by CR Wiley
“Wait, I’m going to be sick. Pull over here,” Steph said as they were crossing an intersection. Nora had no choice but to turn down Delaware and park by the curb. Steph doubled over and put her hand over her mouth. Instead of vomiting in the car or out the window, she opened the door and hobbled out onto the sidewalk.
“Where are you going?” Nora said, taking off her seat belt.
“Can you hold my hair back while I throw up? It’s just like we’re back in college,” Steph said.
Nora went after Steph as she shambled into the dim alley and dropped to her knees beside a stack of cardboard boxes.
“Steph,” Nora said, getting down on the pavement beside her.
After a few dry heaves, Steph wiped her mouth and Nora helped her up. She looked a bit better and more alert.
“I must seem like such a mess. It really hasn’t been that long since you were letting me cheat off you in our intro classes. I know what you always thought. Stephanie Chittenden will never get her act together. She’s a flake and a liar and a slut,” she said, wiping her nose with her forearm.
Nora shook her head, confused.
“I never thought those things about you. You were in college and you were going to make it. Look at you now, with your great job and engineer boyfriend back in Colorado. We all had things we needed to work through,” Nora said.
Stephanie breathed heavily. “I always resented you for that. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, so good natured and helpful, ready to find an excuse for anybody’s faults. I blamed you for my cheating. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? But if you didn’t let me cheat, maybe I would’ve worked harder, done better, not had to act crazy all the time to get attention. Maybe if you didn’t set an impossible standard for me, I wouldn’t have had to do such desperate things to get ahead,” Steph said.
Nora was beside herself. Her mouth gaped open at her friend, who was pointing an angry finger at her for not being supportive and understanding.
“But Stephanie, you were one of my best friends. You probably know me better than I know myself.”
Steph’s laugh had an insulting ring to it.
“Don’t trot out that tired garbage with me. Maybe I was your best friend, but not anymore. How many times have you called me since we left school? And how would I know what it’s like to have a father who’s a senator and an endless bank account? My dad’s an unemployed drunk who used to chide my mom in front of me for being a failure. Financial aid for struggling families is the reason I was able to afford coming here. The only way I got all those drinks was if somebody bought them for me, and they always had the same string attached.”
“Steph, why are you telling me this?” Nora asked.
“Do you know where we are?” she asked.
“Of course I do.”
Nora looked around at the dark alley, the dumpsters, the oily puddles, the dark windows in the nearby brick buildings. The entire story about going to a bar and getting sick had been a lie. Steph had brought her here on purpose.
“NorWex, you just couldn’t leave it alone, could you? Maria is gone, and there’s no need to take anybody else with her. I told you to forget about it and give up, but some stubborn part of you had to keep digging. You were so close to ruining everything for us, but we can’t let it go any further.”
Nora’s heart dropped when it struck her, but she couldn’t believe it enough to let the thought fully enter her mind. Stephanie blocked the mouth of the alley and took slow, deliberate steps forward. Was Nora really going to be forced to fight off her pregnant friend?
“But Steph, it can’t be…”
Steph brushed her hands off and looked at the tips of her fingers in the sparse light coming in front the street.
“I’ll never get my fingerprints done in my life. When we were at the police station and you were having them check again, I nearly had a panic attack that somehow they would trace me. But they didn’t. They’ll never know what happened that night or what will happen tonight,” Steph said.
Nora continued to back deeper into the shadows of the alley. The idea that Steph had killed Maria was tearing her mind in two. Other than letting the betrayal paralyze her, Nora’s only choice was to get angry.
“How could you do that to her? She was the best of us. And why? What made you take someone away that everyone loved so much?” Nora said, wielding her questions like a lash.
“I had no other choice,” Steph said, making no sense. But Nora needed to know.
“What, after Maria left the Golden Beers, you hung around with us until we all left and then crossed over to this alley, knowing she’d go through this way after you sent her a scary text that drove her away from Seanie Green?”
“Actually, I transmitted the text.”
A dark figure emerged from the shadows. He crossed an errant beam of light that revealed his dark skin and the gun that he pointed directly at Nora.
“Professor Gupta,” Nora said, turning on her heels and backing away the other direction. She was already at point blank range and weaponless.
“These gullible students. You’d imagine that by age twenty someone could tell that a text message coming from an unknown number and claiming to be an emergency notification about her mother’s health would be inauthentic,” he said. Gupta still wore the black mask he’d worn breaking into Caroline’s house. Nora chided herself. She’d missed so much.
“That’s it then,” Nora said, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. “Maria found out your computer-simulated data came from actually killing dogs, so you lured her in here where one of the special students in your cohort clobbered her with a crow bar. You knew you’d have your research invalidated, your position stripped, and you’d be subject to fines and maybe some jail time. Was that enough of a motive for you to orchestrate killing her?”
A bemused smile crossed Gupta’s lips.
“Not quite. I’ve sacrificed my life for my research. Why wouldn’t I be willing to sacrifice someone else’s for it as well? But it wasn’t the dogs she found out about. She put our other secret at risk.”
“We couldn’t let that get out, not after all we’ve worked for,” Steph said. Suddenly her arms were around Nora’s neck, dragging her back. Nora could feel Steph’s pregnant midsection rubbing against her back. Getting away would be as easy as elbowing her there, but Nora couldn’t bring herself to do it. More frightening than Steph’s grappling was the realization of how entwined she was with the professor.
“The secret that you two were together,” Nora said. Something shifted in her mind as it all fell into place. “Boulder and the engineer were all lies. Gupta’s the father of the baby and you’ve been sleeping together since college. When you broke into Caroline’s house, Steph covered for you by claiming there was another intruder. She actually tore apart the room and broke the window herself. The whole reason Steph decided to stay in Berkeley wasn’t because of what happened to Lauren. It was because she knew I’d be looking into Maria’s death!”
The arms around her neck closed tighter, stopping her from saying anything more. Steph’s breath was hot against her ear.
“You’re so smart, NorWex, but professors have been sleeping with students at Berkeley since the beginning of time. It wasn’t our relationship she stumbled upon, it was our work together that she threatened. You may think I’m an underachieving party girl, but I’m actually a serious chemist who was going to get shoed into a PhD program and shoot to the top of the field with a little help from an ostensibly objective mentor of high renown.
“People cry all the time about how Maria’s future was cut short, but if she’d said anything about what she found about my grades and the breakthrough research he’d done with me to burnish my credentials, my future would’ve been lost forever. And besides, these things happen after nights out at the bar. It’s a good thing you’re looking like a slutty tramp just begging for a hard rod,” Steph said.
Nora struggled, clawing at Steph’s arms just to breathe.
She was wheezing and groaning but kept her eyes on Gupta and the gun. He wouldn’t fire when Steph and his unborn child were so close, would he?
“This has gone on long enough,” Gupta said. “Somebody could come through and hear you bludgeoning her to death. It’s doubtful you’d have the luck to do it in one blow as you did before. Put her up against that wall and hold her neck. One shot to the chest and then we can hide out in the basement again until it blows over enough to leave town.”
A hand covered Nora’s mouth and nose as she fought harder to get away. It was dark, and it would only take a couple of steps to vanish into the shadows. Then she could call Detective Wyeth to have the area inundated with police. Whatever basement Gupta was talking about, they would find it.
Gupta positioned himself by the brick wall, glaring at Nora with nothing but hatred in his eyes. All of their schemes were ruined now, except for this last chance at revenge. Nora pushed and kicked as he held out the gun, but Steph was a big girl with a tight grip. The only move left was to try to drop to the ground, pulling Steph down enough to take the bullet in the arm and hope it missed Nora’s neck.
Nora looked for the sign of a contracting forearm but instead something dropped and fell just beside Gupta, a flower pot that crashed into a thousand pieces. Gupta flinched and the gun went off as Nora tried to use the diversion to jerk free. Nora glanced up to see the old woman on the third floor sticking her head out of the window.
“The cops’ll be here any second!” she yelled before smartly ducking back inside and shutting her window.
Steph’s hands fell away; Nora gathered her strength and charged at Gupta. She grabbed the arm with the gun and drove her shoulder into the man’s chest, knocking him against the brick wall. He fought back with a left hook that caught her square in the cheek and sent her sprawling, but she held onto the arm with the gun and twisted it hard enough to make him drop it.
“Look at what you did!” he shouted into her face, but Nora couldn’t look. She was too busy trying to fend off frantic blows coming from both sides. He pounded her ribs, her forearms, and her face. The pain was everywhere and she was sure she was bleeding. Nora thought of Travis urging her to fight back.
The sirens sounded like punches echoing inside her head at first, but when Gupta looked up she knew they had to be close. The gun had clattered closer to the mouth of the alley, but he didn’t risk making a move for it.
Sensing that the tide was turning, Nora changed tactics and started grabbing at Gupta, wrapping her arms around him and digging her fingers into the black clothes he wore. She would hold him down until the police came, or he’d have to drag her with him. Gupta struggled to get up, making increasingly desperate attempts to get her off him.
He elbowed her in the shoulder, pushed, and throttled her, but she continued to hold on. His next move was to try to bite her face, but her grip was already loosening. He seized the chance and threw her onto the ground. He immediately turned and sprinted into the dark alley.
The police were seconds away. It would’ve been easy to lie there, accept the pain, and wait for them. But only a few feet away Stephanie Chittenden was slumped in a pool of her own blood. The light in her eyes, the unborn child in her womb, all was lost. And she too needed justice brought against the one who manipulated her and corrupted her.
Wild-eyed and distraught, Nora had to push past what just happened and crawl on her forearms for the gun. She clasped it in her hand and rolled onto her knees. Every second that passed heightened the chance that Gupta would get away.
Hobbling, then breaking into full stride, Nora ran undaunted into the shadows.
CHAPTER 26
ALLEY NEAR DELWARE AND MILIVIA STREET
BERKELEY, CA
Despite blood streaming from her nose, Nora ran after the sounds of footsteps ahead. She tried not to think about everything that had happened. The deception. Her dead friend. Her narrow escape from death. The police who were too far away to help.
She’d combed over this entire area years ago in broad daylight after Maria died, but now the place seemed like a dark, convoluted labyrinth leading her around in circles. This was the way they must’ve gone after they killed Maria. If Nora had been a better investigator, she might’ve already known where Gupta was going.
Instead the sound of footsteps ceased completely, forcing Nora to slow down and listen. There was nothing around except the exteriors of tall, nondescript buildings. Paths leading straight, left, and right were before her, but Nora had a hunch they were all wrong.
Using her phone as a flashlight, Nora scanned the lower reaches of the buildings in search of some way underground. Gupta mentioned a basement, the place where they hid while the authorities attended to Maria’s body. There hadn’t been any loud scraping or grinding noise after the footsteps stopped. She had a feeling the door straight to Gupta would be left open for her.
Swiveling the light to the side of the building, Nora spotted a promising candidate. A rusty metal hatch was open at the bottom of what appeared to be an office building. If this was the professor’s hideout, the building’s owners probably didn’t venture into the basement very often. Nora took a long look at the cement steps and the pitch black darkness inside. There was a great chance that he was waiting for her down there.
Nora sent a quick text to Detective Wyeth describing her location before resolving herself to enter the basement before Gupta could get away. She held the .45 caliber pistol out in front and kept her finger on the trigger, crouching low as she negotiated the cement steps. Inside she caught glimpses of what looked like tall shelves, most of which were empty.
She crossed the threshold into the basement, but no one was there. She saw a light on in the far corner. It was illuminating something, but Nora was too far away to see. Shelves supporting large boxes blocked out most of the light. Rather than going straight for the light, Nora searched in the opposite direction, sticking close to the wall. She found a shabby cot, a shower with a drain in the floor, and a small refrigerator running. Someone could survive here for quite a while.
Farther ahead she saw a doorway leading to the rest of the office building. Nora could barely make out the chains sealing it shut. Despite the pain and the blood, she tried to remain perfectly silent, but if Gupta was really down here with her he managed to be even quieter still.
She began to wonder if she was alone. The only area left to check was near the light, and she crept toward it cautiously. Glancing around another set of steel shelving, Nora discovered that the light illuminated a number of crates on the floor, three of which were open. Speakers hung on the wall next to the light.
Cautiously advancing, she glanced into the crates and found they were full of weapons. It reminded her that the cops traced the gun from the break in at Caroline’s to a massive theft in Nevada. Had Gupta stolen the entire horde himself? She made one more unsettling observation. One of the crates was at least half empty.
A creak echoed through the musty air as the metal hatch to the basement closed. She heard it lock. Had he trapped her in an enclosed space again? No, he had to be down here with her. She was ready to race to the hatch to confront Gupta and shoot him on the spot, but she couldn’t take one step before something behind her made her jump. The speakers.
“Nora Wexler, welcome to my home away from home. It’s the last thing I have, but soon it will prove to be ephemeral as well. One of us won’t be leaving here, and I’d wager my intellectual prowess that person is you. For all you’ve taken from me, I want to watch you fail and die knowing the extent of your inferiority.”
Gupta must’ve worn a microphone connected to the speakers, but they were so loud that she couldn’t hear the origin of his voice.
“In one minute that light will turn off. That’s when I open fire. You have until that time to gather what weapons you choose and position yourself about the room. The minute has already started.”
Nora didn’t have time to question if what he was offering was real. She stoo
d square in the light anyway, making herself an easy target no matter his fidelity to his rules. He wanted to prove that he owned her, controlled her.
Digging into the crates, she saw an odd assortment of dusty weapons that had surely been stored underground in the desert. There weren’t any automatic weapons that she could see, just pistols, rifles, and a lot of ammunition. Nora had to hope he would be limited to the same kinds of weapons, or else it wouldn’t say much for his intellectual prowess beyond picking all the better guns.
Snatching another pair of pistols and notching them in her belt, Nora dashed away from the light while it was still on. The rifles would’ve been too cumbersome, and the likelihood of needing three pistols was very slim as it was.
What Nora needed instead was a way to turn the tables on Gupta, who would probably be anticipating how much distance she could cover away from the light. Instead of racing all the way around the corner to the farthest point possible, Nora ducked beside the nearest set of shelves that would keep her out of sight. While the boxes could block light, whether they could block a bullet was another matter. All Nora needed was for him to fire first, give away his location, and make himself a target.
The light shut off, casting the entire basement in perfect darkness, but instead of the immediate sounds of gunfire she heard banging against the cellar door.
“This is the police! Open up!” someone called from outside. No amount of shouting or pulling would get that hatch unlocked. They’d hear the gunfire going off inside and have to wait for the winner to emerge. The last thing Nora wanted was for more cops to be put in harm’s way because she couldn’t take care of the professor herself.
Footsteps echoed on the other side of the room during a lull in the banging. Gupta was moving, looking for an angle. Not being able to see anything began to frustrate Nora, who became tempted to just start shooting.
The first shot came from the opposite side of the room, a loud blast that stung her ears. It must’ve been from a rifle, and Nora stepped around the shelves and took aim. But a sneaking suspicion kept her finger still as the rifle clattered against the floor. It was possible Gupta had rigged the trigger with a string, hoping to draw her fire and have her reveal her position.