Jo Robertson - The Avenger

Slater lifted his brows. "Yeah, that’ll work."

"I'm sure she can be persuaded." As Olivia made her way to the door, Jack closed his briefcase, and followed her.

"There's more," Slater said to their backs. "Earlier this year, the Maidu City PD contacted me about someone targeting young prostitutes in that area."

Jack turned back. "Maidu?"

"College town near San Francisco. Anyway, they initially thought the women were being attacked by college frat boys as part of an initiation prank, but had no physical evidence."

"But Mrs. Vargas implicated her husband in the attacks," Jack guessed, seeing where Slater was going.

"Magdalena might not be a reliable source, but Isabella believes her." Slater ran a large hand over his shadowed jaw. "The fact is that three prostitutes were raped and brutally beaten, and although they're looking at a serial rapist, I thought of your boy."

Jack shook his head. "Not likely."

Slater glanced at Olivia before continuing. "All three girls were beaten pretty bad after the attacks. They survived, but one won't walk again, another's in a coma, and one lost her sight."

"My UNSUB didn't rape any of his victims and he wasn't gender specific. One of the victims was a man. Plus, he keeps a low profile. I doubt your Diego Vargas is my suspect."

"At least one weapon in the rape beatings was the metal end of a golf club," Slater pressed.

Olivia stepped around Jack toward Slater, understanding on her face. "You think there's a connection to my student Keisha."

Jack doubted multiple assaults on hookers were related to his Dead Language Killer, but he could follow the lead while the deputies did the knock and talks. "How far away is this Maidu?"

"Not far, about a three-hour drive."

A day, he thought, that's all it'd take to check it out. And two of his victims had been beaten to death by some kind of club. He studied Olivia's face for a moment. She would want to come along, he guessed, determined as she was to find her student's killer. "We could make a day trip," he offered, clearly addressing her. "Might be worth the trip."

Slater frowned, but remained silent.

Olivia looked surprised. "Maybe."

Suddenly the day seemed a little brighter and Jack refused to wonder why.

Before going home, Olivia swung by the university to pick up a set of essays. The campus was quiet and the quad lights cast dim shadows as a few students hurried home from late classes. Crossing the campus to the faculty parking lot, Olivia pressed the remote unlock button on her car, preoccupied with Jack's strange suggestion that they travel to Maidu together.

The faint sound of footsteps startled her and she whirled around, bumping against the car door. Ted Burrows loomed behind her. "Ted, what are you doing here so late?" she blurted out.

"I could ask the same thing of you, Teach."

"Excuse me?" Olivia frequently found Ted amusing, sometimes irritating, but never threatening. Now she wondered if she'd underestimated the graduate student.

"Sorry, didn't mean to surprise you. I stayed to finish up some research for Randy's class."

She eyed him thoughtfully. She didn't think Howard Randolph would appreciate Ted's use of the disrespectful nickname. Randy, indeed. Somehow Ted managed to infuse the name with a tone more snide than affectionate, toying with a double entendre that might be deliberate.

Ted watched her slid into her car. "I'll wait until you leave," he offered with a smirk. "Wouldn't want anything to happen to you."

His tone made her feel uneasy. Ted had a reputation as a player. Every week a different pretty girl trailed after him. Olivia wondered if he'd ever crossed any lines in the teacher-student relationship. Close to a doctoral degree in Ancient Studies, Burrows was taking longer than most graduate students to finish, evidently liking his play-as-you-go plan.

Even though he was handsome in a bad boy sort of way, she wondered how he attracted so many different girls. She almost laughed. That was a no-brainer. They were freshmen and sophomores, after all, and the sense of danger probably titillated them.

"Oh, wait." Ted pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Someone called while you were out."

"You were in my office?"

"It's Randy's too, isn't it?" He thrust a pink message paper in her hand and hurried off.

Frowning, Olivia locked the doors, and pulled out of the parking lot onto Newcastle Road, then headed west on Highway 50 toward her house in Willow Park, an upscale Sacramento neighborhood near the zoo. Clearly she needed to set some boundaries for the young, flippant grad student. Although he might be annoying, she was sure he was completely harmless.

As she pressed down on the gas pedal, her car surged ahead on the nearly empty highway. At the first opportunity she read the message by the glow of the dashboard light.

Pick you up at 8:00 a.m. Jack.

Her heart fluttered in the region of her stomach and she forgot about reprimanding Ted Burrows. If he hadn't snooped around her office, she wouldn't have gotten the message. Feeling like a schoolgirl, she turned up the car radio and tapped her fingers to the music.

A discreet knock drew the Judge’s attention from the files spread on his desk.

"Yeah?"Myron Higgins’ voice sounded through the door. "Dr. Davis is here, sir."

The Judge glanced at the wall clock. Where had the time gone? He'd been ruminating like an old fart who didn’t have better things to do than think about past triumphs and failures. He wasn’t sure which category Jackson Holt fell into. He drummed his fingers on the desktop, wondering why the hell life couldn’t be simpler. He’d brought the boy in, trained him, and discovered how unique he was. Now it looked like something was messing Jack up, and things were getting out of hand.

The knock at the door sounded firmer.

"All right, all right," he grumbled. "Give me five minutes and send him in."

He gathered the files and stacked them neatly in one pile, thought better of it and scooped them into the bottom desk drawer. The office door swung open as he rose to greet Dr. Spencer Davis, research scientist and practitioner for the Invictus’ drug program.

A lanky, boneless man in his early fifties, Davis towered over the Judge. He extended his hand and gave a cordial shake, then sat in the chair opposite Warren’s desk. Davis crossed his legs at the knee and jiggled his foot as his eyes jumped around the room, lingering here and there, but avoiding Warren’s gaze. The Judge realized this was the first time the doctor had been in his office. Usually, their meetings took place in laboratories or medical facilities, where the doctor displayed the confidence of a man at home in his own element.

"Good of you to come, Doctor."

"Sure, sure." Davis rubbed his chin and then pushed his glasses up on his nose. "I’m not sure why you wanted to see me. Has anything gone wrong in the field?"

"Why would you think that?"

"Just wondered." Clearing his throat, he hurried on, "You've never asked me here before."

The Judge leaned back in his chair. "You’re right. We have a problem with Jackson Holt."

"Agent Thirteen? Oh, sure, how’s the new medication working on him? We tweaked his meds several missions ago." He opened his PDA and worked the screen. "The benzoids – they're the white ones that bring him down during Recovery – are up to 50 mg, the lysergic – the reds – to 150 micrograms."

"A hundred fifty? Won’t that fry his brain?"

Davis frowned and looked up, as if the fact they’d been experimenting on a human being had never crossed his mind. "It’s a heavy dosage, but we sent him the Phenobarbital compound."

"You're sure the Phens will counteract the aggression side effects?"