Page 4 of Psycho
As August predicted, the sky opened up. Students hurriedly gathered books and papers, stuffing them in backpacks before making a run for it. The man didn’t run but he did pick up his pace, heading straight for August and Bianca, who stood near the building entrance. When he passed, he glanced up, locking eyes with August, holding his gaze for a solid five seconds before turning away again and disappearing inside the building. His eyes were a deep green, almost the color of his sweater.
August turned to watch him through the windows of the corridor, feeling strangely empty once he was out of sight. He shook his head, taking another sip of his coffee. This weather made him broody and weirdly sentimental for a monster.
“He’s pretty, isn’t he? Too bad he’s crazy.”
“Who is he?” August finally asked.
She gave a dreamy sigh. “Lucas Blackwell, Adjunct Professor of Criminal Psychology.”
August took another sip of his coffee. “Lucas Blackwell,” he repeated, liking the way the moniker felt on his tongue. “That doesn’t sound like a real name. They hired a crazy person to take O’Malley’s job? Doesn’t that seem counter productive?”
“The whole psych department is batshit crazy. He’ll fit right in.”
“You seem to know a lot about him,” August observed.
Bianca snorted. “You really don’t know who he is?”
August’s brow furrowed. “Should I?”
Bianca looked him up and down. “You should write hopelessly oblivious professor on that form. The faculty has been positively ravenous for all the scandalous details for weeks, ever since Everly hired him. But, before that, he was all over the news.”
“Why’s that? He a Kennedy or something?”
She shook her head. “Former darling of the FBI’s behavioral profiling unit. Whiz kid. Recruited straight from college because he spoke three languages and had near perfect test scores on his entrance exam.”
Lucas Blackwell couldn’t have been more than thirty at most. “Former? Was he injured?”
“You could say that. Suffered some kind of massive nervous breakdown and was put on permanent desk duty. They offered him a teaching gig at Quantico, but he bailed for our school.”
“How do you know all this?” August asked, somewhat in awe of her ability to study the asteroseismology of white dwarfs and stay up to date on the latest campus gossip.
“How do younotknow this? I know you’re usually taxing that big brain of yours with entanglement theories or whatever, but you love all that spooky shit, and Lucas Blackwell… He’s spooky.”
“How so?” August’s love of ‘spooky shit’ was well known around campus. Theoretical physicists weren’t really known for their love of parapsychology. But they just considered it another one of his quirks. He supposed it was.
Bianca leaned in a bit as the rain began to splash their shoes. “You know how most behavioral profiling is done at a desk?”
He nodded. “It’s basically making a living out of educated guessing. I doubt that requires much leg work.”
She snickered. “Well, Lucas was real hands on.Toohands on. Liked to handle evidence and visit crime scenes. Said it helped his process.”
“I’m failing to see the spooky,” August said, wanting Bianca to get to the point before the wind blew the rain any farther under the overhang.
“It’s pretty fucking out there. Rumor has it, he thinks he’s… What’s the word when you can get, like, psychic visions by touching things?”
August’s brows ran for his hairline. “Clairvoyant?”
“Yes! He claims he’s clairvoyant.”
“So, our university hired a mentally unstable criminologist who claims to have supernatural abilities?”
“Yep.”
August chuckled. “He’ll fit right in.”
Bianca laughed. “You know, this is the most I’ve ever heard you ask about another human being and I’ve known you for six years.”
He turned, tossing his coffee cup in the trash. “True, but your life is mundane. No offense.”
