“I think so, but I’ve only had this job for a few days. Can I help you with something?”
“I wanted to see Dr. Steven Richards.”
The girl’s smile altered, and she looked quickly at her computer. “Uh, yes. He’s actually unavailable right now.”
“We should have called ahead—” Roxy began.
“I’m happy to take a message. I don’t know how soon he’ll be back.”
“Will he be back today?”
The girl’s face paled a bit. “I don’t think so.”
“That’s all right. Thank you, though.” I smiled pleasantly, took Roxy’s arm, and walked away.
She could feel me trembling. “That’s it? That’s all we’re doing?”
“I … thought he would be here.”
“Did you ever think to even call and see if he was still teaching? That was forty years ago, Lynn. He’s probably dead.”
“He was only twenty-nine when I was here. That would put him in his early seventies. And, the college’s website stated that he was here. The course schedule online even showed him teaching three classes this fall.”
“Well, clearly he’s not here, and that student is acting a little spooky about it. Maybe she’s failing his class. Maybe she has the hots for him. Was he good-looking? More importantly, what do you want to do now?”
“I want to go home. That’s what I really want to do. But I can’t just sit around that house, that big empty house, anymore. Every room feels empty. Everything feels empty without him.”
“Maybe we should find this professor’s office. See if maybe he’s in there, and the student didn’t see him come in.”
I looked around. “If I still remember the layout of the building, and I doubt that’s changed, he should be right around this corner—if he hasn’t moved in forty years.”
“Can’t hurt to check.”
We passed a row of nondescript doors with the names of the professors on the outside. I noted all the names had changed. All the professors I had worked for, except for Dr. Richards, were old when I was a young worker.
“He was handsome, in a messy kind of way,” I murmured.
I turned another corner, not surprised in the least to see the last door on the hall still marked with the name “Dr. Steve Richards, Astronomy.” He wouldn’t have ever wanted to move all his belongings and maps.
What was a surprise, however, was the note on the door, signed in flourishing cursive with the name of the dean. The message was typed and concise: “This office is closed. Any questions, please see your guidance counselor.”
“Strike two,” Roxy said. “Well, shall we see the guidance counselor? Perhaps ask her about some continuing adult education for two old chicks while we’re at it?”
I reached out and turned the door handle, but it was locked.
“Lynn, are you going to let yourself in?”
“I want to see his office.”
“Why?”
“He kept his information on the missing people in that office. I can’t have come all this way without seeing if any of my old work is still here. But what are we going to do? That girl won’t let us in, and I don’t think the dean will let us borrow a key.”
Roxy looked up and down the hallway. “Move aside.” She reached in her hand-quilted purse and dug around. She pulled out a hairpin. “When your hair is as ridiculous as mine, these things are a lifesaver.”
“What are you doing?” I whispered. “You just scolded me for trying to get in.”
“Yin and yang, kid. Only one of us is allowed to be the bad seed. If you do something wrong, the earth might break from its axis. Remember when we snuck into my dad’s locked liquor cabinet? I sampled it all, and all you did was fret and watch for his car to pull into the drive. I haven’t done this for years, but locks don’t change.”
After Roxy swore for a minute or two, I heard the click of the door, and the office opened. We shuffled inside and closed the door quickly.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Roxy said.
* * *
The campus street lamps were starting to come on outside, offering faint light to the rapidly darkening office. We didn’t dare turn on the overhead lights for fear of drawing attention from anyone walking outside. Roxy did a lot of huffing and sighing as I combed through drawers and file cabinets.
“Again I ask: Do you care to give me an idea of what we’re looking for?”
“Keep looking for anything that might explain where Dr. Richards might be. I went over his desk, and it’s a typical man desk: coffee stains, no organization, and dry pens. His calendar is blank, so clearly he does everything on his computer. And, as I found, it’s password protected, so I’ve come up with squat.”
Roxy leaned back in his chair and stretched out her legs, only to bang them harshly against something under the desk. I sighed, closing another cabinet. Every file, every drawer was filled with articles and research. Clearly, he had moved all his private research to his computer, and that was inaccessible. I slowly looked up at the maps that still covered the ceiling and walls, practically untouched over the decades. Apparently, he still needed that kind of visual reference—
“Care to explain this?”
Roxy was holding up a photograph, black-and-white and badly faded, of two people sitting together at a table. They were not touching, but they leaned in towards each other. I walked over and stared at the picture of myself and Dr. Richards
“Where did you find that?”
“Stuck on top of the safe under this desk. Which is locked, I might add. But that’s you, Lynn Roseworth. And I assume that’s Dr. Richards. So the question is—why does he have a minisafe with your picture stuck on top?”
“Are you sure it won’t open?”
“Yes, I’m sure, I tried it. And please answer my question.”
I looked around. The light was fading rapidly, and I began to run my fingers over the maps on the walls. I looked up and grabbed a chair to stand on.
“What are you doing?”
“Try this,” I gave her a key tied to a pushpin on the ceiling. She took it and knelt under the desk. “Did it open?”
“I think so.”
“Can we lift it?”
Roxy peered out. “We’re stealing now?”
“I have to see what’s in it, and we’re out of light.”
“It’s not heavy. It’s made out of that plastic stuff that won’t burn.”
“Stick your head out the door, see if anyone is out there.”
“Fine. But I want to know how you knew where that key was.”
I pointed up.
“Yes, I see it, it’s a star system. The fool has them all over this wacked-out office.”
“See the red pushpin?”
“Yes.”
“That’s where the key was hanging.”
“How did you guess it would be up there?”
“Because the pin marks my star.”
“What?”
“He named a star after me,” I said. “Let me carry the safe.”
* * *
At our room at the Hilton Garden Inn, on a table usually reserved for brochures on Champaign’s historic sites and loose change, sat takeout food from P.F. Chang’s and the safe. Roxy devoured her General Tso’s Chicken while I mostly played with my vegetable rice.
She at last put down her plastic fork. “Well, we’ve committed breaking and entering and burglary. If that’s my last meal before jail, I’ll be happy.”
“We’ll return all this tomorrow. No one will know.”
“Are you sure he won’t come back to his office tonight? Or first thing in the morning?”
“You saw the look on that girl’s face. I don’t think he’ll be coming back anytime soon.”
“What’s in this safe, Lynn?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you have your suspicions. Why was your picture taped to it?”
“Open it, Roxy. Tell me what’s in it.”
S
he stood up and slid the key into the safe. I continued to look out the window.
“Lynn.”
At the tone in her voice, I closed my eyes, afraid to turn around.
“Lynn, look at this.”
Roxy slowly slid a map out of a folder. It had yellowed and weathered, a relic now of a time before satellite mapping. The map was on a grid, with latitude and longitude markings. There were faded pencil marks, with arrows pointing to a forested area near a small square.
I recognized my home immediately.
Roxy was already sifting through dozens of newspaper clippings, all of which featured pictures of my family on election nights. The pile included the Southern Living magazine with William on the cover.
She reached out and took my trembling hand. “We need to go to the police with this.”
“We can’t.”
“We most certainly are.”
“I didn’t come here … because I suspected he might have taken William. I came because of his research into missing people. He’s spent his whole adult life dedicated to it. But when we showed up at that office and I saw that girl’s expression, I knew something bad had happened. I had to get into his office to see if I could find his research—or, more importantly, my own. But when you found that picture, and now this … I’m afraid he’s been gone from this university since William disappeared.”
“How did this happen, Lynn? When did this happen? You have to go to the FBI.”
“With what? A hunch? And destroy my marriage and what’s left of my family?”
“Why would it destroy your marriage and your family? This guy is obsessed with you, obviously—but that’s not your fault.”
I placed the Southern Living cover on the old photo of Dr. Richards and me, covering up my face. Side by side, Dr. Richards and William had the same dimples, the thick hair, the soft chin.
“Because it is my fault,” I said softly. “Dr. Richards is William’s grandfather.”
NINE
We sat in silence in the cab of Roxy’s pickup, nursing coffee and fogging up the windows. The safe sat on the floor by my feet. Roxy turned on the defroster to once again clear the windshield, revealing the astronomy building in the blue morning light.
“I hate to ask again, but are you absolutely sure…”
I nodded. “I’d always hoped Anne was Tom’s. But seeing that picture of Steven and that cover photo of William…”
“Lynn, I’m going to say it again: We should be taking that safe to the FBI, or at the very least the local police. I watch enough Dateline. And we should go now.”
“We have no idea what we’re doing, let’s not pretend otherwise. How are we going to explain that we broke into his office and found it?”
“You had a hunch. And you proved to be right. And once the police see it, they’ll agree. So we need to leave this parking lot. The professionals need to see it. We don’t need to put it back.”
“The police aren’t going to buy this. Neither would the FBI.”
“Are you nuts? This seems to me to be the most tangible evidence anyone has come upon since William went missing.”
“But why? Why would he take William? It doesn’t make sense. I know something is wrong, but I can’t believe he would do it. Why he would do it? Steven researches missing people. He wouldn’t do anything to put a family through this.”
“Now we’re calling him Steven? And that’s the other thing,” Roxy huffed. “I don’t get how an astronomy professor is somehow this expert on missing people. If he taught criminal justice or something, I would get it.”
“I had hoped at this point you would figure it out, so I wouldn’t have to say it.”
“Well I’m old and I’m tired, so my usual razor-sharp mind is dulled a bit. He has a map of your property, Lynn. He has pictures of you and your family. He has the magazine with William’s picture. He’s obsessed with missing people. And while it’s hard for me to even say it, he’s likely William’s grandfather. But I get it; I get why you’re afraid to go to police with this, because of the can of worms it’s going to open—”
“You don’t get it. The reason I feel like I need more proof is because if I go to the police now, they will roll their eyes. Because of what Steven does.”
“He’s a professor—”
“He investigates alien abductions.”
Roxy choked on her coffee, then wiped her lips with the Starbucks napkin. “Pardon my French, but what the hell, Lynn.”
“I thought the same thing too, at the beginning. I couldn’t believe it. Who could believe it? Now do you understand? If I go to police and say, ‘I had an affair with a guy forty years ago, who believes in aliens, and I stole a safe out of his office, and he happens to have a lot of articles about me and my family, and I think that’s proof that he abducted my grandson,’ then you can see the problem. Because I don’t think he has my grandson, Roxy. But what if he knows … what happened to William?”
Roxy leaned back in her seat. “I should have gone to Little Rock.”
“Do you know what I remember so vividly about all those cases of missing people? That sometimes there was a phrase repeated over and over again by the people who either claim to have witnessed the abductions, or were the last to see the missing people: ‘The lights took them.’ Or some variation of that. And you know that’s the last thing Brian ever said. Yes, I know I’m desperate. Yes, I know this is hard to believe. It’s still hard for me to believe all the stupid things I did in this town. But I have to do something.…” I inhaled sharply, to stifle the tears.
“Oh, sweet girl.” Roxy reached over to place her hand on my knee. “I’m sorry for being such an ass. I know admitting all this has to be hard.”
“‘It’s the lies that undo us,’ that’s what I tell the girls, what I’ve always told the girls. And look what I’ve done. It all sounds so ridiculous, and I know it sounds crazy. But I thought if I came here and found Steven and begged him to tell me anything he’d uncovered in the last forty years about these missing people, maybe I could feel like I was doing something to help.”
“Lynn,” Roxy said, taking my hand. “Forty years ago you believed this junk—I mean this … research. And that’s OK. Lots of people believe in dumb stuff when they’re kids. Hell, until I was twenty-six, I believed that if I sent Elvis enough mental messages, that he would seek me out and find me on the strength of my love. May I ask, though, what in God’s name were you doing having an affair with some nutty professor who believes in little green men? I mean, all those maps and files? About alien abductions? Come on, Lynn.”
“This is why I wanted to come alone.” I opened up the truck door. “Stay in the truck, I’ll be back.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Roxy muttered, lifting the hem of her denim dress and sliding out her door.
I carried the safe, with a sweater draped over it, into the building, Roxy shuffling behind. The hallway of the professors’ offices was silent, and I set the safe down outside Steven’s door. Roxy grumbled to herself as she once again picked the lock.
I went in and slid the safe under the desk. Roxy looked around with renewed disdain at the maps. “What do we do now?”
“I need to find out where he may have gone—”
“Excuse me, but how did you get in here?”
A young man stood in the door. He wore dark-rimmed glasses and a flannel with a Morrissey T-shirt underneath.
“We’re housekeeping,” Roxy said with a smile.
“This office is supposed to be locked.”
“Perhaps you should mind your own business.” She smiled wider.
“This is my business. I’m Professor Richards’s graduate student. No one is supposed to be in here.”
Roxy sighed. “It is too early to be this annoying—”
“I’m an old friend of Professor Richards,” I said. “I’m trying to find him.”
“He’s not here.”
“Do you know when you expect him back?”
“I
think you read the sign on the door before you broke in. He’s on leave.”
“It’s important that we find him. Does he have a cell phone? Or could you give me his address?”
“He keeps an unlisted number and doesn’t give out his address.”
“Are you his student or the head of his security detail?” Roxy asked.
“Could I give you my number? Perhaps you could pass it along to him?” I reached into my purse and quickly wrote it down on an old receipt.
“I suppose. But I need to know how you got in here.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Roxy snatched the paper out of my hands and thumped it against the chest of the student. “Here, take it and stick it in your Velcro wallet. Come on, Lynnie.”
I gave him a soft thanks as Roxy walked me down the hall. “We need to get the move on. Mr. Personality back there seems the type to call campus police. Tell me you didn’t write your full name or phone number on that sheet.”
“I most certainly did.”
“Really, Lynn,” she said, pressing her key fob to open the truck doors. “Why not give them all the proof they need to bust us for breaking in.”
“I don’t care at this point. I need to find Steven.”
“The police can take care of that.”
“I can’t go to police with this yet. You know why now.”
“Well, Google Agent Mulder, then. See where he lives. I’m going to that Shell station we passed to get us farther away from the scene of the crime.”
As she drove down the street, I pulled out my iPhone and stared helplessly at its shining screen. “I know how to use Google, of course, but where’s the symbol—”
“They’re called apps. Jesus, Lynn.” She took my phone. “Don’t go getting all senior citizen on me.”
“We are senior citizens. And thus, you cannot look at that phone and drive. There’s the gas station.”
Roxy parked, took off her glasses, and spent the next several minutes holding the phone a good one to two inches from her face, rapidly punching on the screen until she swore and put her glasses back on. “Well, nothing pops. Not in Google, not in whitepages.com. Mr. Keeper of the Gates back there was right about the unlisted address and all.”
The Darkest Time of Night Page 8