by P. C. Cast
“I’m hoping the tree connection is more than just the fact that Mohawk Park has trees,” Raef said.
“Definitely. The kid’s body was discovered by a tree-trimming team,” Preston said.
“Is there anything in the report besides the tree trimmers being there for regular maintenance?” Lauren asked. “Were they there for a more specific reason?”
Into Preston’s stunned silence Raef explained, “That’s Lauren Wilcox. She’s working her sister’s case with me.”
Preston cleared his throat. “Oh, well, okay. Yes, Miss Wilcox, the police report was thorough. TPD questioned the trimmers extensively. Apparently they were under the direction of a consulting arborist who was overseeing the cleanup after the storm.”
“Did they list the tree doc’s name?” Raef asked.
“Let me check.” Preston paused while Raef heard the tapping sounds of a keyboard. “No, the report just says that they were under the direction of a city-hired arborist.”
“What about the other death?” Raef asked while Lauren took notes.
“The other was in April. Caused by a frat-boy binge, complete with the kid choking on his own vomit, even though he was described by all of his friends as a nondrinking nerd. There’s no direct arborist connection listed, just a coincidental tree connection. The body was found by the campus landscapers behind a very expensive pallet of saplings the university had spent lots of alumni money on to replace the trees that didn’t make it through the last ice storm in February. I figured no one would spend so much money on a bunch of trees without consulting an arborist, so I thought you might be interested.”
“Please tell me the university you’re talking about is TU and not OSU-Tulsa or TCC,” Raef said.
“As a matter of fact, it is,” he said.
“Preston, you might have just served our killer to me on a silver platter. Take the rest of the day off.”
“You know it’s already an hour past quitting time, don’t you?” Preston said.
Lauren hid her giggle with a cough.
“Right. I’ve been, uh, busy.” Raef didn’t meet Lauren’s gaze. “So, what I meant to say was for you to take the morning off. Tomorrow. And good job.”
“Thanks, boss,” Preston said, with only a hint of sarcasm before disconnecting.
“It’s Braggs,” Lauren said.
“Good possibility it is,” he agreed.
She tapped the paper she’d been taking notes on, frowning. “January, April, July.” Lauren looked up at him. “If this is him, he’s killing in three-month cycles. Raef, it’s October.”
“He’s due,” Raef said.
“So we’re going to go apprehend him, right?” Lauren was already getting up and heading toward the pool of pink lace that was very near his feet. “I mean, we’ll question him and see if he squirms?”
He sighed and grabbed her by his sweatshirt, lifting her up so that she wasn’t bending over and showing way too much of her pretty little ass. “We’re not. I am.”
She frowned up at him. “I’m going with you.”
“To confront the serial killer who murdered your twin sister, still has her soul trapped and is ready to murder again? No, you’re not.”
Instead of pulling away from him, Lauren pressed her hand against his chest. “I have to. It’s logical.”
“Putting you in danger isn’t logical.” Her touch was doing weird things to him, and he had to keep reminding himself that she was not Aubrey. But, damn! She felt like her and looked like her and even if she wasn’t Aubrey he really liked her and— Raef shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “I’ll check him out and tell you everything. You’ll be in on all of it, but from a safe distance.”
“There is no safe distance for me, Raef! I’m being drained just like Aubrey is being drained. We don’t have time to mess around with this. The bottom line is that it’s logical that I come with you because you’ll know as soon as he sees me if he’s the killer.”
Raef stared down at her. She was right. If Braggs was the killer the sight of Lauren, looking so much like one of his murder victims, would evoke strong, negative emotions from him—emotions Raef’s Gift would definitely be able to pick up.
He blew out a long breath of frustration. “You can come, but it has to be on my terms.”
“Anything,” she said, hugging him hard.
Raef let himself hold her and breathe in her scent. “Stay close to me. Stay quiet. And if bad shit starts going down you run like hell and call 9-1-1. Promise me.”
“I promise,” she said, and squeezed him tightly before letting him go.
“And I want my sweatshirt back, too,” he said.
She had bent over to pick up her panties. She paused, straightened, and with a smile that had his heartbeat speeding up, Lauren pulled his sweatshirt over her head and tossed it at him. Then, very slowly, she said, “Be careful what you ask for, Raef.”
He swallowed, muttered, “Thanks,” and retreated into his bedroom as fast as his rubber legs could carry him.
* * *
THERE’D BEEN A MAJOR redo to the University of Tulsa’s campus over the past couple of years. What had once been a nondescript entrance to a cluster of light-colored stone buildings mixed with modern stuff stuck in a kinda dicey part of town at Eleventh and Harvard had turned into a real university campus—complete with a swanky stone-and-wrought-iron perimeter fence and excellent landscaping.
Hell, they even had a fountain.
Raef was an ex-TU student. He hadn’t graduated, but he liked to think that the several thousand dollars he’d paid in tuition during his three long years there had bought at least a few yards of the new fencing. Or maybe a portion of the fountain. Whatever. He still knew enough about the campus to pull into the main entrance at Tucker Drive and take a right to snake around to the bio building, Oliphant Hall. He parked in the west lot, shut off the car and turned to face Lauren.
“Okay, here’s why we’re here. We need Dr. Braggs’s advice on how to save the big old elm in my front yard because we heard he’s an expert on curing Dutch elm disease.”
“There is no real cure for Dutch elm disease,” she said.
He sighed. “Look at me. Do you think he’d think I know that?”
She raised her brows, and even though her eyes were tired and shaded, they sparkled at him. “Probably not.”
“Exactly. So, if this is our guy you need to understand that his first sight of you will elicit some strong negative emotions. He’ll be in turmoil, even if he looks totally calm to you. I’m going to ask for his business card—so I can reach him later about my elm, because right now we’re in a hurry to get to a dinner date. You stay behind me. I’ll be between you and him. You’ll be near the door. We’ll get in, and get out, and if I pick up negative emotions from him I will make a call to TPD. They’ll take it from there.”
“And I’m supposed to?”
“Play blonde. You can do that, right?”
Instead of getting pissed and narrowing her eyes at him, she blinked guilelessly and fell into a very good Okie accent. “Why, what do ya mean, sir? I’m simply standin’ by my man like any well-trained woman would. Could ya please help him so that he’s in a real good mood when he lets me fry him up some dinner while he ‘reads’—” she air quoted “—the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue?”
“Stop scaring me,” he said, trying—unsuccessfully—to hide his smile.
“You lead and I’ll follow,”
she said, obviously not trying to hide her smile.
“Hey,” he said before she could get out of the car. “Remember that this isn’t a game. If Braggs is our guy he’s a killer.”
Her blue eyes met his steadily. “I’ll never forget that. Don’t worry about me. Do your part. I’ll be the silent bait and then I’ll stay out of your way.”
He started to tell her that she wasn’t the damn bait, but she was already out of the car and standing on the sidewalk that led to the front entrance of Oliphant Hall.
Raef, you have lost your fucking mind, he told himself.
Lauren didn’t stay on the sidewalk long. When he joined her she was crouched over some short greenish bushes inspecting their leaves.
“Azaleas,” she said, before he could ask the question. “Sleeping ones, actually, which is what they’re supposed to be doing this time of year. They’re well tended—definitely in good shape. The groundskeepers know their business here.”
“Ted Bundy had a girlfriend who said he was a good guy—and all the while he was slaughtering young coeds.”
“Who?”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven. What does that have to do with—”
“Never mind,” he interrupted, feeling old and worried and insane, all at the same time. “Just keep in mind not everything is how it looks. And do exactly what I tell you to do.”
“Okay, I got it.” Then she touched his arm. “If it’s Braggs and he’s arrested, what happens then?”
“Well, I’ll let the police know about the psychic entrapment, and that we believe he’s taken his victims’ souls to the Land of the Dead. They’ll bring in a shaman who specializes in soul retrieval.”
“Right away?”
He hated that she sounded so scared. “Yeah, I’ll make sure of it.” And if they don’t move fast enough, I’ll Track the bastard to the Land of the Dead and kick his ass myself, Raef added silently.
“Then Aub will go free?”
“That’s the plan,” Raef said, his stomach suddenly feeling not so good.
Lauren looked out across the campus, shivered and whispered, “Yes, that’s what has to happen, no matter what it does to me.”
“Lauren,” he said, sounding sharper than he’d meant to because of the worry for her that spiked in his twisting gut. “You won’t be drained anymore. You’ll be able to—”
“I know,” she interrupted him, back to her steady, no-nonsense self. “It’ll be okay. Aub and I will be okay.” Lauren took her hand from his arm and started walking briskly down the sidewalk.
He didn’t have a clue what the hell to say to her. All he could do was try to wade through the conflicting emotions this damn case was making him feel while he caught up with her as Lauren followed the sidewalk around the light sandstone building. Together, they turned to their left to walk beneath white pylons that gave way to a very ordinary-looking glass door.
Raef had taken classes in Oliphant Hall—more than a decade ago, but the smell had stayed the same. “Books and formaldehyde mixed with testosterone and stress. I’ll never forget that smell,” he said.
“It was the same at OU. I think it’s a common higher-education smell. Well, minus the formaldehyde.”
A petite girl with big blue eyes and straight, well-maintained blond hair was coming toward them. She had a ridiculously thick anatomy-and-physiology tome clutched against her chest and an it’s-midterm-and-I-gotta-study frown creasing her otherwise lineless forehead.
“Excuse me.” Raef smiled at her. “Do you know where we can find Dr. Braggs?”
The girl blinked as if coming up through layers of essay test hell, and pointed at the ceiling. “He’s probably still in the dissection lab on the third floor—room 303.”
“Do you know if he has a class right now?” Lauren asked.
“No,” said the college coed. “Lab is done for the day.”
“Thank you,” Lauren said.
The girl smiled, nodded vaguely and hurried on her way from the building.
Raef called on the recesses of his college experience and accessed a few brain bytes that he hadn’t killed with alcohol poisoning. “Over here.” He led Lauren a little way down the wide hallway to an industrial-looking metal door that had been painted the same unpleasant yellow as the rest of the first floor. “It’s the stairwell that leads up to the third floor. If I remember correctly, and don’t quote me because halfway through my freshman year I changed my major from Environmental Science to Beerology, this is how we get up to the third-floor classrooms.”
“You went here?” Lauren asked as they climbed the stairs.
“For almost three years this is where I matriculated.”
“Which means you didn’t graduate,” she said.
“Not even close,” he agreed. “College and I didn’t agree.”
“Makes sense to me. OU and I had a fundamental disagreement, as well.”
“Which was?” he asked, realizing he was actually interested in her answer.
“Well, they thought their students needed to attend class. Even if said students could not attend class and just show up for tests and still make decent grades.” Lauren shrugged. “OU and I agreed to disagree.”
“You agreed to leave and they agreed to let you?”
Her smile was sly. “No, I agreed to let Mother endow a chair in the botany department, and OU agreed to give me a BS.” Her smile turned into a giggle. “A BS! It still makes me laugh. That’s exactly what it was—bullshit.”
“What about Aubrey?” He couldn’t seem to stop himself from asking.
Her gaze met his. He tried to read her eyes and found all he could decipher was weariness and a healthy dose of cynicism.
“Aub graduated with honors—without Mother bribing anyone. She has always been the smart one.”
“And which one are you?”
“I’m the pragmatic one. Which one are you?” she fired back at him.
“I don’t have a twin.”
“Let’s pretend like you do.”
“All right. I’d be the grumpy one,” he said.
As he grabbed the metal handle of the door to the third-floor hallway, she said, “Really? My guess is you’d be the lonely one.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The smell hit him right away. It had been bad enough on the ground floor. Up here in the dimmer, cooler third-floor hallway it was downright disgusting.
Lauren wrinkled her nose. “Eesh, what is that?”
He glanced at her. “You were a botany major but you didn’t take any labs?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I told you—I took a bunch of classes. I just didn’t attend many of them. So, what’s the smell?”
“Death,” he said. “Formaldehyde only preserves bodies for so long. It never completely covers the scent of decay.”
Lauren looked horrified. “There are dead bodies up here?”
“Yep. Humans, animals and probably a bunch of bugs, too.”
She shuddered. “No wonder I never went to class.”
“Stay close,” he said.
“Don’t worry about that. I’m not going anywhere.” She wrapped her arm through his.
Raef moved forward with Lauren practically stuck to his side, trying not to think about how good she felt and how badly he wanted to keep her safe.
The classrooms were clearly labeled and in numerical order, with odd numbers to the left and even on their right. Room 303 was on
ly a few yards from the stairwell exit.
“Ready?” he asked her.
She unwrapped her arm from around his and lifted her chin. “Ready.”
Speaking quietly, he said, “This isn’t going to take long. Remember, let him see you, but then I’ll move between the two of you. Stay behind me.”
“And close to the door,” she whispered back. “I remember. Let’s just get this over with.”
He nodded tightly, and pulled the door open by the cold, metallic handle. Only half of the fluorescent bulbs in the classroom were on and very little light managed its way through the high, rectangular windows. Black lab tables were clustered in pods. The smell was bad, but the tables and the aluminum lab chairs—which looked ironically like bar stools—were spotless. The wall closest to them was decorated with large feline physiology posters that were almost as gruesome as the stuff that was floating in huge jars on the shelves that lined two of the other walls. The place was so dim and creepy that at first Raef didn’t think anyone was in the room. Then, from the head of the classroom, a man cleared his throat and said, “May I be of some assistance to you?”
“Dr. Braggs?” Raef asked in his best nice-guy voice.
The professor pulled off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with the back of his hand, which was covered in a latex glove.
“Yes, I am Dr. Braggs. How may I help you?”
“Well, if ya have a sec I’d like to ask you ’bout a tree,” Raef said, adding a healthy dose of Okie and country-ing up his words.
Braggs blew out a little sigh. “I’m a bit busy setting up tomorrow’s lab. But I can talk while I work.”
“Hey, great! That’d be great,” Raef said, and started moving toward the front of the room, staying ahead of Lauren.
“All right, then. Ask away.” Braggs put his glasses back on and bent over the large metal tray that was mounded with something Raef couldn’t quite make out. He studied Braggs as he approached him.