The Mistress - an Erotic Noir Novel (15 page)

Arriving there it wasn’t Allan that answered the door but
his roommate, another buff man with dark hair, though not nearly so
tall or attractive. With a cheesy grin he looked her over then jerked
a thumb over his shoulder. “He’s still asleep,” he
said, and she could see her sometimes-lover sprawled face down upon
the too-small bed.

“Of course,” she sighed as she brushed past the other
man. Even with her newfound bravado, her fingertips were light as
they prodded Allan’s shoulder, her voice whispered in his ear.
“Hey honey, get up.”

The other man left the two of them alone, shutting the door behind
him. Despite his seeming deep sleep, it didn’t take much to
wake the large man. His head lifted and he gave her a sleepy smile,
“Teach,” he said and reached out to put an arm around her
and tug her in, “am I dreamin’?”

She kissed his cheek gingerly before she was pulled towards his
large body and she felt that unmistakable urge to forget her troubles
in his arms, but instead she pushed away. “Oh babe, if it was a
dream, I’m sure I’d be naked,” she teased. “C’mon,
Teach needs your help with something today.”

The affable, large man couldn’t argue with that logic,
“That’s true,” he said and kissed her back on the
cheek as he rose up. Say what she will about the fellow, he always
followed her instructions to the best of his abilities. “What
do you need, Teach?” he asked as he stood up, only removing his
arm from her to stretch out his thick muscles.

“I need you to make sure I don’t get hurt,” she
smiled brightly, her small nose nuzzling along his jaw, unable to
fully keep her desirous self in check around the handsome man.
Especially not in his bed. “There’s been some crazy stuff
going on lately, and a friend of mine’s in jail for murder,
and,” she smirked a bit, assuming he would find it amusing,
“one of the other professors might have framed him.”

All amorous and touchy-feely up to that point, the large man
lifted a hand, brushing his hair from his forehead and staring down
at her with sleepy, blinking wide eyes. It was a lot for the man to
absorb.

“Alright,” or maybe not, he gave her a final kiss on
the forehead and squeezed her in his arm. “Point me in the
right direction, Teach. You know I’ve got you covered,”
he said with simple certainty that confirmed his dedication.

She laughed, finally pulling herself away, her entire body heated
and warm from his masculine presence. He did something to her that so
few could, and it took her a while to battle that feeling away. “I
just need you to come with me back to my apartment. I need to check
something and then we’ll go from there.”

Nodding to her he pushed around her and opened the door. Though
the gentlemanly thing would’ve been to let her out first,
instead he went out and—with broad shoulders back and looking
like he was about to tackle someone—inspected both directions
of the hallway then stood aside to let her out.

She was amused by his overprotectiveness and she stayed close near
him, treating him like a bodyguard. “I’m sure it’s
not that dangerous, Allan,” she teased on the way back. When
they finally arrived to her front door, however, she was grateful for
him taking it so seriously as her nerves frayed.

Despite her amused words, Allen never let down his guard the
entire way back. Even at her place he insisted on going first, taking
the protective duties more seriously than he ever took the schoolwork
she tutored him in.

On their way up the stairs to her apartment the little old lady
who owned the home made a rare appearance. “There you are,”
she said in her weak voice, her poor eyes travelling to Allen. “And
you!” she said feebly. “Young lady, you cannot have your
suitors making such a fuss here at all hours of the night!” she
chided Eva. “It is just not appropriate in any regard! What
would your parents say if they knew this gentleman was pounding on
the door at all hours of the night?”

For his part, Allen looked confused.

“Mrs. Philmore, this is my friend Allan. He wasn’t
here last night... and neither was I. I stayed the night at a
girlfriend’s house. Who was here? When? What did they say?”

Eva’s heart pounded in her chest, thankful for Max’s
advice and yet, at the same time, terrified that she had missed
something important. Maybe Sinclair was out and he needed her.

The little old lady began to shuffle off, “How should I
know?” she said, the rest of her words muttered and weak,
indecipherable. Knowing the old lady there wouldn’t be anything
more to get out of her like that.

Allan merely looked to her from the stairs and shrugged his
heavyset shoulders. “Should’ve come got me sooner,”
he said simply before pushing up ahead to her room faster, obviously
his worries enflamed by the strange news.

Arriving up there beside him, she saw nothing out of order, but as
Allan was moving about and inspecting her surroundings something
caught her eye. A small bottle like the one Turing had, filled with
the amber fluid he’d injected her with. This one, however, was
near empty, with but a bit of the concoction left inside it.

She picked up a handkerchief, grabbing the bottle with wide fear
in her eyes, though she had no idea what it could mean. “Someone
was here,” she murmured, her heart thudding more powerfully in
her chest. “I... Allan—” her panic gave way to a
thought. It seemed so convenient that Turing, such a dextrous man,
would drop something so obviously incriminating—the bottle even
having his designation upon it—in her home after a late night
visit.

Licking over her lips, she took in a breath, “I need to use
the phone,” she murmured, rushing down to it and dialing the
familiar number of her friend, Martin Hale.

The dorm where Martin lived, of course, had a general phone for
all available, and when she got an unknown voice on the other end, he
informed her that he didn’t know if Martin was in or if he’d
be back shortly.

Groaning at their ineptitude, she quickly shrugged her coat back
on. “Incompetence,” she scowled as she headed out towards
Martin’s dorm. “It’s just plain lazy that he
couldn’t check.”

Quick to take the lead again, Allan—still dressed in a pair
of simple brown pants and an overly tight t-shirt—went ahead
and began to head through the snowy outdoors towards the other man’s
dorm. Allan, of course, knew Martin, though not closely. “So
Martin knows what’s up with that thing you found?” he
asked, looking back to her, referring to the bottle she discovered.

“Martin doesn’t have a clue about most of what’s
going on,” she rolled her eyes, her face flushing with a bit of
anger at his well-meaning chiding the day prior. “I just need
to see something of his,” she murmured almost inaudibly as they
arrived, making the familiar way towards his room.

Arriving there she found the door closed and locked. She got no
answer from inside with her knocks, the meek man seemingly not there.
Allan, however, stepped up and gently brushed her aside, “Let
me, Teach. This is important,” he said, looking up and down the
hallway, checking something.

She stepped away, fright causing her pulse to quicken, “Just...
be quiet,” she murmured, trying to keep watch for the apt man.

She had to give him credit, for the task he was engaged in—busting
down a door in an occupied dormitory—he was relatively quiet
about it. As he put his shoulder into the hard wood, it gave way with
but a single loud thud. Allan righted himself, looking no worse for
wear despite having broken the lock on the door beyond repair. “There
ya go, Teach,” he said as if nothing out of the ordinary had
occurred.

“That’s... going to be hard to explain,” she
said as she walked past the man, her eyes quickly going to the desks
and tabletops she could see, searching for that invitation for the
dinner two nights prior. She still had Sylvia’s letter in her
coat pocket, and she was beginning to suspect that there was
something more to it.

Martin was, among other things, an immaculately neat individual.
His desk so well ordered it didn’t take her long to sort
through such personal papers. She did not, however, come upon an
invitation as she thought. Instead what she found was something far
more eye-opening.

Amongst Martin’s things in his desk, she found a letter. A
letter to Sylvia Sinclair with no return address, already opened.

Her fingers were quick as she opened it, brows furrowed deeply and
all but ignoring Allan as she read the contents.

‘Mrs. Sinclair,

Your husband is having an affair with one of his students. You’ve
ignored my past letters, but this time I can give you advanced
warning so that you may see for yourself the evidence.

This coming Friday, during your very dinner party it seems, he
intends to rendezvous with her on your premises. I urge you to see
for yourself and put a stop to this before it is exposed and shames
you publicly.’

The letter was postmarked, with no return. It was mailed and
clearly arrived at Sylvia’s at some point. The handwriting was
eerily familiar.

Her hand trembled as she re-read the letter, leaving Allan out of
the loop as she pushed through the papers, looking for samples of his
own writing.

It wasn’t hard to find that, the man having a large
assortment of writing, letters and papers in his desk. She found no
other personal correspondence of interest, however one thing became
unmistakably clear; the handwriting on the letter to Sylvia Sinclair
was indeed his.

Her eyes stung and watered at his betrayal, but she pocketed the
letter quickly, “You’ll regret that, Martin.” She
took another look through for the invitation for the party, trying to
find a sample of Sylvia’s handwriting.

There was nothing, no such invitation existed amongst the
collection of letters from his parents and grandparents. If such an
invitation existed, it wasn’t there amongst his meticulously
assorted collection that included every bit of mundane correspondence
imaginable.

She looked up at Allan, trying to think things through before she
shook her head, “We’re going to Sinclair’s place.
We need to be discrete about it,” she pocketed the envelope and
the letter, moving to the door. “He should really get his lock
fixed,” she said bitterly.

Allan paid no heed to the destruction of Martin’s door that
they left behind, leading the way as he went off. “What are we
lookin’ for there, Teach?” he asked, sounding more
interested in knowing if he should expect trouble than anything else.

“Letters,” she answered as they hailed their cab, “but
I don’t know who else might be there, so... we need to be
careful. Hopefully the detective will be around.”

When the two of them arrived she saw no sign of the detectives cab
outside the manor, though reaching the door she found it quite
unlocked, the door in fact, slightly ajar. This put Allan on edge and
the large man put an arm in front of her as he tried to peer inside.
“Maybe you should wait out here,” he cautioned quietly in
his deep voice.

“I’m not going to leave you alone to these animals,”
she hissed as she stayed close behind him. “Just be quiet, and
don’t start anything if you don’t have to. Pin them to
the ground if you must,” she said, and there was a hint of
inappropriate interest piqued at the end before she returned to her
steely gaze, “I need to get up the stairs into the study.”

The two made their way up the stairs and she found the door to the
deceased woman’s office wide open. Perhaps it had been left
that way from when she and Max had departed yesterday, but her
caution was leading her to be suspicious and she felt like they
weren’t alone.

She tried to remain quiet, her footsteps so soft as she moved to
the woman’s desk. She didn’t even instruct Allan to be
vigilant, trusting entirely that he would be as she tried to grab
some of her correspondence.

The correspondence was obviously picked through. Max had gone
through it just yesterday of course, but what remained was tedious
and uninteresting except for a pair of letters from a distraught
young woman about a professor having abused his authority and used
her. It was light on details, but the young Ms. Cynthia L, as she
signed her letters, must have been the one who tipped Sylvia off to
Turing’s abuses, she realized.

She wasn’t sure how she felt, knowing that Sylvia had been
the one to write the letter to Turing. With the possibly planted
vial, she felt almost certain that it had all been an elaborate ruse,
yet under the surface something bubbled her blood. The letter from
Cynthia was there, corroborating her own evidence, yet Max hadn’t
taken that. Her lip trembled as she looked it over, thinking back to
what he had said about it being inadmissible. Yet here was evidence
that he had that pointed to Sylvia’s own awareness of Turing’s
misdeeds.

Her prior violation hit her in the gut and made it seem more
personal as she folded the letter. Why would Cynthia go to Mrs.
Sinclair of all people?

She was so lost in her complicated thoughts that she heard nothing
before Allan said, “Did you hear that, Teach?” his voice
softer than she’d known it to ever be. “I think there’s
someone here,” he said, moving back out into the hallway.

Eva glanced behind him, pocketing the letter and turning. “Be
careful,” she pleaded as she moved towards him, her breath
held. “We should leave, Allan.”

Nodding to her they exited out into the upstairs hallway again,
and both their eyes were drawn towards the open door at the end of
the hall. It hadn’t been like that when they first arrived. She
could swear it.

“I’m scared,” she admitted to him as she made
her way towards the stairs, desperately reminding herself to avoid
the weak, old spots in the boards. She remembered all too well how
poorly her stealth had been at the party, and it was causing her
stomach to churn.