Page 52 of Long Way Down

“Nah. But he’s raping people, so, he’s gotta go.”

She stared at him a long moment, then snorted. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“TheLean Dogsare taking down rapists now?”

“The ones we know about, yeah.” He winked. “Tell your friends.”

He left her with a generous tip, the sound of her laughter following him down the hall.

Eleven

Since they were both majoring in visual arts, Lana and Lynn shared the same advisement office, where they were able to obtain printed-out schedules for both girls. Most of Lynn’s classes were during the day, and all of Lana’s in the evenings, but they had one class together: Intermediate Figure Drawing. It started at seven in the evening, so Melissa and Contreras killed time tracking down and interviewing Lynn’s dorm roommate and coordinating with the lab on campus security camera footage. There was simply no way these two girls shared a course together and yet had been victims of random violence. The connection was here on campus somewhere; Melissa swore she could smell violence on the rain-soaked breeze.

Night came on quickly beneath the cloud cover, darkness pressing close over the streets and sidewalks and filling stairwells and doorways at ten ‘til five. Contreras bought sandwiches from a food truck and they ate them standing up beneath the shelter of a dramatic, colonnaded portico. Rain hissed down off the building’s flat eaves, and shifted in tides across the street, over the heads of the students who passed between them and inside with a flurry of shaken-out umbrellas.

Contreras slipped his empty sandwich wrapper into his coat pocket and moved to stand beside her after the latest wave of kids went past in a shower of water droplets and a mutter of curses over rain-spotted portfolios. “You talked to youracquaintancetoday?” he asked, lightly, sounding like he barely held back a grin.

She sent him a glare that would have been more effective if there wasn’t a hunk of pastrami on rye stuffed in her cheek. She swallowed and said, “I’ve been with you all day. When would I have done that?”

He showed both palms. “Just asking.” Grew more serious. “Be curious if he knows if there’s a connection between his working girl and our two girls.”

Her food soured in her stomach.His working girl. That…was not pleasant to hear.

She wrapped up the second half of her sandwich, still hungry but lacking an appetite, and shoved it down into the big front pocket of her coat. Wiped her hands on a napkin and popped a mint; she thumbed one into his palm when he stuck his hand out in silent request.

“Thanks,” he said. “Because this guy – the guy who hit Lana and Lynn – has got some sort of connection to this school. To this building. So it stands to reason that other girl does, too.”

“We can’t interview that other girl, so we can’t include her in our considerations,” Melissa said, hating that she was right.

“Yeah. But it never hurts to take every angle into account. Depending on what we learn going forward, we may have to have a sit-down with your friend and help him realize coming forward is the right thing for his girl.”

Ugh. There it was again. “She’s nothis,” she said, before she could help herself, and turned away when she saw him start to grin. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

~*~

Professor Gerard Dubois was a small, neat man in a shawl-collar cardigan and tan corduroys who moved with a ballet dancer’s quick, precise grace. He wore his graying hair slicked tight to his skull, and his glasses winked in the low, incandescent light he’d chosen to use in his studio classroom rather than the fluorescent overheads. A combination of standing and table lamps threw dramatic shadows across a cloth-draped chaise at the center of the wide room, and the professor was setting up easels in a loose ring around it. A bank of night-black windows flanked one wall, rain pattering against the glass in steady rhythm. Student work lined the other walls, nude, human-figure drawings that ranged from the mere suggestion of an outline to detailed, darkly-shaded pieces that highlighted pores, wrinkles, and freckles.

Freckles brought to mind Pongo, and she found that the mental image of his stupid, insistent smile was soothing. That thought paired with the low piano sonatas playing from an unseen stereo softened a little of the day’s stress. It was a pleasant room – and Professor Dubois’s lilting French accent was pleasant as well.

“I’m sorry to hear about them both,” he said, and snapped the legs out on an easel with a practiced flick of his wrist. “I had no idea. Miss Preston was not in class the day before yesterday, which was unusual. It was her first absence.” He locked the easel into place and straightened; adjusted his glasses, lamplight winking off them.

For a moment, that flicker of white, that flash of glare, propelled her back to the past. All thoughts of Pongo, the delicate tinkling of the music, and the warm lamplight faded. Heat pressed her down to the ground, clung to her like a lead apron. Cicadas groaned, and a gator echoed four registers deeper, far out amongst the gnarled cypress knees. Pastor Keith grinned at her, light flashing on his glasses, and leaned down to press his lips to Ivy’s ear.

She gasped, and blinked, and the past shredded to reveal the present, warmly glowing, smells of graphite and charcoal, sounds of a tinkling piano.

Dubois cocked his head. “Are you well?”

She cleared her throat and resisted the urge to chafe her suddenly-cold arms with her hands. “Fine.” She motioned to Contreras, who gave her a concerned glance, but resumed the conversation.

“Do you have many absences, in general?”

“Oh, no.” Dubois began setting up the next easel. “You see that sort of thing in general classes. Once students have moved into the upper levels, and chosen areas of concentration, the learning is much more essential for them. I don’t take attendance – that is, there’s no penalty for missing class. My students are adults: they have jobs, and illnesses, and families.” He shrugged. “Sometimes they cannot attend.”

“But not Lana?”

“Lana is one of my brightest. She’spassionateabout her art.” He formed a fist, briefly, gripped with a showing of passion himself. His jaw firmed and his lips formed a small, delighted smile – a delight in his student’s love for her craft? Or a passion for the student herself?

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