“I’ll have to give that a try,” he said. “Might even learn something useful about rocks. Or . . .”
“Hydrogeology,” she reminded him. “Of course, you’re an engineer yourself, so you might actually be able to stay awake. But it’s true that some subjects are easier to make fascinating than others. To the lay audience, that is. Anytime you want an analysis of the water table under your farm, though, please do feel free to inquire about my services. My rates are still quite reasonable, being so new in the profession and all. I’ll even do diagrams. Color-coded.”
“But will you use the pointer?” he asked. “That’s the real question.”
“For a consideration,” she said solemnly, “we can do slides and the pointer and everything. Of course, it may cost you extra.”
“So worth it, though,” he said. “Especially if you wear that.” He cast an appreciative eye over her V-necked sweater dress, which she could have sworn, this morning, wasn’t anything like too short or too tight. And certainly not anything like too sexy. “I’m doing my best to remember all those manners my mama taught me, but damn, Professor. I’m afraid that if I’m going to behave myself and get a shot at taking you dancing again, I might have to insist on the black suit next time, after all, because you’re way too distracting this way. Although red would be even better, don’t get me wrong. I’m still holding out for you in that red dress.”
“Really,” she managed to say. She was warming at his words, the look in his eyes, but then, what woman wouldn’t be? “Another vote in favor of the black suit, then, because this clearly isn’t professional enough.”
“Oh, you’re professional enough,” he said. “It’s just that you’re so much else, too. You can’t help it, and why should you have to hide it?”
That one actually took her breath away, and she couldn’t answer.
“So was that really you back there, in the picture?” he asked after a moment, taking a bite of his ham sandwich. “Hard to believe.”
“Oh, yeah,” she assured him. “And that was possibly one of the more flattering shots. Let’s say I didn’t exactly keep a scrapbook of my teenage photos.”
“And I’m going to throw out a wild-ass guess here,” he said, “that some of those jocks gave you a hard time in high school.”
“Some,” she admitted. “Although mostly, I wasn’t even on their radar. I was pretty much invisible.”
“You’re not invisible now,” he said. “And they didn’t know what they were missing. Not just how you look, but that person you are underneath. That’s some woman underneath.”
“Well, thank you.” She did her best to keep her balance, but he made it so hard. First he teased, and then he was so . . . so sweet. “They seemed to stumble through their days despite the loss, though.”
“So if not high school,” he said, “when?”
She took another sip of tea, a forkful of salad. “When what?”
“Jocks. Or a jock. What happened? And when? Tell me who it was, and I’ll go beat the . . . crap out of him for you. I promise.”
“Violence doesn’t solve everything.”
“Well, no,” he conceded. “But it solves some things. All I need is a name.”
She had to smile at that. “It’s a long story. And I’m fine.” She turned her attention to her salad, which featured way too much iceberg lettuce and carrots, and way too little of anything else, and wasn’t actually that much of an improvement over the sandwich in her drawer.
“I suppose it’s just going back to high school,” she said after a minute. “Even somebody else’s high school. Still a little painful, I guess, even though it was a long time ago. And it’s such a hard time for so many kids. It should be about the future, and instead, it’s all about the present. It shouldn’t be about looks and popularity, but it is. And sports, of course. It can be so hard on kids who don’t have any of the three, and that can keep them from focusing on that future, and that’s a shame.” She caught herself with a laugh. “But I guess you know how I feel about it. Since you just heard me give a whole talk about it.”
“You’re right,” he said. “That I know how you feel about it, and that it’s a shame. That’s why I gave the money, you know. Because I got lucky. And because I know that not everybody gets that lucky.”
She felt the hot color rise in her cheeks. “And now I’m ashamed,” she said. “I’m lecturing you, when you’re the one donating all that money and setting up the program to help those same exact kids. You’re so casual about it, I keep forgetting. Or maybe you’re just too hard to figure out.”
“I should go back to teasing you, you think? That make you feel better?”
“Maybe,” she said, losing the battle against the smile again. “Or maybe you could go on and let your guard down some more. But then, I know you don’t like to show your soft side.”
She got a smile from him for that, another of those Cal Jackson specials. Slow, sweet, and so sexy. “Could be,” he said. “And could be I’m saving my soft side for a special occasion.”
“Oh?” she asked, because she couldn’t help it. “That’s going to be your soft side? Oh, man, that’s disappointing.”
He laughed. “Damn, Professor. You’re just too good. Let’s go back to talking about you, because I’m losing. When did you get so pretty?”
“What?” she asked, off-balance yet again.
He gestured at her. Her face, and . . . the rest of her. “All that. When did it happen? Or do you not know it happened? I find that hard to believe.”
She looked down at her plate, stabbed at an anemic tomato wedge, and contemplated it on her fork. “Freshman year of college. No glasses, and no braces, of course. And most kids gain weight that first year. I lost it. Guess I’ve always been contrary.”
“And you got pretty.”
“Prettier, anyway.”
“Pretty.”
“You know what’s really terrible?” she asked him with a sigh.
He smiled again. “What? I can’t imagine.”
“That I can’t ask you to show me your picture from back then so I could laugh at you, too. Because I already saw it, right there above the trophy case in the front hall of your high school. You know, from when you led the team to the state championship. Of course you did. You looked pretty good in that uniform, didn’t you? But then, I think it’s obvious that you were born good-looking.”
“Nope,” he said. “I was born . . . I don’t know. Strong, maybe. Luke was born good-looking.”
“Yeah,” she said, eyeing him. “Your body’s probably better than your face.”
He choked on his ice water, had to spend a minute coughing into his napkin. “So if I put a bag over my head,” he managed once he could talk again, “you might consider it?”
“Well, I guess all of you is fairly acceptable,” she conceded, trying not to laugh and failing completely. “And you know it, so don’t pretend.”
“I thought good-looking wasn’t on the list,” he said. “Just a good smile. And by the way, you’ve got one hell of a smile yourself. That’s going on my own list for sure. Those pretty dimples of yours . . . I’ve lost a little sleep over those.”
The flush was rising again, for a completely different reason this time. “No fair remembering everything I say. Especially after a couple of beers.”
“So, I should be a dumb jock and just stare vacantly out of my not-good-looking face, is that it? Smiling, of course.”
“You’re not a dumb jock, and there’s no way anyone could miss it, all right?” she said with a sigh. “Except me, but as we’ve just discussed, I was prejudiced.”
“I like that was.”
“So,” she said, working determinedly on her salad again, “not so many dark secrets of your own, huh? Football star from about . . . oh, junior high, I’m guessing. Money, stardom, good-looking . . . body,” she add
ed to another grin, “and the hometown hero, too? You really do have it all, don’t you?”
“Don’t have the football career anymore,” he reminded her. “Only have half the money, too, since the divorce. Less than half since that little gift to the university. Don’t have a wife, either. And as you pointed out,” he said with a sigh of his own, “I don’t even have a handsome face. Dang it.”
She wanted to ask him about the wife, but how could she? She was beginning to wonder why any woman would have left Cal, but that’s what had happened, according to Rochelle. “I suppose there are worse things than being the hometown hero,” she said instead.
“Yeah. The good part is, you get to live in your hometown again. The bad part is, you have to live in your hometown again. Not everybody loves a hero.”
She looked up from her salad. “Jealousy,” she guessed.
“Yep. Everything’s got a price. Most people around here take you for who you are, though. What I like about living here. Why I’m living here. It’s not about what you do for folks around here, or about how much you’ve got. It’s about who you are. If I set myself up all fancy, that wouldn’t impress anybody. Just the opposite. They’d think I was a jerk.”
“And you’re not.”
He shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. What do you think?”
“That it’s pretty obvious you’re not a jerk, not underneath. And,” she went on, because it had been nagging at her for days, “speaking of that gift of yours . . . I like this town, too, don’t get me wrong. But you do know, don’t you, that everything that goes on everywhere else goes on here, too?”
“Like what?” He looked startled, and no wonder. Why couldn’t she just flirt? Why did she always have to make things serious? Because she was serious, and she couldn’t help it.
“Thinking about recruiting women to the university . . .” she said. “We keep overlooking one thing. That they need to be safe there.”
“And they’re not?”
“Have you heard that statistic, that one in five women is sexually assaulted in college?”
“I have,” he said, shifting gears right along with her, because Cal was anything but slow. “And I believe it. I went to college on a football scholarship.”
“And were in a fraternity, I’ll bet.”
“Yes,” he said, “I was in a fraternity. Although I don’t think that’s the only place parties happen, or rape happens, if we’re putting it on the table here. But I wouldn’t have said this university has any worse record than anyplace else. Probably better. And aren’t there training sessions and things like that now? I’m sure I saw something about that recently. Kind of a big deal, isn’t it?”
“You’d think,” she said, “if things were really changing.”
“So this is happening? You’re hinting around, and I don’t have a clue. Where is this coming from?”
“Remember when we were in your truck,” she said, “and the police car went by so fast? And you said something about the university’s finest keeping the streets safe?”
“I’m not likely to forget that, am I? Scared me to death, with you not in a shoulder belt.”
She set aside the feeling that gave her. “Well, I don’t think your campus police, or the university administration, either, is exactly with the program. However well the sexual assault prevention program is working, and I’m not sure it is, because I’ve done some research this week. Even when you’ve got straight-up attempted forcible rape, the classic case, breaking and entering, they don’t seem nearly as concerned as they ought to be.”
“All right.” He set the remains of his sandwich down. “Let’s have the story.” He beckoned to her. “Come on. Let’s have it.”
SECURITY FORCES
It was Wednesday, and Amy was walking into the low wooden building that housed the campus police department. It was her second time here, and the first had been pretty bad. But this time, she was here with Dr. Santangelo.
Her professor had asked her after class on Monday how the investigation was going, and when she’d heard that it seemed to be going nowhere, she’d announced that they were paying the police a visit. Which had been such a relief, because her dad hadn’t been able to get any answers on the phone, and Bill had refused to come.
“We already went to talk to them,” he’d said when she’d asked him. “It’s only been a week. You need to let them do their job.”
“I need to make sure they’re taking it seriously,” she tried to explain.
“They said they were investigating, so let them investigate,” he said. “You moved into the dorm. You’re safe. It’s all over. You can let it go now, and I think you should. You’re letting it take over your life.”
“I don’t think I am,” she said. “At least, no more than normal. That’s what the counselor said, that it’s normal to still . . . cycle up and down. To still think about it, and be scared when I do.” Which was putting it mildly.
“But why dwell on it?” he asked. “It was terrifying, I know it was, but you’re safe now. It’s over. Seems like you just don’t want to let it be over.”
“It doesn’t feel over, though,” she tried to explain for about the tenth time. “I can’t just forget it, like it never happened. And what if he does it to somebody else?”
“You reported it. That’s all you can do. You’re not responsible for everybody else in the world. Move on, Ame, or you’ll drive yourself crazy.”
Well, all right, she was crazy, because she couldn’t move on. She didn’t feel safe, and she didn’t think anybody else was safe, either, not with him out there.
She needed help, and Dr. Santangelo had been amazing in the housing office. Amy still couldn’t believe that she’d gotten her moved. And today, it wasn’t just Dr. Santangelo. She really couldn’t believe that Cal Jackson was walking into the building with them.
She knew who he was, of course. Everybody knew who he was. But she couldn’t believe he was here with her, and willing to help her.
“I really appreciate you doing this,” she said as they stood in the unmanned lobby, waiting for somebody to show up. “Both of you.”
“No problem,” Dr. Santangelo said. “You need to find out what’s going on, and this is our best shot. Especially since we’ve got Cal with us.”
“I told you,” he said, “I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise. Cops don’t always like me.”
“Everybody likes you,” Dr. Santangelo said.
“Everybody but cops.”
“Huh,” Dr. Santangelo said, and she sure seemed to be casual about Cal. Amy didn’t know how she could do it.
“Personal Weapons: Secure Storage,” Dr. Santangelo read aloud from the sign over the door to the right of the reception desk. “Does that mean the officers’ personal weapons, or . . . what?” She watched a guy head out of the room, dropping a handgun into his backpack, a uniformed officer locking the door behind him. “Or . . . something else?”
“Oh,” Amy explained, “you’re supposed to turn in your guns for the day while you’re on campus. But I didn’t,” she whispered.
“What?” Dr. Santangelo stared at her.
“I shouldn’t say. Not here. But my dad said to keep it with me all the time.” She shifted her backpack on her shoulder, and now Dr. Santangelo was staring at that, as if she’d never heard of anybody carrying a gun before.
“He was right, too,” Cal said. “You listen to your dad. Make you feel a whole lot better. If he comes anywhere near you, you pull that thing out first and ask questions later.”
“Wait. What?” Dr. Santangelo demanded.
“I told my dad I was supposed to lock it up,” Amy said, “but he said if I never needed it, nobody would ever know I hadn’t. And if I did . . . well, that would be the least of anybody’s worries, that I was carrying.”
“Carrying,” Dr. Santangelo said faint
ly. “Sounds like some . . . movie.”
“Nope,” Cal said. “Just sounds like Idaho. Figure everybody’s carrying, and you won’t be too far off.”
“Do you know how to use it, though?” Dr. Santangelo asked Amy. “Otherwise, isn’t that really dangerous? I’ve always heard that a gun is dangerous because your attacker can use it against you.”
“Only if he’s not dead,” Cal said, which was pretty much what Amy’s dad would have said.
“Of course I do,” Amy said. “You’re right. It doesn’t do you much good if you don’t.”
“It’s like a whole new world,” Dr. Santangelo said.
The officer who’d been locking up the weapons storage room was back behind the desk now, eyeing the three of them without much enthusiasm. “Can I help you?” he asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Santangelo said. “We’re here to see Officer . . .” She looked at Amy.
“Moore,” Amy said. She wanted to talk to him, but she didn’t want to talk to him. She was just glad she didn’t have to do it alone.
“Wait,” Cal said. “Moore? That’s who’s on the case?”
“Well, yeah,” Amy said. “That’s the one who did the report and everything. Why?”
Cal groaned a little. “Great. I should probably leave.”
“No,” Dr. Santangelo said. “No. We need your help.”
“I think he’s eating lunch,” the desk officer was saying.
“Well, since we’re here now,” Dr. Santangelo said, “maybe you could tell him that a crime victim is here, along with a faculty member, and that we have important information about a case.”
“Well . . . I’ll tell him,” the officer said, picking up the receiver by his side and speaking into it.
“Not that we have new information,” Dr. Santangelo whispered. “But whatever works.”
“I—” Amy said.
“What?”
“Tell you later.”
“I should probably say . . .” Cal told them. “I may not be that helpful, after all.”
Carry Me Home (Paradise, Idaho) Page 13