by Lisa Jackson
“You sound as if you’re trying to convince yourself.”
She smiled faintly. “Okay…it’s a little freaky, yeah. But if you think about it logically, it really is just a coincidence.”
“Uh-huh. And then you just happen to end up living here in Tara Atwater’s apartment and then you just happen to assign yourself the duty of becoming Nancy Drew in The Case of the Missing Coeds?”
“I was interested anyway and then Lucretia asked for my help.”
“Lucretia? Lucretia….” He frowned, thinking back to place the name. “Didn’t you have a roommate you hated named—”
“Yep. She’s one and the same.” Kristi explained about running into Lucretia, how she was worried about the missing girls but was afraid to say anything because she’d just been hired by members of the administration who were taking the stance that nothing was wrong. “I told Lucretia I’d look into it,” she finished.
“I still don’t like you living here alone.” It felt to Jay like everything was slipping a little, “off” in a way he couldn’t define.
“It’s just an apartment. Sorry, the dog can’t stay. Neither can you. End of story.” She motioned to her charts again, then pointed to the poster dedicated to Tara Atwater. “Back to the colors. Tara’s in pink, Monique is green, and Rylee is in blue. You can see that I’ve listed places, people, and things that they might have in common, then connected them. The connections show two or three or four colors.”
He took in all the information. The overlapping data, where the colored lines converged, aside from a few stray friends or places, was the missing girls’ class schedules. Every one of them had been English majors and they all had taken classes from a handful of professors here at the university.
Kristi said, “These girls didn’t have a lot of friends and their family life was negligible. I tried to reach the parents and pretty much came up with nothing. They had the attitude of ‘no news is good news.’ All the girls had been in some kind of trouble. Drugs or alcohol or boyfriend problems, and their families gave up on them.”
“What about girlfriends? You know, the BFF thing on all text messages?”
“If any of them had a Best Friend Forever, I have yet to locate her. Even Lucretia wouldn’t cop to being close to any of them.” Kristi frowned, puzzled, little lines forming between her eyebrows. “I’ve tried to call Lucretia a couple of times since then, and she hasn’t called back.”
“Why?”
“That’s the million-dollar question,” Kristi said, picking up a pen and twirling it in her fingers as she thought. “It’s almost as if she felt like she had to do something, so she told me about it and that was the end of it.”
“She passed the ball. Got rid of feeling guilty for thinking something was wrong, and then put it on you.”
“Or she regrets even mentioning it to me.”
Kristi had set the bowl back on the desk and now Jay absently reached for it. “So these girls were basically loners. Or, at least alone in the world.”
“I’ve talked to people in their classes and some coworkers, and what they said over and over again was, ‘I didn’t really know her,’ or ‘she was pretty closed off,’ or ‘she kept to herself,’ that sort of thing.”
Jay studied her charts again, focusing on the areas where the lines met and intertwined. He pointed to the class schedules. “Each of them took writing from Preston, Shakespeare from Emmerson, journalism from Senegal, and The Influence of Vampyrism from Grotto?” He felt a chill slide through him. “Christ, Kristi, this is your schedule.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
She shrugged. “It’s really not that odd. Or unique. The college curriculum is set up through computers, right? Block scheduling. Depending upon your major. So these aren’t the only students who had this curriculum, not by a long shot. And there are some variables. For example, Tara took forensics from your predecessor, Dr. Monroe, and both Monique and Rylee took a literature class from Dr. Croft, the head of the English Department, just before they went missing. Oh, and here…” She pointed to Dionne’s schedule and tapped the notation. “Dionne took religion from Father Tony and Introduction to Criminal Justice from Professor Hollister along with the other classes.”
“Heavy schedule.”
“She was fast-tracking, trying to graduate early, I think. The term she went missing she had a load of six classes, eighteen credit-hours. And she worked part-time at a local pizza parlor. Here’s a kicker, too. All of the girls, without exception, participated in Father Mathias’s morality plays, again associated with the English Department.”
“Morality plays?”
“I know. Kind of out there, isn’t it? Like something out of the Dark Ages. I haven’t really figured them out yet, but I heard a couple of girls in the class on vampirism talking about the first one of the term being Sunday night, so I thought I’d check it out. Don’t suppose you want to come?”
“You want me to?”
Did he make it sound like a date? Probably, because Kristi backtracked fast. “No, I’ll go alone. It’ll be better. People might notice you.”
“Maybe I should go.”
“Nope. I mean it, Jay. This is my deal.”
“I don’t like this,” he muttered. If she was right, there was a psycho on the loose, abducting women from the campus; if she was wrong, something was driving the girls away. Four missing coeds within less than two years on a campus this size was more than unusual, more than suspicious. “I can’t believe the university isn’t all over this.”
“The administration is trying to sweep it under the rug. Admissions are already down and they don’t want any more bad press. I brought it up with the dean of students and was shuffled right out of her office. Told I was imagining things and treated as if I had the plague.”
“But the liability—”
“Only if you recognize it. They’re into the ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ mode. Therefore the evil doesn’t exist.”
“My ass.” He stared at the charts and shook his head. “You have to take this to the police.”
“Oh, yeah, right. Think about it.” She finished her drink. “Let’s say I stroll into the Baton Rouge Police Station. Who do I talk to?” she asked with a lift of her shoulders. “Probably the Missing Persons Department, right? Maybe I’ll have these charts with me. And then I’ll say…what? That I’m the hotshot New Orleans detective Rick Bentz’s daughter and you’d better pay attention to me? Even if I don’t bring him up, they’ll put two and two together and get all pissy about jurisdiction and protocol.”
A thin black cat slid through the partially open window over the sink.
“If I did anything so ludicrous, I’d be thrown out on my ear and my dad would be called on to the carpet. No thanks.”
She had a point.
“Hey, Houdini,” she said as the cat shot off the counter and under the couch. “Getting friendly, aren’t ya?” she joked as the cat peered suspiciously from the shadows.
Jay wasn’t about to allow the subject to be changed. “The authorities need to know what you’ve found. Maybe you could phone your father and explain—”
“Oh, sure. He’d yank me out of here so fast my head would spin.”
“He couldn’t do that. You’re an adult.”
She glared at him as if he were insane. “Oh, right. You tell him that! He’d either assign me a damned bodyguard or come and stake out this apartment himself. No, informing Detective Bentz is out of the question. I am an adult and we’re going to do this my way.”
“Whatever this is.”
“Right.” She suddenly smiled at him, sensing his capitulation even though he’d been certain he’d given nothing away.
God, she was beautiful. He tried not to notice, but there it was as she stared at him with those damnable eyes. For half a second he felt a swell of heat rise in his veins, desire tinged with memories of holding her gasping, perspiring body next to his. The back of his throat
turned dry and he looked away, jabbed his hands deep into the front pockets of his pants. He set his jaw in an effort to tamp down his stupid urges. Here she was talking about abductions, the potential murder of four students, and he was still responding to her.
Which was just plain ludicrous. “I think I’d better shove off,” he said.
“But you’ll help me?”
“As long as you don’t ask me to break any laws.”
“Okay, I promise,” she said, then blushed and looked as if she was about to bite her tongue.
She didn’t have to say why. He remembered her repeating just those words nearly a decade ago when he’d slid a tiny ring upon her finger.
“Good,” he said quickly, as if he didn’t remember. No reason to dig up the past. Hell, they’d just been kids. “See ya in class.” And then he left, not even glancing over his shoulder.
Yep, he thought as he descended the stairs, he’d been right. Where Kristi Bentz was concerned he was a bona fide moron.
CHAPTER 13
For the most part, the chat rooms were a bust.
After Jay left, Kristi spent over an hour instant messaging different screen names and joining chats online, some of which were disturbing, others which were silly and just plain inane. She figured those were probably filled with kids just messing around on their computers when they were supposed to be sleeping. However one room, dedicated to blood in literature, as opposed to shape-shifters, werewolves, or vampires in the campiest and most twenty-first century of meanings, intrigued her. For the most part she lurked, watching the conversation between several of the participants. Whereas some of the chat rooms talked up the Buffy television series to death and another focused on the Blade movies, this one dealt with vampires in literature, and for a minute Kristi thought Dr. Dominic Grotto himself might be leading the discussion. There was a little talk about Count Dracula, the work of Bram Stoker, questions about Elizabeth of Bathory, the countess who bathed in the blood of her subjects, and even Vlad III, the Impaler, also known as Vlad Dracula, whom the discussion suggested was the inspiration for Bram Stoker in creating the character of Count Dracula. Some talk centered around Transylvania and Romania and fact versus fiction, and questions abounded about the drinking of blood.
But all in all, in this particular chat room, the participants seemed interested in more than trying to score some shock value; they seemed sincere in their quests, whatever they were.
Kristi poured herself a glass of Diet Coke, then made notes on everyone who partook of the chat and what their particular bend was. Or at least she kept track of the screen names they used, all of which, it seemed, included some reference to the subject. Since she wanted to blend into the group, she had signed in with the screen name of ABneg1984, though her own blood type was O positive and she wasn’t born in 1984. She used a couple of blind aliases to hide her true identity and asked a question or two every five minutes, just to keep the other users from thinking she was spying on them.
Which, of course, was the whole point of her being online at this ungodly hour.
It was a bit of a juggling act as she kept several screens open at the same time. They each were dedicated to a different live chat room, and, at first, she had a little trouble keeping up with all the conversations. Soon, however, she was getting the hang of it and clicked out of a few that seemed off topic. What she needed were other people online from Baton Rouge or at least Louisiana. There was just no way to tell by the screen names and as far as she could tell the chatters could be from anywhere in the known universe.
It was like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack, even though she tried to narrow down the rooms by mentioning Louisiana.
Finally, in the intellectual-sounding room, there was mention of All Saints Campus and vampirism.
“Bingo,” Kristi whispered as if she were afraid the other chatters could actually hear her. Fortunately, her laptop mic and camera were disabled. She couldn’t believe her good luck. Someone by the name of Dracoola lived nearby. Or at least had connections to the school.
She lurked. Waiting. Tried to read between the lines, even going so far as visualizing the different characters, many of whom supplied their own icons. Blood drops, snarling fangs, and flying bats seemed to be the favorites. People came and went, but some of the chatters seemed in for the night. One was JustO, who eventually mentioned Dr. Grotto’s class.
Kristi felt a tingle of anticipation. Things were coming closer to home. “Now you’re talkin’.”
Several people responded, all agreeing. Kristi quickly scribbled down the screen names for Dracoola, JustO, Carnivore18, Sxyvmp21, Deathmaster7, and Dmin8trxxx. “Sheesh,” Kristi said to the cat, who stopped short, skittery, halfway to his bowl. “Who are these people?” Houdini pressed himself to the wall, all muscles tense.
Kristi tried to think of a way to bring up the missing girls, but the conversation wasn’t segueing in that direction and she wanted to buddy up to the weirdos who spent their nights virtually talking to strangers about blood and vampires and otherworldly beings. She let the others guide the conversation, all the while trying to find out something, some little hint about vampire cults on campus, or some connection to the women who had gone missing. One of the latecomers to the conversation had a screen name of DrDoNoGood and there was something about his questions, something a little bit familiar, that disturbed her.
Did she know this guy?
Or was it a woman?
A medical doctor? Wannabe? PhD? A James Bond/ Ian Fleming fanatic as his name might be a play on words for Dr. No?
He asked another question and she froze. She’d seen that very question before in her study notes for her class with Dr. Grotto.
Could DrDoNoGood be a cybernet alias for Dr. Dominic Grotto?
Her mind raced. What was the meaning of his name? Or was she just jumping to conclusions in the dead of night? Or…
Her pulse jumped as she read only the capital letters in the screen name. DDNG or DrDNG.
Didn’t Grotto’s middle name begin with N? Or, again, was she forcing a connection? Making something out of nothing? Hadn’t she seen Grotto’s name somewhere? From something she’d gotten from the school?
With her attention split between the computer screen and the bookshelves over her desk, she located the course handbook for the college. It was beat-up and dog-eared, but she flipped it open to the section on the staff of All Saints College. “Come on, come on,” she murmured, barely managing to stay on top of the conversation discussing the ritual of drinking blood and the sexuality inherent in the act.
“Yuck.” She shuddered. “No thanks.” Flipping the pages, she finally saw Dr. Grotto’s picture. Damn, he was good-looking. Piercing eyes, strong chin, high forehead, and dark hair. Underneath his photo she read: Dominic Nicolai Grotto, PhD.
Could it be?
DrDoNoGood and Dr. Dominic Nicolai, one and the same?
She couldn’t prove it, but she felt a rush, the same gut instinct her father experienced when he would figure out a clue in some homicidal maniac’s twisted game.
“Like father, like daughter,” she told herself as she asked a simple question about the class.
She wondered if there was a way to uncover his identity, some way to flush him out. Maybe she could pander to his vanity, complain about him as a teacher and see what happened.
Still reading the conversation, now about cultural mores and human blood, she pulled out her class notes. Maybe if she quoted him, she’d get a response…and if she said something about him being more an actor than an intellectual, more into theatrics than literature, she was certain he’d be unable to pass that up. She pulled up another screen in the program on which she kept her notes, but before she could come up with a significant question, he logged off.
“What! No!” she cried, and quickly reopened the other chat room screens, hoping he’d show up somewhere else. But he wasn’t anywhere she could find. If he’d entered another cyber chat, it was one she ha
dn’t located. “Of all the bad luck!” She tossed the school catalogue aside and was about to close out the windows for the chat rooms when she saw a strange question in the room so recently vacated by DrDoNoGood.
Deathmaster7 asked: Do you wear a vial?
Kristi froze.
Three people responded with a yes while one, Carnivore18, answered with a question mark. Obviously Carnie didn’t get it either. One person didn’t respond and two typed in no. Kristi decided to go with the flow and responded yes.
Carnivore18 created a line of question marks. He clearly felt out of it.
“Join the club,” Kristi said, and wondered how she should prod the conversation along. But she remembered something—hadn’t Lucretia mentioned that some of the girls in the “cult” and Dr. Grotto’s class wore vials of their own blood?
Deathmaster7 asked: Whose?
Kristi stared at the screen, her pulse leaping at the thought that she might have just stumbled onto the connection she needed to find out more about the vampire cult that was supposedly on campus. But she had to be careful, not answer too quickly. What if she were wrong? What if Lucretia had given her bad information? Fingers poised over the keyboard, she waited.