Jeffery Deaver - The Lesson of Her Death

Not if he was fired because he slept with a student then assaulted her when she threatened to report it.

The dean at Loyola College outside of Columbus, Ohio, took some convincing before he would tell Corde this and even then he did so only after he'd patched in the school's lawyer, on an extension, to tell the dean what questions to answer, which turned out to be all of them.

After he hung up Corde said to Ebbans, "The assault charges were dropped. Nothing ever came of them but Sayles agreed to resign. What do you think now?"

"I think there's something else." Ebbans pointed at the résumé. "Randy Sayles is the associate dean in charge of financial aid."

"Rings a bell."

"Jennie Gebben worked for him."

They were outside in the yard, lapped by bands of cool air then hot. As Corde and Diane sat pressed together on the picnic blanket, he remembered this phenomenon from his teenage days. They called it hotcolds. Waves of warm breeze alternating with waves of cold, drifting through fields around the New Lebanon High School at dusk. A schoolmate had an explanation: when a man and a woman did it, the air around them got real hot and stayed that way for hours; what the boys felt was proof that somewhere upwind a dozen girls had just gotten laid.

Corde and Diane had come outside to watch what was advertised as a meteorite shower. After the threatening photo he had made an extra effort to get home early and once there stay put for the evening. He'd noticed the story about the meteorites and, after Sarah and Jamie were in bed, asked his surprised wife if she'd like to have a date in the backyard. Diane had spread the blanket down and with half a bottle of wine beside them they sat close together, fingers twined, listening to crickets and owls and feeling the hotcolds wash over them.

The sky was clear and dominated by the near-full moon. They'd seen only one meteorite in fifteen minutes, though it had been spectacular – a long pure white streak covering half the sky. The afterimage remained in their vision long after the burning rock disintegrated.

"Do you wish on 'em?" Diane asked.

"I think you can. I don't know."

"I don't know what to wish for."

"If you decide," Corde said, "don't say it out loud. Meteors're probably like birthday candles and wishbones."

She kissed him, gripping his lip with her teeth. They lay on the dew-moist blanket, kissing hard, sometimes brutally, for almost five minutes. His hand slipped up under her sweater and into her bra. He felt her stiffen as her nipple went instantly hard.

"Passion," he whispered, grinning.

"Cold," she said, exhaling a laugh. "I know a place where it's warmer."

"So do I." His hand started toward her jeans.

Diane grabbed it with both of hers. "Follow me." She stood up and pulled him towards the house.

"Does this have anything to do with your wish?" he asked.

They lay in the same pose as in the yard. Now though they were naked and atop a hex-pattern quilt Diane's mother had begun the year of the Iran embassy takeover and finished the year of the Challenger explosion. The three-way light was on dim and Corde had licked off the last bit of her lipstick. He rolled her over on her back.

"Wait a minute," she said, bounding up. "Let me put it in."

The promised minute passed. Then several others. He heard running water. He heard a toothbrush. He rolled over on his back, gripping himself and squeezing to keep hard.

He heard the toilet flush. He squeezed harder.

He heard the medicine cabinet opening and closing. He stopped squeezing; he was firm as a teenager.

For about ten seconds.

" Ohhhh, Bill …"

The heartsick cry, the alto moan of Diane's voice, was pitiful. A scream would have been less harrowing. Corde was on his feet and running into the bathroom, thinking only when he arrived that he should have taken the time to unlock the bedside table and pull his pistol from the drawer.

The blue diaphragm case lay at her feet. The rubber disk itself rested like a pale yellow blister on the sink.

Diane was sobbing, her arms around herself, covering her nakedness even from her husband.

Bill saw a small white square on the floor at her feet. He picked it up while Diane pulled her red terrycloth bathrobe off the back of the door and slipped it on, tying the belt tightly around her. "It was inside," she whispered, spinning a stream of toilet paper off the roll and using it to pick up the diaphragm. She carried it like a crushed wasp to the wastebasket and dropped it in. She did the same with the plastic case, then began scrubbing her hands with soap and hot water.

This Polaroid had been taken at the same time as the one left on the back steps. The scene was of Sarah, or whoever the girl might be, lying in the grass, her skirt still up to her waist The angle was about the same, so was the lighting. There were in fact only two differences. The photographer was now much near – only several feet from the girl.

And the message in red marker on the back was different. It said: GETTING CLOSER

Corde unlocked the gun rack and lifted out his long, battered Remington. He slipped three shells into the tube and from a desk drawer took a cylindrical chrome lock. He separated it and fitted the two parts on either side of the trigger guard. He squeezed them together with a soft ratchety sound. He put one key on his keychain and carried the other key and the gun itself into the living room, where Diane sat staring at the floor. Her mouth was a thin line.

"How is he doing this?" Diane's voice broke in frustration.

"I don't know, honey."

"How does he get past the deputy?"

"I think he might've left that note the same time he left the other one. He's probably long gone by now."

" Might've… probably … Doesn't anybody know anything about this man?"

Corde kneaded the key absently. No, we don't. We don't know a damn thing at all.

After a moment he said, "I'll talk to Tom tomorrow. Have him make trips around the house and into the woods."

Corde set the gun in the corner. "I didn't chamber a round. You'll have to pump it once. The safety's off. Just pump and pull. You know how to do it. Aim low." He handed her the key and she stood up and put it in her purse. She seemed calmer now, seeing the gun, having some control.

"Wait a minute," Corde said. He took the key out of her bag and walked into their bedroom. He returned a moment later with a thick golden necklace. He slipped the key over the end and then clasped it behind her neck. He kissed her on the forehead.

She said, "This's the chain you gave me when you gave me your class ring."

"Figured that was the right length to let everybody know to keep their hands off." The key rested at the shadow of her cleavage.

She smiled and hugged him and cried some more.

Corde said, "It's plate, you know. The chain."

"Isn't a girl alive can't recognize plate from solid. But it was the ring I was most interested in."

Corde held her face. "We're going to get through this just fine. Nothing's going to happen to you or the kids. He's just doing this to rattle me. I promise."

Diane dried her eyes and walked toward the bedroom. She said, "God give me strength."

At first no one in town paid much attention; it was mostly little things. Like when the Register came out, more people than usual bought it. And what they turned to first was the almanac page, which showed the phases of the moon for the next thirty days.

Sales of shotgun shells and rifle ammunition were running twice what they usually did this time of year (being nowhere close to season yet). The sporting goods section of Sears, which normally sold tons of Ted Williams baseball gear this month, was doing most of its dollar volume in low-cost.22s,.30-'06s, and even Grossman CO, air pistols.