stopped and turned toward her companion. ‘Josh, you didn't attack Mina did you?'

He shook his head. ‘I don't know why everyone thinks that.'

‘You didn't try to isolate her?' She examined his face. His broad and open face. ‘To take her away from her friends, did you?'

Another shake of his head.

‘And Mina wasn't about to break up with you, was she?'

‘What? No.' Josh looked so crestfallen, Dulcie wondered for a moment if she was going to have to hold him up. ‘We had just decided to move in together. Get a place off campus. We were going to start looking, only she had some personal stuff she said she had to deal with first. She didn't even want my help, she said. I would never …'

‘No, I know you wouldn't.' Dulcie still felt shaky, and her head was throbbing. About this, however, she was sure.

They had reached the street, and at Dulcie's urging turned left, back toward the police station.

‘What's the deal with the cat?' Inside his box, Tigger had begun to mew again.

‘We found him in an alley. He …' Dulcie stopped. Something had chased her attacker off. Had someone – or something – also jumped Emily in the alley? Was that what she didn't want to talk about? ‘No, it's not making any sense.'

A wave of dizziness hit her, and she lurched across the sidewalk to slump against a street light. At least here, in the artificial glow, the moonlight wasn't shining down on them.

‘Dulcie, I don't think this is a good idea.' Josh put the box down and knelt beside her. ‘Please, let me call an ambulance.' She shook her head. There was too much she needed to sort through. ‘Is there anyone I can call for you then?'

Chris. She started to explain, when it hit her. ‘You said you and Mina were going to move in together, right?'

‘Yeah.' He nodded. ‘Still are, I hope. I wanted to start looking at apartments, you know, for the spring. But she said she had to clear something up first.'

‘I bet.' Dulcie felt the pieces falling into place. ‘So, Mina hadn't found out that you were related, like distant cousins or something?'

‘What? No.' He was definite about the negative now. ‘That's crazy. I don't even know much of my family history.'

‘You're not from some old Colonial family? Blakely?'

He was shaking his head again. ‘No, all my grandparents came over from Poland. On my dad's side, they changed it from Plakowicz. Thought it sounded more, I don't know. More American.'

‘Which Mina would know, if she were into genealogy and all.' Dulcie struggled to get to her feet.

‘I told you.' Josh stood and gave her his hand. ‘That was Emily's thing. Not Mina's. I mean, Emily was trying to help Mina out – she might even have found some evidence that Mina is related to
the woman she's studying. But Mina doesn't care about that stuff. Emily's the one who's descended from some big-deal British family. Coat of arms and everything.'

‘Coat of arms, huh?' Dulcie felt more like herself now, if not necessarily better, and when Josh lifted Tigger's box, she reached for it. Somehow hugging the kitten's carrier to her chest steadied her. She looked down through the ventilation holes. Two blue eyes stared back. ‘I must have been distracted.'

It wasn't until they were in the lobby of the police headquarters once again that Dulcie realized how she must look. The young man behind the counter did a double take and ran out to greet her.

‘Miss, please, sit down.' He tried to take the box from her, as he ushered her into a chair, but she held on. ‘I'm calling an ambulance.'

‘No, not yet,' said Dulcie. She'd made it this far. ‘But Detective Rogovoy – is he busy?'

‘Hang on.' The receptionist and Josh exchanged a glance, and then he ran back around his desk to his phone. ‘He'll be right out.'

‘I guess his interview never showed,' Dulcie said. Josh looked confused, and she realized she hadn't explained. Well, she was tired. Her head hurt. They could all hear it together.

Dulcie didn't know what the receptionist had said on the phone, but the way Rogovoy came lumbering out of the back offices made her worry for his heart.

‘I'm fine. Really,' she said. ‘I mean, I'll go get checked out after.'

‘After?' He was leaning over her, close enough that her eyes were starting to cross.

‘I figured it out,' she said. Inside his box, the kitten was pacing. Dulcie could feel his weight shift as he moved. ‘It was Emily. Emily Trainor all along.'

Rogovoy looked from her to Josh, who shrugged. Then they both turned back to her.

‘It was all in her approach. I tried to explain, Detective. I did. The clues were all there. You see, Emily kept trying to cast Mina as this strict post-structuralist, viewing everything in absolutes. But Mina had moved beyond that. I mean, she took all these political classes. Gone into history and lit. She was seeing everything in context. Almost new-historical, really. Emily thought she was losing her. I mean, she wasn't – not really.'

Dulcie paused, thinking of herself and Suze, friends forever. Her head was throbbing, though, and she needed to get this out. ‘Emily tried to win her back,' she said. ‘She was into genealogy and she'd dug up some wild history, tracking down one of Mina's ancestors and tying her into this woman Mina was studying. What she didn't expect to uncover was that her own family had crossed paths with Mina's a few hundred years ago, with unpleasant consequences. Mina didn't care – but Emily did.

‘What happened next was probably just really bad timing. Mina and Josh were planning on moving in together. Mina knew that Emily was fragile. She told Josh she had to clear something up before they started looking for a place. That ‘something' was breaking the news to Emily.

‘I think she told Emily, and Emily freaked. I think she attacked her. Wildly – like an animal. Like her great-great-great-whatever had done. And from that point on, Emily started to spiral out of control. She blamed Josh, of course. Tried to make out that he was the bad apple from a bad tree, and that she was the victim. That she was the one who had been attacked. That she was the one with the limp, even.' Dulcie shook her head. The dizziness was back, and she fought it off. She had more to say.

‘I don't understand it all, but I think it's got to do with guilt. Friendships can be difficult, and Emily – Emily was an absolutist. But there's a conflict – a conflict between the experience and the abstract. It's all in the theory, if you just look at it.' She closed her eyes, felt the kitten moving. There was more she had to say. ‘Oh, and Thorpe isn't a werewolf. At least, I don't think he is.'

‘We're taking you to the hospital,' said Rogovoy. It was the last thing she heard.

W
hite. The world was white, and too bright to bear. Dulcie flinched away from the painful light of the moon.

‘She's awake.' It was Chris, and she blinked open her eyes to see his sweet face, pale and worried, hovering above her. ‘Dulcie, you're awake.'

‘Of course I am.' Her head hurt and she was annoyed. And then, suddenly, concerned. ‘Where's the kitten?'

‘In the nurse's lounge.' A stranger appeared, with a small flashlight. ‘With some water and the insides of a tuna sandwich.' The light was small, but very bright. ‘Follow the light with your eyes, please.'

‘Do you have to shine it right in my eyes?' Dulcie protested, but let her eyes move back and forth anyway. The doctor clucked with what sounded like approval and withdrew. ‘Is Detective Rogovoy here?'

‘Of course.' The gruff voice announced the detective's presence, just outside her line of sight. ‘You weren't out long.'

‘I was out?' Dulcie tried to shake her head, but Chris's hand came up to her cheek. That was nicer.

‘You gave us all a scare.' He was smiling now. ‘I gather you kept refusing to go to health services.'

‘I had to talk to Rogovoy. I had to tell him about Emily.'

‘And give me a lecture on literary theory along the way.' The big face appeared over Chris's shoulder. ‘Don't worry. We sent a car for her. Didn't want you to be angry with me.'

‘I was. But not because …' It was all too confusing.

‘We had our suspicions,' he kept talking. ‘I was going to ask her about some coincidences. There were some reports that should have been red flags. A women's group had had its bulletin board vandalized. The other room-mate – the one who had been assigned to live with Mina and Emily freshman year? She had reported some threats. It was all coming together.'

Dulcie nodded, gingerly. ‘She faked her own attack, didn't she?' It was a pity. That first sound she'd heard, almost like a roar. Dulcie had wanted to believe that the kitten hadn't been abandoned in that alley, but had gone there to apprehend, to warn … No, it didn't bear thinking about.

‘We think so,' Rogovoy said. ‘The bruises on her neck could have been self-inflicted. Probably were, from what one of the shrinks here has been telling me. Also, that area was fairly heavily trafficked that night, and nobody saw anything. Maybe more to the point, nobody
heard
anything until after you'd found the kitten.'

‘So she wasn't hurt, she was hiding.' Dulcie paused. ‘Or waiting for someone.' If it weren't for the kitten … Maybe he had played a more benign role, keeping watch on Emily – and on Dulcie.

‘But why Professor Showalter? Or was that a random mugging.'

Rogovoy shook his head. ‘We've interviewed her. She described meeting a student who was a little too interested in some biographical papers she'd written about in some journal. That's what was in her bag when she was attacked. Copies of some old letters. Papers that I gather she was going to pass along to you.'

Of course. Dulcie had been telling the semi-conscious Mina about them. Emily had just been there. Dulcie thought of the dark curtains. Emily must have been lurking – and listening. Emily had thought Dulcie had the documents already. That was why she'd attacked her. Because even though Dulcie hadn't responded, Emily must have thought the professor had left a package for her at the hotel. And if Dulcie shared an interest with the professor – and with Mina – then she was another threat. Another interloper planning on coming between the two room-mates.