Mr. 8 Page 16

  As he made his way from Milton’s parking lot to his office, he attracted furtive glances and outright stares, but no one asked him what had happened to him. They all knew. That was one of the few advantages of the story being plastered all over the news.

  On the front page of Wednesday’s paper his picture had appeared with the headline: Local Hero. Linda had seemed proud of it. Although, he suspected she was more pleased that they had referred to him as a local, than as a hero.

  She certainly didn’t have anything good to say about his heroics.

  The Gazette had used the picture from the dust jacket of What Your Stuff Says about You, and a much younger Denton Reed peered out at the town with a smug expression and folded arms, as though he was fully entitled to the accolades bestowed upon him.

  As an unexpected side benefit, the media attention had revived the long dormant sales of his book. There had also been a pile of offers for new ones. The original publisher was clamoring for a sequel. And Denton had also been contact by several others to write a tell-all of his adventure. There was even a company interested in him writing a criminology textbook documenting the investigative techniques he used on the case. He had to laugh at that. What good would that do anyone? He felt more the bumbling Clouseau than Sherlock Holmes.

  He had turned down all the offers, just as he turned down all the requests for interviews. Reporters had rapidly been relegated to a class somewhere below vultures after they had attempted to ambush him as he left the hospital. Thankfully, Bill had been there and helped him and Linda sneak out through a service entrance.

  When he first arrived home, they were forced to unplug the phone and learned to ignore the doorbell. But the interest in Denton soon dwindled. The lives of the killers and the people who knew them turned out to be much more fascinating. And when a sensational murder trial started up in Florida, the national coverage headed south to better weather and juicier sound bites.

  By Friday morning, Denton’s role in the case had been forgotten by the press, which made his decision to go back to work easier. But Linda hadn’t been happy about it.

  “Can’t it wait,” she said. “You need rest. You’ve only been out of the hospital for a day.”

  Linda was exaggerating—slightly. He had been out for almost two days, but he knew better than to use that as an argument. His best tactic would be to steer the discussion to whether he needed recovery time, not how long it should be.

  “They only kept me in overnight as a precaution.” After a long, unpleasant night, he got a clean bill of health—nothing that wouldn’t heal on its own in a few weeks, the doctor had told him.

  “I’m fine. Dr. Nash never said I needed bed rest. Besides, the Department is closed starting Monday. I just have a little paperwork to get done and then I’ll take it easy for the rest of the holidays.”

  “Are you sure?” Linda asked, in a voice utterly lacking in trust.

  “Yes, I’ll see you tonight at 7th and Market.”

  “You still want to go?” Was there a twinge of pleasure mixed in with her surprise?

  “Of course. I just might be ordering the soup instead of the steak.” Denton gave his chin a gentle rub. He hadn’t lost any teeth but chewing still hurt like hell.

  Then he leaned in and kissed her. Each kiss caused pain: two sharp shocks, then one prolonged ache, followed by two sharp twinges. The only indication he felt anything besides the familiarity of their intimacy was that his eyes were clenched instead of simply closed.

  At the door, he got on his overcoat and adjusted the sleeves of his V-neck sweater. He had to be careful about it because he hadn’t bothered to bandage his wrists that morning. The welts from where the ropes had rubbed his skin were still raw and tender.

  Linda came running down the stairs and he let the coat’s sleeves drop to cover up the wounds in hopes of avoiding a lecture on the importance of keeping them covered.

  “You forgot these.” She held out the vial of prescription pain meds.

  They had been left on his nightstand. He hadn’t taken any since the first afternoon at home. They made him feel foggy and he had trouble concentrating when he was on them. The Tylenol from the medicine cabinet didn’t stop all the pain, but they were good enough.

  He smiled sheepishly. “Thanks. I forgot,” he said to appease her. He slipped the container into his pants pocket, gave her one last kiss, and walked out the door.

  He really didn’t need to go into work. Almost everything he had to do could have easily been done from home. But after sitting around the house with his mind dwelling on his ordeal, he longed for some sense of normalcy. Hopefully, returning to his routine would help.

  The morning passed quietly, until Monica Rainville knocked on his doorframe. Denton was focused on his computer screen and was a good way through entering the exam grades. His heart leapt at the noise, but he forced his head to move slowly from the computer screen to the door. As soon as his eyes met hers, she stepped in. She was right on time for their eleven o’clock appointment.

  “Oh-my-god,” she said. “I heard what had happened, but I didn’t know you’d been hurt so badly.”

  “Just a few bumps and bruises,” he said, with what he hoped was a smile. He wasn’t entirely sure his face moved the way it used to. “Nothing serious. It looks worse than it is. Might hurt my modeling career a bit, that’s all.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. I’ve signed all of your conference reports.” He reached over and pulled a file folder off the top of a stack of papers and handed it to her.

  “What about my timesheets?” she asked.

  “I haven’t gotten to that yet. But they’ll be done before the end of the day.”

  He could tell from her expression she wasn’t entirely satisfied with that answer, but she didn’t say anything else.

  “Oh, I can’t forget.” He opened the desk’s big file drawer. Sitting on top of a pile of miscellaneous junk was the bottle of scotch Lorraine Kontis had given him.

  Was that actually this week?

  He pulled an envelope out from underneath it and handed it to her.

  “Have a very happy holiday, Monica,” he said. It was a gift card from U Brew, a trendy new coffee shop just off campus. The last thing that girl needed was coffee, but it was what he’d gotten for his other two TAs, and he didn’t want to single her out.

  “Thanks.” She slipped it into the folder. Her eyes never even grazed the gift, instead she sat down unexpectedly. “I just have to ask: did you really track down those killers using your Object Transference Diagnostics?”

  “Well, that and some dumb luck,” he said, uncomfortable with the turn their conversation was taking.

  “Wow.”

  For the first time since she had started her grad studies with him, she looked genuinely impressed. There was real admiration in her voice.

  “I helped out the police once before,” he started. “And they asked me to take a look at this investigation because of the…” His voice trailed off, as his egotism was crushed by embarrassment. Was he really about to gloat over almost getting himself killed?

  “Well, maybe next semester we can work in some crime scene applications into the course plan,” he said, as a way to close the discussion. “Have a very good and restful holiday, Monica.”

  Denton worked through lunch. His appetite still wasn’t completely back. Ever since the morning of the raid, a sharp queasiness had inhabited his stomach. The regular dose of Tylenol only made it worse. Perhaps going to the restaurant wasn’t the best idea. But the sooner things got back to normal, the better.

  “Dent. What the hell are you doing in?” Simon Foley stood at his office door. His foot seemed to hover at the threshold, uncertain if he should come in or not.

  “I just needed to wrap a few things up. Almost done.” Denton gave the department chair a forced smile. With any l
uck the man would nod and walk away.

  “You shouldn’t have worried about that. We could have arranged an extension.”

  “It’s no bother. Getting bored kicking around the house. Oh, and thank you for that gift basket. It was very thoughtful.” He had been genuinely touched. With Lorraine on vacation, Foley must have ordered it himself. It was an assortment of gourmet snack foods: spiced nuts, chocolate covered espresso beans, caramels, and other treats he wouldn’t be able to eat for another week. Still, it was much more consideration than he had expected.

  “It was nothing. Are you sure you’re okay?” Foley asked, entering the office.

  “Looks worse than it is,” Denton said, rubbing his cheek self-consciously.

  “No, I mean… From what the paper said…” He paused, trying to find the right words. The fat along his jawline made him look younger than he was, and with his lips pursed, he looked like a little boy. “It must have been very traumatic for you. Are you seeing anyone?”

  “No.” Denton bristled at the suggestion he might need counseling, but he tried to hide his annoyance. “Don’t worry, if I need to, I will. But it really only lasted a few hours.”

  “It only takes a few minutes, you know.” Foley slipped into the chair across from him. “I’m concerned for you, Dent. Not just as a colleague but as a friend.”

  Friend? Since when were they friends?

  “I don’t like talking about it, but I had something similar happen to me once. Well, I suppose it wasn’t all that similar, but it was… It affected me. You see, there was a shooting.” As Foley spoke, his expression grew stiff. His baby fat no longer gave the illusion of youth, and he seemed to age before Denton’s eyes.

  “It happened back when I was teaching at Emmett. I saw one of the students die, right in front of me. He was just a freshman—just a boy, really. I was so close to him. It was a miracle that the gunman didn’t fire on me. Why him and not me, I’ll never know. I’ve thought about all those little things that led me to that spot, on that day, a million times, and I don’t think it will ever make any sense.”

  “I had no idea.” Denton had never heard any of this before. Who was this man in front of him? The chair had never seemed so human and fragile before.

  Foley looked down at his hands before he continued. There was a small coffee stain on his cuff, right at the edge before the first blue pinstripe.

  “Anyway, it took years of therapy to get over it. And the whole thing lasted just minutes. At the time, I didn’t think I needed help either. I’m a psychologist. What on Earth do I need therapy for? But the horror of that day kept creeping back in the most unexpected ways. I’d have these moments where I felt it was going to happen again—like a premonition. Or everything would rush back, like it had only happened moments ago. In the end, these feelings became worse than the actual event. It started to ruin my life.”

  When he finished speaking, he glanced awkwardly out the window. Denton detected an evasiveness in the gesture, as if Foley was attempting to defuse the intimacy of his confession by avoiding eye contact.

  “Talking about it helps. It sounds cliché, but it’s true. If you want the name of a good therapist… Or if you need a sympathetic ear, just let me know. Think about it.” He stood up.

  “Okay, I will.” Denton was at a loss. He never expected anything like this from Simon Foley.

  At the door, he said, “Have yourself a Merry Christmas. And wish Linda one for me too. If you need to take some time in the New Year, don’t worry about it.”

  “Thank you. Merry Christmas.”

  As the afternoon dragged on, fatigue began to set in, and Denton started to regret his decision to come in. The paperwork seemed to never end, and by the time he was done and ready to leave, the faculty building was just about deserted. Nearly everyone had cleared out and gone home for the year.

  The sun was already setting. The radio had said tomorrow would be the Solstice. One more day and the cycle would start over. The days would start getting longer. The sun would begin to rise higher in the sky. Before he knew it, it would be spring again. He just had to make it through this winter.

  Denton grabbed his coat, which was hanging on the hook by the door. When his fingers brushed against the soft fabric, he could have sworn he heard someone say, here. It was in that hushed tone that Eddie had used when he’d thrown the coat to him, as they were making their escape. He froze, listening closely. But the only noise was that of his own breathing and the ticking of the clock out in the hall.

  He physically jumped when someone called out, “You still here?”

  “Cole, you startled me.” Denton caught sight of Radnor heading down the hallway toward him.

  “Sorry. Wow, they really did a number on you,” Cole said jovially.

  “It looks worse than it is.” It was becoming a familiar refrain. He needed to come up with a new line.

  Having Cole comment on his face didn’t bother him. Denton was beginning to get used to that. But when he noticed that he had left his sleeves rolled up, he felt embarrassment. The wounds on them had an awful red, oozy look. They had opened up over the course of the day. He would need to disinfect and wrap them when he got home.

  He casually dropped his arms to his side, hoping Cole wouldn’t notice if he didn’t draw attention to them.

  “I just wanted to say thank you for what you did—getting those guys off the streets.” Still in midstride, he reached out for a handshake.

  Denton didn’t take it, he just said, “Thank the police. If it weren’t for them, they’d still be out there. I was just at the wrong place at the right time.”

  If it wasn’t for them I’d probably be dead right now, he thought grimly.

  Cole left his hand out there for a moment before letting it drop limply.

  “How are things going with you?” It was not a question he tended to ask Cole Radnor. But he’d prefer to hear about his latest disaster than to answer any more questions about the night in the lodge.

  “Never better. The holidays are shaping up to be great,” he said with a smile.

  “Really?” Denton couldn’t remember ever seeing him in such a good mood.

  “Absolutely.” Then Cole said with sudden haste, “Look, I won’t keep you. Happy Holidays.”

  Before Denton could stop him, Radnor took hold of his right hand and clasped his wrist with the other and gave him a formal two-handed handshake.

  The shock of the contact was soon replaced with revulsion; the man’s hands were wet. The flesh on his hand and his wrist recoiled. As he pulled himself free, Denton tried to think of a reason for his hands being wet. None of the answers that came to him were hygienic or pleasant.

  He actually touched my open blisters!

  Cole Radnor took two steps backwards without taking his eyes off of Denton, before turning around and walking off, heading to the stairs. There was something odd in the slow, mechanical way he moved. It felt as though the air grew denser. A warm prickling sensation ran down Denton’s spine just watching him.

  Radnor’s legs moved lightly across the floor, crossing diagonally to the first closed door. Then he did a curious thing. He quickly brought his right hand up to his face, then reached out for the door knob. He jiggled it for just a second and moved on.

  Denton was unable to take his eyes off the man’s strange behavior. Perhaps the poor bastards had developed some OCD tic.

  But at the next door, he got a clearer view. Radnor brought his hand up in front of his mouth, and then his tongue slid out. The institutional fluorescent lights reflected off of the saliva. Pink and glistening, he pressed his palm to it and licked. Confusion and disgust filled Denton’s head. The only time he had ever felt anything similar was in dreams. It was that disturbing feeling he got when something too strange would happen and he realized the world wasn’t bound to the rules of reality. Except this wasn’t a dre
am.

  Radnor grabbed the door handle. He wasn’t trying to open it. He was rubbing his spittle on it. Then he turned the corner and was gone.

  Denton looked around to see if anyone else had observed this bizarre scene. The hall was empty. There was nothing but him and a row of closed doors.

  No, one of the doors stood slightly ajar. It was Radnor’s.

  He always locked his office. He would never just leave the door open. He didn’t even leave it open when he had his office hours. Students had to knock and identify themselves before he unbolted it and let them in.

  Denton walked over to it, a sick dread building inside of him.

  He licked his hands before touching me. He was looking for an excuse to shake my hand. Why?

  He pushed the door open with the toe of his shoe.

  There were eights everywhere.

  Chapter 24

  A Tangible Link

  BLOOD SPLATTERED IN RANDOM DROPLETS against the sides of the basin. They dribbled down, each following their own mysterious trail, like rain on a windshield. When they reached the water pooling at the bottom of the sink, the drops burst and became dark clouds mixing in with the soap suds.

  Denton scrubbed his wrist fiercely. The rough paper towels tore up the blister, and the industrial soap from the dispenser sharply burned the wound. He ignored the pain and hoped his efforts would be enough to stop any contaminants that might be working their way into his bloodstream.

  As he worked at cleaning the skin touched by Radnor, he struggled to get his breathing under control. Deep breaths. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth.

  The reflection in the mirror was of a much older man. Behind the wire rimmed glasses, his eyes were panicked. Dark circles made them appear sunken, and the harsh restroom light made his skin look deathlike.