by Emma Accola
“How did you know?” he asked sharply.
“With the day I just had, it made sense. What did you find out?”
“I went to the campus daycare center like you asked me to.” Micah’s eyes were glacial with fury. “Mariah Park didn’t show up for her scheduled hours either yesterday or today. There are pictures everywhere of her with the children. She might not have been a ball of fire in your class, but she was great with kids.”
“No one thought to find out where she was?”
“We have one of her co-workers to thank for that. She’s been lying to the director by telling her that Mariah had called in sick yesterday and today. Apparently this co-worker and Mariah had an agreement to cover for each other in case one of them overslept or ditched work.” Micah shook his head. “Right then I stopped being a dean and went into full-on investigator mode. I caught the co-worker up in her own lies and she crumbled. No one at the day care has heard from Mariah since the day before yesterday. The director gave me the name of Mariah’s roommate, but so far she hasn’t answered my voicemail or email messages. I’m sending Ray Biles to the dorm tomorrow unless I hear from Mariah first. Now I have to wonder if the roommate is safe.”
I swore, suddenly frightened for Mariah Park and her roommate. “Maybe the two of them have gone off with some of their friends.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do. The roommate is probably all right, but Mariah Park was one of the three that Harry Spice added to your class, so if she’s gone, it’s not because she felt a sudden compulsion to go to LA.” Micah stopped in front of the fireplace and drummed his fingers on the mantel. “Mariah Park loved her job. According to the daycare center director, she had a great attitude and had never before ditched work. Something is going on and we both know who’s responsible.”
As I thought of Mariah Park and Lucie Eagan, my thoughts fluttered around, desperate to find hope. Maybe the pair was alive someplace, held as Harry Spice’s captives. That had happened to other young women, locked up for weeks, months, or years, caged and chained. Rationality warred with fear and doubt. After all, Mariah wasn’t confirmed missing. Maybe she had gone to LA. That wasn’t out of the question, not yet, anyhow.
“Did you get called into the vice president’s office?” I asked abruptly.
“Seriously? Another of your students has disappeared, and you want to talk about Chairman Mao?”
My tone became insistent. “Did you hear from Chairman Mao?”
Micah paused as if to argue before he relented. “I saw her this morning. Today her main interest seemed to be the nature of my relationship with you. When I told her that we were merely friends, she produced a series of photographs someone had slipped under her office door, five in all, showing me and you entering each other’s homes after dark. One is of us standing pressed up together in the entry of my home. Another has you bringing over a bottle of wine. Whoever sent her those pictures added a note alleging that my marriage and your engagement broke up because of our long and enduring affair.”
I fought the urge to throw something. Earlier today I had told the dean that my engagement had broken up do to my fiancé’s infidelity. Now I appeared to be the liar and cheater. Here was yet another discrepancy for administration to add to its list. “Who’s taking these pictures?”
“There must have been a camera set up in the carport across from our front doors, but it’s gone now. I checked.” Micah shook his head as he paced. “Harry Spice is really out to bury us. He will torture us and love every minute of it.”
That brought me no comfort. “What did you tell the VP?”
“Since I opened by telling her that we were just friends and neighbors, she naturally thinks I’m a liar. She made a lot of insinuations about the attractions of a beautiful woman and the dangers of a workplace romance. Now that those students I fired are complaining, she hinted that you were beguiling me and impairing my judgment. She implied that I’m naïve and need to make better choices.”
My eyebrows rose at this. “Naïve? You?”
“Yes, me.”
“So I’m some kind of scarlet woman? I’m insulted.”
“You’re insulted? She talked to me like I was twelve years old and she was warning me about the dangers of smoking.”
“That was patronizing of her,” I said, thinking of my own conversation with the dean. I needed a long pause before going on. “And you weren’t the only one on campus who was summoned into a meeting today. I met with the Dean of English.”
“I hope you didn’t get treated like a naïve child.”
Anxiety choked my voice until it cracked. “No. Worse. Much worse.”
“Worse for you how?” Micah asked, deadly serious.
“Apparently Loren Hernandez’s mother found a form in his printer tray that he had allegedly filled out accusing me of sexually harassing him. She turned it over to the police. A reporter from the school paper told me all about it when she came to my office for comment.”
Micah stared at me for a moment. His eyes narrowed. “There’s no way to prove that he’s the one who created that form.”
“Of course not, but once that rumor is out there, will people be able to forget they heard it? And this is another strike against my credibility and it gives me motive.”
“Be reasonable. An unsigned form that anybody could have made is a pretty weak motivation for murder.”
But I wasn’t in the mood for being reasonable. My mind hummed along, trying to discern how he would react when he heard the rest. What if he meant to make his lifelong career at Bailey College? He’d be a fool to come anywhere near me once he learned how compromised my reputation was.
Micah had become very still, looking at me as if he’d never seen me before. “What else?”
“When the college was accepting applications for my position, someone hacked the HR computers and deleted the applications of those who were equally or more qualified for my job than I am. IT can’t figure out how that happened, so naturally the blame falls on me because I’m the one who benefited.” I paused to swallow the hard lump in my throat. “And that’s not all. I’ve also been accused of plagiarizing my dissertation. Someone sent my dean a marked-up copy showing the passages I supposedly plagiarized.”
Time stopped as Micah gaped at me, so incredulous that his mind seemed unable to process my words. I hugged myself because I couldn’t think of any compelling reason for this gorgeous, unimaginable man to find a reason to stay in my life. Once these rumors got out, and they would, the scandal would taint him unless he disavowed me now. Micah had shown himself to be smart, ruthless, and ambitious, not the sort of man likely to throw away his career on a woman as flattened by hateful misfortune as I was. A smart man would cut and run, and Micah was smart. I shot him a glance, trying to read his thoughts. His concentrated, intense expression made me uneasy.
“That bastard Harry Spice,” Micah said, his voice hoarse with fury. “He must have been monitoring your email. When he saw that you had applied to Bailey College, he hacked the HR computers to make sure you got hired. He knew that eventually the candidates who didn’t get interviews would start asking questions. And since he’s got a doctorate, he knew how an accusation of plagiarism would undermine you. When you met with your dean today, did you tell him about Harry Spice?”
“When I tried to, he insinuated that I have a vendetta against Harry Spice and lied on the witness stand. Ray Biles put that idea in his head because apparently Harry Spice took a lie detector test and passed it with flying colors. Assuming you believe those tests are accurate, you must be happy.”
“Nothing about that case ever made me happy except for the fact that I met you.”
I did find some comfort in those words. “I must hold the English Department record for the number of accusations made against any one person during a single semester. I have murder, sexual harassment, plagiarism, and manipulating a hiring committee. I feel like a little mouse being chased by four starving cats.”
>
Micah didn’t appear to be listening. He was glaring at the floor, a long, unfathomable look, like a tiger ready to pounce.
“What are you thinking?” I asked. If he was considering abandoning me, let him tell me now.
Several emotions were crossing Micah’s face in rapid succession. “When Gary told me he’d gotten a year-long sabbatical, I remember being surprised because he’s close to retirement and he has a rather obscure area of study. Apparently his sabbatical was endowed by the college’s charitable foundation.”
The realization of what Micah was saying made my knees weak. “Harry Spice could have subsidized the endowment.”
“It makes sense. If his plan was to get you and me at the same college, he would need to create a vacancy in the English Department. I’m going to make some calls and see what I can find out about Gary’s sabbatical.”
“Don’t.”
Micah’s blue eyes were wide and startled. “Why not?”
“This is my grave. Don’t climb into it with me.”
Micah’s gaze sharpened. “I’m not going to let him get by with this.”
My voice was a broken whisper. “It’s too late. You can’t help. Don’t do anything on my behalf. There’s no reason for you to put your career on the line for me. A smart man would run.”
The enormity of it all threatened to press the breath out of my body. My dignity lay splayed on the ground like an old drunk, not dead but no longer upright. I never liked being a victim. Maybe panicking right now was what I needed to do, except that had never been my way to be in this world. I sat down and drew upon the cold logic that would cool my feverish brain.
Micah had been watching my every movement, strangely somber. “Beautiful Gracie, you know I can’t stand aside and let this happen. The cruelty he’s inflicting on you is meant to tear me up too. He knows I care about you. That’s why he put us together. If there’s a grave, we’re already in it together.”
My voice rose as my whole body shivered. “If it’s true that Harry Spice got me my job, then it’s also true that everything about my life these past months is a farce. I’m an actor in a play that he’s written on a stage that he’s set. I took a job from others who paid their dues and were more deserving. I have a free place to stay that should have gone to someone else. And he’s shoved me into your arms.”
Micah became very still. “No. I drew you into my arms.”
“It’s not real—”
“It’s not all a farce,” Micah snapped. “Not the part about us. Harry Spice knew it too. I tried to hide it, but somehow the weasel figured it out. I thought that staying away from you would keep you safe, but he made sure we would be together. He put the pieces on the board and we’re playing.”
“Then we’ll stop the game.” I could hardly breathe. “I care about you. Save yourself and stay away from me.”
“I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“That night on campus, when I tried to trick you, I was jealous of the drinking straw because it was touching your mouth and the chair you sat upon because I wanted you in my lap. When you took my hand and asked me how hard it was to take off my wedding ring, I thought you had looked straight into my soul. Those few minutes with you woke up feelings I hadn’t experienced in years. Whatever happens here, I’m going through it with you and Harry Spice be damned.”
I shook my head. “I’m not letting you ruin your reputation on campus.”
Micah’s temper flared. “What is this? High school? We’re going to let gossip dictate what we do?”
“That’s not what I meant. I just don’t want you to get too close to the fire.”
“Let me worry about that. I’m more worried about you.”
Something in the way he said it troubled me. “Why is that?”
Micah fixed me with hard eyes. “Because I suspect he had help from someone close to you. Someone is helping him put you in danger. Who out there wants to hurt you that isn’t Harry Spice?”
“No one,” I cried.
“You fell out with your family.”
“They wouldn’t do that to me.”
“We agreed not to lie to each other.”
“I’m not.”
Micah didn’t even pretend to believe me. He gave me a cool kiss on the cheek and left. I didn’t try to talk him into staying. All I wanted at that moment was a hot bath to lie in and a glass of my family’s wine to smooth down the rough edges of the day.
*
Being on campus had become a grinding agony. Whenever one of my colleagues looked in my direction, I wondered whether he or she knew about all the charges that were piling up against me like wind-driven snow. I swore that Ray Biles’s pointed gaze followed me across the parking lot, as if he were afraid I might mow down more students with Caleb’s fine Lexus. Fearing what Harry Spice might do to me next and acting like I didn’t care wore on me as relentlessly as a cold Pacific breeze. Every last bit of emotional energy I had went into teaching my classes and grading essays. Even stopping to pick up groceries seemed like an insurmountable task requiring too much decision making and thought.
Further eating at my soul was that Micah didn’t come to my door or text me. The light from his windows shone into Gary’s patio like moonlight, silvery, faraway, and untouchable. His words about someone close to me giving Harry Spice information were rattling pebbles of suspicion that created doubt. Doubt made me unsure, and I never liked being unsure. Just entertaining questions about my family’s loyalty shook all my belief systems. My parents had always preached how family was the foundation of everything that mattered in this world. That loyalty had been breached between Faith and me with the fake video, but I was sure that same loyalty would bring me back into the fold once I could prove my innocence. They would have me back then. I knew they would. All that was wrong with that thin slice of world would be made right.
Two long anxious days passed before Micah knocked on the front door of Gary’s townhouse, waking me from a fitful nap in one of the recliners. Without a word, I let him in. I’d been drinking too much of my family’s wine in the hopes that the familiar grapes would calm my troubled soul, but it had only made my head feel thick and slow. Slightly drunk and contrary, I didn’t offer him any wine, not after he had made me doubt my family. He would have to ask. But he didn’t. He went straight into the kitchen, and without a word, poured himself some of my wine.
“I came to talk about the last time we were together,” he said, his voice gruff.
I just knew that he had come to his senses and was here to cut me loose, so I didn’t reply.
Micah kept his eyes on the bottle as he spoke. “I was a little hard on you when I asked you who in your family might be talking to Harry Spice. It was wrong of me to keep pushing when you said that no one in your family would be helping Harry Spice. I know what it’s like to fall out with family. Given the way Caleb and I parted, I am in no position to judge you.”
A few moments passed before I processed what Micah said. This wasn’t the conversation that I had expected. I thought he had come to tell me that while I was a nice girl, workplace relationships were a bad idea, and it was best that we only see each other professionally. “It’s all right.”
Micah blew out a long, slow breath. “It’s not. I think I’m overly suspicious.”
“Overly suspicious of what?”
“Of family. On the day Caleb died, he had used my credit card and driver’s license to rent a car, the very one he ended up dying in. We looked enough alike that no one at the rental agency ever questioned the picture on the license.” Micah paused, his mouth a hard line. “There was hell to pay when the car was totaled and I couldn’t explain how my credit card and driver’s license had been used.”
I laid my hand on his. “I’m sorry.”
Micah’s expression became searching and wounded. “I’ve lain awake nights wondering why. It wasn’t about money. Caleb didn’t have any need to steal from me. And he wouldn’t randomly have tricked me
like that. That wasn’t who he was.”
But he had. I didn’t answer Micah’s last statement, because under his pretty skin, he clearly was in a tumult. He seemed young, vulnerable, lost in thought. To me it was clear that Caleb had been afraid of something, but I didn’t say that to Micah. With both his parents and his brother dead, I couldn’t fathom the depth of his grief. Maybe my family was lost to me, but at least I had the comfort of knowing they were alive and well.
He exhaled again, another long, slow movement. “Standing there in the morgue looking at his still and battered face was literally the worst moment of my life. My parents’ deaths I had seen coming a little at a time, like a fog rising. Caleb’s passing staggered me like a baseball right between the eyes. I had expected us to move through the phases of our lives together. Aren’t siblings supposed to watch each other’s hair turn gray and see each other’s children grow up? We even made this silly promise that we’d each have two sons so we would have four boys who looked just like us.”
Four sons, I thought.
“My ex-wife and Caleb never really liked each other. After he passed, she said I wore my sadness like a cheap sports jacket, as if I was looking for pity.”
“You’re living in his house,” I said, a statement of fact wrapped around a question.
Micah grabbed the lapel of his suit jacket. “This was his. I’m eating off his plates and sitting on his sofa. I sleep in his bed and drive his car. There’s comfort in that. If I’m living his life, then the universe will have to answer my question about why he had to die, won’t it? It seems like there’s something here, something for me to know. Only I can’t figure it out.”
“The universe didn’t kill Caleb.”