“Sure thing,” Roman agreed. “Come on everybody!”
After he departed, Ursula locked the door and turned to her two remaining counselors.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ursula
I felt surprisingly calm and collected. “Moose, do you have any friends spending the summer in Baylor? We need some replacement counselors.”
Moose rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I can think of two people, but both have jobs already.”
I nodded. “Call them, please. I will double their pay.” Then I added, “and if it’s more than you or Maggie are making, I’ll give you both a raise.”
After he stepped outside, I said, “I left my cell phone on the charger at home. Can I use yours to call University police? I feel they should know about this. And I need to call Dr. Heinrich, too.”
Maggie handed over her cell phone without protest. All color had seeped from her face. She looked like a zombie.
Campus police jumped at the possibility of some action. Baylor University was painfully boring during the summer months. That was an easy call. The one to Dr. Heinrich would be much harder. But I was spared for a moment. I was immediately clicked over to his voicemail.
No doubt he was on the other line, getting an earful from Will.
I gave Maggie back her phone. “Thank you.”
Wouldn’t it be awful if he reinstated Will and fired me instead? I chewed my lower lip. The chances of that happening were low. But not zero.
I could just say Will was lying. If it was my word against his, I’d win. There was no way Dr. Heinrich would believe his straight-laced spinster colleague was having a secret affair with a beautiful college coed.
Maggie had drawn her knees up to her chest and pressed her face into her folded arms, as if she wanted to disappear.
“Are you okay?” I asked in alarm. “Talk to me.”
“This is my fault,” Maggie said, the words muffled. She lifted her head. “He tried to pick me up at the bus station last weekend, so he knew I was lying about going home. He put two and two together. He claimed he could tell by watching our interactions.”
I nodded. Narcissists were great at reading people, digging out their weaknesses, figuring out their needs. I should be grateful to be given the opportunity to watch one in action. I wasn’t, though.
“He said I had to have sex with him whenever he wanted, or he’d tell,” Maggie said. “Last night he came to my room and…” she covered her face with her hands. “He liked it when I cried.”
My fault. My doing. I exposed an innocent young girl to evil. What did I think would happen?
“Maggie, I’m so sorry. Do you want to press charges against him?”
“Press charges?” Maggie lowered her hands. “Who would believe me? I let him into my room knowing what he wanted. No prosecutor in the world would touch a case like this.”
She was probably right, so I didn’t argue. Most men would take Will’s side, and more than a few women, too.
Will was a man who craved power and control. He’d known the very first day that Maggie was an excellent target. And I’d put her in the line of fire.
“Are you going to get fired?” Maggie cried. “Because of me?”
“Good Lord, Maggie, none of this is your fault!” I said. “Trust me, Maggie, I’m responsible for this mess. Me. I’m more responsible than you know.”
“Why?” Maggie asked, perplexed.
I was hoping she’d leave it. I took a deep breath. “I deliberately encouraged Will’s negative behavior for research purposes. Remember the Milgraum experiment?”
There was a long silence. Then Maggie said in a queer voice, “You know, I thought that once or twice. But I didn’t believe you would do something like that.”
“I’m sorry. I was wrong,” I said.
“Why? That’s all I want to know. Why would you do something like that to me?”
I spread out my hands in a gesture of helplessness. “After what happened to my father, I could never trust anyone,” I confessed. “Not even you. I just had to find out what kind of person you really are.”
“And what did you find out?” Maggie’s voice was icy.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think.”
Maggie stood. “When you figure it out, let me know,” she said, and then was gone.
I sat stock still for a long time after the girl’s departure. The dorm was very quiet. I was hyper aware of Will, lurking somewhere above, unless university police had already escorted him off campus. It was possible. If he packed fast.
I hoped Maggie didn’t go up to her room. Will might hurt her. What better way to lash out at me?
My fault.
It was time to face the music.
“The prodigal professor returns!” Dr. Heinrich announced, leaning back in his desk chair with his feet propped up on the desk. His laidback posture was encouraging. He couldn’t be that angry.
“I didn’t expect to fire Will until after lunch,” I said, then quickly explained what happened.
“Well, I already heard Will’s version, enough to know you were justified in terminating him,” he said. “He’s a psychopath. He exhibited no understanding that his actions were wrong.”
“That’s partly my fault,” I admitted. “I sort of encouraged them to punish the candidates when they didn’t perform well. For research purposes.”
“I would be lying if I said I didn’t know you would do something like that,” Dr. Heinrich said. “I don’t think either of us expected it to get out of control so quickly. I’m afraid to ponder what that means for us as a society.”
“Don’t you have anything else to say to me?” I asked.
“Regarding you and Ms. Dunlap?” he replied.
I nodded. “He said he was going to tell everyone.”
Dr. Heinrich sat up, both feet hitting the floor with a thump. “I would be a hypocrite if I reprimanded you, no?” he said. “I will admit I’m surprised. Shocked, even. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “This is Baylor. Everyone might look the other way if I was just a lesbian professor, but a lesbian professor having an affair with a student? You know that’s not going to fly. Maybe downstate, but not here.”
He waved away my concerns. “I think you underestimate the Baylor community,” he said. “This is a liberal arts college. Being a lesbian is not a crime, and there is nothing in the Code of Conduct prohibiting professors from dating students. If there were, half the professors would be unemployed.”
“But Maggie,” I stammered. This was unbelievable. I needed to do penance. “They’ll be rumors all over campus.”
Dr. Heinrich shrugged. “They’re not rumors if they’re true. If the girl loves you, she won’t care.” He shuffled some papers. “In any case, I’m thinking Baylor University is not the place for our Will. Now, I’m not making any promises. I’ve never known the Dean of Admissions to rescind a student’s acceptance. But I’ll talk to him. With any luck, he won’t be here to make you miserable next fall.”
“The Dean might wonder why I didn’t stop him sooner,” I said.
“You’re worrying needlessly, Dr. Reiter. Remember, the candidates participating in the program are criminals. They have few rights. No one was hurt physically. Plenty of professors may have just looked away and let it go on.”
I should have been happy at how things turned out. Instead, I was troubled. I found it hard to believe that Will would just pack his things and leave. Not after he’d tasted power. His loss of control was humiliating.
One thing I knew for sure. I didn’t want him on campus, terrorizing Maggie her senior year. I knew there would still be whispers. If kicked out, Will would no doubt do his best to smear us both from afar. But as a disgruntled former employee, no one would take him seriously. We were in the clear. I should be relieved.
I just had a feeling he wasn’t going to go away that easily.
The sense of impending doom had not
lifted.
I joined the candidates for lunch. It was a festive affair. They were euphoric. They had been liberated. The Abdallas reverted to their earlier dietary choices, packaged food and fruit. Maria chatted with Roman, who knew some Spanish. Moose put down his phone and joked around with Eduardo, plucking coins from behind his ears. Maggie smiled for the first time in days.
Firing Will had been the right thing to do. University police had already assured me he was gone. And wouldn’t be back, if Dr. Heinrich convinced the Dean of Admissions he was not Baylor material. Maybe Maggie should make a statement about the sexual assault. That should be convincing enough.
Watching Maggie smile and even giggle as Moose plucked a playing card from Eduardo’s hair, I decided I’d ask her about it later. Maybe in a few days, when everything had blown over. It was nice to see her happy, even if it was only for a few minutes.
I didn’t know if our relationship could be salvaged, but if Maggie wanted to quit the program, I wouldn’t try to talk her out of it.
I assumed Maggie wouldn’t be going over to the house to care for Papa this afternoon. She’d been through enough. We could hash everything out after we’d both had time to think.
It was time to put Maggie first, even if it was too late.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Maggie
I felt like jumping out of my own skin. I was restless. I couldn’t sit still. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, but usually when it came over me I’d walk for miles through the farmland surrounding Baylor. Not the best idea today.
The door to Will’s room was open, empty drawers hanging out of the dresser, a testament to the abruptness of his departure. University police had escorted him off school grounds. But he’d be back, come fall. Even if he stayed away, I’d spot him across campus, or lock eyes with him in the Student Union. Every time there was a knock on my door I would jump, thinking it was him. The entire campus was tainted.
What was the alternative? I could slink home to Jana, go back to working shitty jobs in retail, my stint in college forgotten, just another failure for my mother to throw in my face.
No way. I had to stay here long enough to graduate, then I could go anywhere. Far from here. Somewhere Will would never find me. Or Ursula, not that she’d bother to look.
I’d have to take it one day at a time. Maybe, humiliated by his firing, Will would go to some other college. It was late June, plenty of time to apply for graduate school somewhere else.
Except Will struck me as someone who would derive a sick satisfaction from returning just to make me uncomfortable.
Ursula
Things were looking up by the end of the day. Both of Moose’s friends accepted positions as counselors. One was moving in the very next day.
“I’ve been crashing on a friend’s couch, so this is perfect.”
It was already evening when I left campus, having spent hours documenting Will’s abuse of the candidates, in case he reported me to the government. I still wasn’t finished when I realized the building was completely silent and daylight was fading.
It was a Friday night during summer break. I was probably the only person in the building, maybe on the entire academic quad. Not an unusual circumstance for me, but tonight the realization made me nervous. It was time to leave.
My vehicle was parked only a short distance away, in the parking lot behind the academic quad, but I was jumpy. Never had the walk to my car seemed so long. Today was the absolute worst day I could have chosen to forget my cell phone.
My SUV was the only vehicle left in the entire parking lot, which seemed vast and cavernous, but blessedly empty. There was nowhere for anyone to hide. I held my breath as I unlocked the doors, recalling an urban legend about a killer hiding in a woman’s backseat. Of course, my backseat was empty. My hands were trembling as I turned the key in the ignition. I was a silly, foolish old woman. Will had slunk home with his tail between his legs, and if Dr. Heinrich failed to have his offer of admission rescinded, he’d be back in the fall, strutting around like an arrogant peacock, terrorizing Maggie. I was giving him too much credit. He was a coward who abused the powerless. I was too powerful for him to challenge.
The drive home took five minutes. The sun was setting, reflecting into my eyes, blinding me. Good thing there was no traffic. The streets were deserted, no kids playing outside. This was not unusual. It was after eight, and public school was still in session. But it added to my feeling of disquiet. I felt like the last person on earth.
As I approached the house, my feeling of foreboding intensified, a cold hand of dread squeezing my heart.
Foolish old woman, jumping at shadows.
I scanned the property as I pulled into the driveway. Nothing was amiss. The lawn was overgrown. I made a mental note to call the landscapers. There were no lights on in the front of the house. Not out of the ordinary. Papa hated the front of the house.
I paused in the foyer, taking the temperature of the house, as I’d done every time I’ve entered my home since I was a child. Where is he? I wondered. I could usually guess. Over the years, I’d made it into a game.
But today, I felt nothing. Just a blank. Like a wall. Terror clutched my heart. God, not today. Please God, let him be alive. I wasn’t strong enough to lose my Papa today, of all days. I needed him.
“Papa?” I called.
As I headed towards the stairs, my eyes fell on something that gave me pause, made me fall back in alarm.
Maggie’s purse. Dropped casually on the small table in the hallway between the foyer and the kitchen. Where she always left it.
Maggie never stayed this late, unless she was sleeping over. And if she was here, why was the house so silent? Usually the television would be blaring, and the girl would be chattering away, her voice annoyingly chipper. And the house would feel different. Warm. Not so empty and cold, so much that I shivered, despite the warm summer night.
“Maggie?” I cried.
As if in a trance, I drifted up the stairs. My heart was thudding in my chest. I had an odd, terrible sense of déjà vu. Maybe it came from the house itself. Certainly, I was not the first person to ascend those stairs, heart pounding in terror. This house had no doubt witnessed that very thing many times.
Pap’s bedroom was deserted.
I paused, trying to feel my father’s presence. Perhaps he and Maggie had hidden, somewhere in the house, but why?
Upon reaching the third floor, where my own bedroom was located, I found out why.
The hallway upstairs was swathed in darkness. The doors of all the empty bedrooms were shut. They had been open when I left that morning. I had an irrational fear of closed doors, and what might lie behind them, especially in this cavernous house. I needed to see they were empty with my own eyes to feel secure. But tonight, someone had closed each door, one by one, plunging the corridor into blackness.
Had it been Papa or Maggie? Why?
I opened the door to my bedroom. My gaze took in the scene before it registered on my brain. Maggie and Papa were seated against the far wall, their faces white with terror. There was a bloody bruise on my father’s face. Their hands were bound in front of them and secured with zip ties.
Will was sitting casually on the bed, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. He was barefoot and toying idly with a knife. I recognized it as belonging to my own kitchen. “Dr. Reiter,” he said. “Nice of you to join the party. We’ve been expecting you. You’re late.”
“I had a lot of paperwork,” I said, as if explaining why I was delayed for dinner.
“Yeah, bet I caused that,” Will said. “I’d say I was sorry, but you know, under the circumstances…”
“Understood,” I said.
This was surreal. I had to be dreaming. Maybe I’d fallen asleep at my desk. This couldn’t be reality.
“I knew you would come back,” Helmut announced, shaking his head.
“Of course. I live here,” I reminded him.
“Not you,” Helmut said, gesturi
ng towards Will with his chin, “him. I knew it was him as soon as I saw his eyes. I knew someday he’d be back. That no matter where I hid, he’d find me.”
My heart twisted. My father was seeing the reincarnation of one of his Nazi captors. And for all I knew, it was. Maybe evil didn’t die, just lay dormant until it could find a home in another vessel. It had singled out my Papa when he was very small, and never, ever, did it forget him.
“Leave my father alone,” I hissed at Will.
He licked the edge of the knife almost sensuously. “I don’t think I will,” he said pensively. “It must be awful for the old dude. I mean, to be taken away by Nazis, have your whole family murdered, be tormented by the memories your entire life, then deal with me at the end? Talk about unlucky. Damn.”
“Do whatever you want to me,” I said. “Just leave my father and Maggie alone.”
He shook his head. “Too late. What, I’m going to let them go? Then what? They’ll tell on me. Naw, there can’t be any witnesses.” He held the knife and made a slashing motion at his own throat. “Sorry.”
I could see my cell phone, tantalizingly out of reach on the nightstand, still plugged into the charger. It taunted me.
Think, Ursula. I had to somehow think my way out of this, but how?
There was only one of him, and three of us. Of course, Helmut and Maggie were completely incapacitated. And I was a middle-aged woman who barely weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet.
“So, now what?” I asked him, trying to keep my voice steady. “What do you have in mind?”
I could run away, I realized. Especially when his attention was diverted by his two other captives bound on the floor. But he’d be on me in moments. That wasn’t a viable plan.
If I could get to my phone, all I had to do was dial 911. I knew they’d ping the location, even if I didn’t respond to the operator. But Will was lounging on the bed between me and it. Again, he’d have to be distracted. If he had failed to notice the phone, which seemed a bit of a reach, I’d have a shot.
“I am going to slowly kill your father, then your girlfriend, while you watch,” he explained. “Then I’ll kill you, after which I’ll set fire to the house. I’m sure it’ll burn quick, old wood and all that.” He looked thoughtful. “I should probably move your father’s body down to his bedroom, and then put you and Maggie in bed together. If they found all the bodies in here, it would look suspicious.”
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