She glanced at me. “Yeah, he totally gets it. You know? He understands what it’s like to be an artist struggling with other classes. He’s been helping me work through my Psych course so I don’t fail.”
“Professor Caul?” I felt like a record stuck on a scratch.
She looked at me like I was a moron. “Yes, Professor Caul, Steve. He’s pretty tough at first, really kinda scary actually, but it’s only because he cares about his students. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be on academic probation still. He really helped me out.”
Steve only helped those he could use. “You getting private tutoring from him?”
Her cheeks flared and she went back to her shelving. “Yeah, he commissioned me to do a painting in exchange for extra help.” She covered her mouth. “Shit, I’m not supposed to tell anyone that. Shit. Shit. Shit.” Seemed like Kiefer wasn’t the only actor around.
I gave her a nod. “No worries. Your secret is safe with me.” I put the book back on her cart and checked my watch. “Gotta run. I’ll see you around.”
She hesitated, then smiled. “Okay, yeah, I’ll probably see you around the Psych Department.”
23
I made it to the office before Arthur. He’d texted to say that he was swinging by the coffee shop. I hoped that meant he’d be bringing me caffeine and not code for he’d be late due to girlfriend fucking.
Just to be on the safe side, and even though I knew I was being ridiculous, I knocked on his office door before I walked in. I’d be doing that from now to the end of time, not ever wanting to walk in on another scene with Arthur and his pants down. I moved to the other side of the room, pulled the blinds up and opened the windows a bit. The room got stuffy during the day, especially now that outside was getting warmer, and Arthur liked to have a crisp smell rather than a musty one.
Steve tutoring Devin was odd but not off limits. That was his job after all. Extra help was part of his duties. But the way Devin had said it made me think that something more was going on. Direct questioning wouldn’t work. Steve could dodge information like you wouldn’t believe. I’d have to find a better way to figure out what could be going on.
And why did it bother me? Fuck. I slumped into a chair. Kassey was right. That was jealously I was feeling. Paranoia. Old feelings that I thought I’d never experience again. And yet, here it was. Making me suspect that he was having an affair with a student. And what did I care anyway? I wasn’t the moral police and I wasn’t his girlfriend. So I really shouldn’t give a fuck. Right?
I glanced up at the portrait. Lizzie. The dead wife. Devin had really captured Lizzie to perfection. Each stroke seemed to bring the woman alive. In fact, her eyes were so lifelike that it was like she was staring right at me. I got up and moved to the other side of the room and sure enough, it looked like she was trailing me. I shuddered. That was some creepy shit.
She’d killed herself and no one had seen it coming. I’d been working on my doctorate at that time. Had met Lizzie many times over the years that I’d been mentored by Arthur. She had been a tiny woman, petite, quiet, very sweet. She would do anything for anyone. Generous to a fault. Really lovely lady.
From what I knew, she’d dosed herself with some sedative and then had gotten in the tub. That would have explained the drowning in itself but the water was only three or four inches at most; she had been found face down. Not the position of someone having fallen asleep while bathing. Arthur had been out of town that weekend, came home to find her like that. Twenty-four hours dead in the tub. Not a pleasant sight, I’d imagine. There had been a very brief investigation, but they’d found a suicide note along with hesitation marks on the woman’s wrists. She had been determined to end her life that night. It had nearly killed Arthur to lose her. He’d spent a year away from lecturing, only acting as advisor to some of us within the inner circle.
I didn’t blame him for moving on. It was time and, if Helen made him happy, then good for him.
I shifted to the side. Yeah, the painting’s eyes definitely followed. Totally horror movie material. I chuckled softly, took another few steps and then my thigh brushed against Arthur’s desk and I had another thought. He’d been fucking another woman right there on his desk, in front of a portrait of his wife, who he’d always said was the love of his life. I leaned on his desk, hands splayed like Helen’s had been then looked over my shoulder and cringed. Yep, Lizzie was staring at me all right, and suddenly looking more menacing. I shivered. Creepy shit. If I were Helen, I wouldn’t be going for a repeat in that location any time soon. Unless she was into the weird stuff.
I pushed myself up just as Arthur came striding into the office. Close one.
“Hey there, Jade.” He handed me my coffee, the smell of something fruity wafting off him as he breezed past me.
There was a smear of lipstick on his jaw. So he had seen Helen.
I nodded my thanks and took a pull from the coffee. “What’s on the agenda for the day, boss?”
He sat and motioned for me to take a seat.
“Hang on.” I bolted out to the main office and grabbed my notepad and pen. I liked to do lists. I enjoyed the act of crossing things off. It made the day feel complete and also ensured I didn’t forget anything.
I closed the door to Arthur’s office just in case any students dropped by. Unlike me, they would know enough to knock before entering the sanctity of their prof’s space.
“Before we get started, we need to talk.” Arthur laid his hands on the desk and leaned forward, pinning me with his stern look.
My stomach pitched a bit. “Okay,” I said as I sat down, putting the notepad and pen on my lap wondering if he knew what I’d been up to before he’d come into the room. “What’s up?”
“I spoke to Steve yesterday.”
Oh. Fuck. My mind immediately started racing toward possible lies to tell. How to explain my hunts. What to downplay and rationalize. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“He told me about what happened between you two. The fight, I mean.”
Okay, what? “Huh?” My thoughts stopped as abruptly as they’d started. “He told you about barging into my condo and acting like a total ass?”
Arthur curled his lips down in disapproval. “No, he told me that you’d betrayed him with that police fellow, Bronson.”
“Betrayed him?” I was honestly shocked. “We aren’t a couple.”
Arthur’s expression of disappointment involved a deeply furrowed brow and an unflinching stare. “The man is desperately in love with you, Jade. Whether or not you have declared exclusivity with one another doesn’t matter—he has given you his heart and that comes with a certain expectation of loyalty.”
I jolted a bit at that, frowning. “You can’t be serious. The man doesn’t have a fucking heart.” Or at least it’s so tainted that it spreads a toxin when he infects you with it. “Honestly, Arthur, Steve can’t keep it in his pants for more than a day. He hasn’t given me or anyone else his heart, not unless it’s in his dick.” And what the fuck? Was Arthur so blind to Steve that he didn’t see his manipulations? His train of heartbroken women? Not to mention the history Steve and I had—a history Arthur knew about thanks to my therapy sessions with the man.
“He was quite distraught.”
“You mean angry.” I crossed my arms. “He didn’t get his way and, like a child, he threw a temper tantrum.”
Arthur shook his head. “No, like upset and crying.”
I screwed up my face. “What?” Steve didn’t cry. He didn’t show a tender underbelly or emotions like that. No, that would create too much vulnerability.
“He came to my house last night quite upset. He told me that he’d walked in on you and that cop at your place and assumed the worst.”
I was about to make a smartass comment about Steve being right to assume when Arthur cut me off.
“But I reassured him that you would never betray his heart that way.” He gave me that look again, the one that dared me to contradict him.
I kept
my mouth shut.
“You’re not one of those girls are you? One of those…” He waved his hand, seemingly searching for… “Cockteases?”
I gasped, couldn’t help myself. “Cocktease?” I muttered, nearly choking on the word, doubly horrified that I heard it come out of my mentor’s mouth. “Arthur, let me assure you, no one is being teased. Steve sets the rules, always has. I’m playing a game of his construction.” And it was clearly time to stop.
“A game?” Arthur narrowed his eyes. “I don’t like games and a man’s heart is not to be trifled with.”
I felt like I was in some weird alternate dimension, like Arthur wasn’t even really listening to me. “I told you, Steve and I are not together and he certainly hasn’t given me any part of himself that would make him vulnerable.” Anger simmered, my tone bristled.
Arthur scoffed. “Don’t be so obtuse. Men don’t necessarily speak the words but we definitely show them. Trust me when I say that Steve is madly in love with you. He thinks you’re exclusive and I’d like you to go and speak with him at some point today to clear things up.”
Arthur never could handle the two of us fighting, but that didn’t give him the right to meddle. “There’s nothing to speak about.”
“You’ll do this,” he said sternly, a finger raised at me. “Today. Go and clear things up with Steve and mend the poor man’s heart.”
Go fuck yourself, old man. I bit my lip, fighting the impulse to blurt those words, my frown so deep that it gave me a headache. Oh yeah, I’d be speaking to Steve, that was for damn sure.
“Now that that’s all cleared up, let’s get the day started, shall we?”
My plan had been to call Steve. I knew I could keep my emotions in check over the phone. I hadn’t counted on him coming to find me in the office. The second my gaze landed on his face, I wanted to punch him.
“We need to talk.” He walked in and closed the door.
I stood and moved around the desk away from him. “Hell yes, we do!”
He frowned, cocked his head. “You’re mad?”
“Am I mad? Yes I’m fucking mad! What the hell were you thinking yesterday?”
“What the hell was I thinking?” Steve peeked into Arthur’s office, registering quickly that we were alone. He started toward me.
“You stay right there.” I held my hand up as if that could do anything.
He stopped, a look that might have been surprise flashing on his face. “What was I thinking? I was thinking that I’d like to spend time with my girlfriend after work and then I come in to find you entertaining another guy. How should I be thinking?”
“Your girlfriend?” I scoffed. “When did you decide that was our status? I don’t remember having a conversation about that.”
“Oh, so a man can’t just assume that fucking a woman on a fairly regular basis means something more? A woman whom he has feelings for?”
“Feelings? For fuck’s sake, Steve, you don’t really believe your own shit, do you?”
He actually flinched, a momentary slip that he covered up quickly. “Did you fuck him, Jade?”
I crossed my arms. “That’s none of your damn business.”
“I had some expectations.”
“Bullshit. You thought you owned me again. Well, sorry to break it to you, but I’m not interested in your kind of relationship. You fucked me over once. I won’t be making that mistake again.”
“Fucked you over? You broke up with me!”
“Yeah, after you took my innocent little heart and shredded it to pieces.” I almost choked on that. Innocent little heart, yeah, okay. “After I walked in on you fucking another woman. Remember that, Steve? Remember how I was bringing over soup because you said you were sick and I walked right in on you sticking your filthy dick into that brunette whore?”
“So that’s what this is? Payback?”
“You wish! You’re not worth that kind of revenge. You don’t have a heart to shred anyway.”
“You belong with me,” he said through clenched teeth, fists balled at his sides.
“You mean belong to you and, no, I don’t. In fact, this ends right here, right now. Whatever we were doing, fucking for old times’ sake. It’s over now. If you come near me again, I’ll shoot you.”
He glared, looking like he was going to launch himself across the desk to get at me. “I believe that.”
“Good, because I’m serious.”
“You’re such a fucking tease. Always have been.”
He was baiting me. I wouldn’t let him win.
We stared each other down for what seemed like an eternity, a silent battle. Then, like a mask falling away, his face completely changed from seething anger to total calm. It was unnerving. I knew I needed to brace myself.
“I forgot to tell you. I reopened your research files. Been poking around your findings. There’s a few holes I’m pursuing.” He moved toward the door, his stride slow and casual.
My throat seized for a minute. I swallowed. This was a set up. “You’re welcome to it. I’m done with that focus.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.” He put his hand on the doorknob and flashed one of his charming smiles at me. “I spoke to Sean Ray this morning.”
My stomach pitched.
“You know what he told me?” Steve chuckled. “He told me that you were asking for it. Begging actually. That he came looking for you because he knew you wanted it.”
I swallowed back the rising bile. “That’s what all rapists say.” I was surprised that my voice held steady.
“Yeah, but I’ve seen you beg for it, so I’m inclined to believe him. You were begging him to fuck you, right, Jade? You wanted it. And because of that Kassey paid.”
“Fuck you,” I growled.
“Yeah, baby, that’s exactly what I mean.”
24
“Sorry, Eddie, I can’t meet you today. Something came up and I have to go out. Rain check for tomorrow. Library at four.” I left the message with a huge sigh of relief that he hadn’t answered. I didn’t want to actually have to explain myself.
Steve had rattled me. More than rattled me. He’d stuck the knife in and twisted, and he knew exactly what he’d been doing. It was one thing for him to be sniffing around my research, but for him to have sought out Kassey’s attacker? The attacker who had come for me? And for what purpose? To attempt to humiliate me? Or to dig deeper?
I hadn’t given him the reaction he’d been looking for. I’d stayed calm. Stoic even.
He’d reminded me that I had a mission. A job to do. And I was beginning to think I needed to put a new spin on it.
I made it home within twenty minutes and dug through the notes I’d made the day before. There was a study… Ah, right, there it was. Back in the seventies, one of those unethical kinds of studies had been done…the ones where the subject’s true nature had been tested.
The focus had been on consequences. The researchers had tested various groups of men ranging in age from early twenties to late forties. They had started with a survey that asked men to rank the likelihood that they would rape a woman depending on a different range of consequences. The results had been somewhat startling, not because the answers had been definitive, more like because they hadn’t. Out of a hundred men asked, sixty percent had said they didn’t know if they would rape a woman if given the opportunity. They didn’t know! The researchers had admittedly assumed that moral codes would rule the men but they’d been shocked to find out that wasn’t necessarily true. Not to say that the men would actually rape, but that they couldn’t commit to not raping if there was no legal consequence. Those findings had led the researchers to the next phase of testing.
They’d set up a scenario where they had given men the opportunity to rape a young woman with no consequences of legal action or punishment. They had started with small groups and progressed to lone males, trying to see if peer pressure impacted the decision to act. In this study, they had set a scenario with a woman who appeared to b
e drunk and passed out in a secluded area of a park at night. The rape never actually happened but they sure as hell learned a lot. More than fifty percent of the subjects took advantage and would have gone the whole way if they hadn’t been stopped. Heavy guilty conscience to follow once the men learned that they’d been part of an experiment and had failed. Definitely entering the dangerous ethical kind of experiments, research at the expense of the subjects’ mental health.
The researchers were so geared up about their findings that they had pushed the study to another level. They had selected a different set of men, ones who had scored low on the morality scales of their initial survey and had given them the means to drug unsuspecting women in a bar setting. The researchers had wanted to field test their theory which was that men, if given the opportunity, with no consequences, would drug a woman in order to have non-consensual sex with her. The drug was a placebo of course and the findings would have been confidential, with the men never finding out how morally bankrupt they were. It would have been a profound study.
Would have been if it had actually happened. The study had been shut down by the university when a group of female students caught wind of it and protested. I couldn’t exactly blame them. The test was fucked up and definitely wrong. Both test subjects and unknowing female victims would have likely come out of it changed people, and probably not in a good way.
But that was then and this was now. I had plans and Steve had given me just the motivation I needed.
I was going to conduct my own study.
I moved to my closet and pushed everything to the side so I could get at my hunting clothes. I was going downtown tonight. No dirty bars for me. This time I was going to target the club scene and I needed the clothes to make me stand out a bit because I knew there’d be competition.
I pulled out a dress I’d never worn. It was short of course, black, small sequins all over and it had a dipping v-neck and back, giving me lots of skin exposure. I laid it on my bed and studied it. How the fuck was I going to hide my gun? I had a thigh holster, but that would be risky if there was any under the skirt action. I could keep it in my purse but that too could get dicey.
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