Читать книгу Double Jeopardy - Terri Reed - Страница 11

Patrick paced the thick brown carpet of his office while the clicking of Anne’s nails on the keyboard drilled into his head. She certainly knew her way around a computer and she seemed much more competent than his original assessment. Even so, it rankled knowing someone else had the power to destroy his work.

He didn’t like uncertainty. He liked being in control. Had grown used to it since the day after his father died.

He’d become the man of the house, the guy his younger siblings turned to for advice or help and whom his mother relied upon to keep their world rotating even if the axis was now a bit skewed.

Patrick worried about his siblings, though Brody, who should be the one most messed up, had found a wonderful wife and now lived a great life. He’d somehow accepted the past and learned to live with the tragedy of their father’s death.

Ryan had been too young to have been traumatized by their father’s murder, but Patrick could see how much not having a father had pushed Ryan into his quest for material wealth. Patrick had a feeling Ryan thought having money would give him what he’d lacked as a child. Patrick wasn’t so sure.

And then there was little Megan. Patrick adored his sister, but she most of all was messed up and not merely from the trauma of losing her dad, but she suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder, which was a bad combination with her fiercely independent spirit. As soon as she could, she’d left home to find her own place in the world.

Sometimes Patrick felt lost without his siblings underfoot. But he’d found a way to express his feelings in his work.

What if Anne lost something despite the CD and the little device she called a thumb drive? What if she inadvertently opened one of his files and read his writings? Would she laugh?

He could only pray that…

What a lame sentiment. As if God would listen.

No, Patrick couldn’t rely on God to help, no matter how much his mother or his brother, Brody, tried to convince him otherwise.

So the best he could do was monitor computer-wizard Anne’s progress.

A knock interrupted his thoughts. He opened the office door to a young Asian man, slim in build with dark, penetrating eyes that made Patrick think of onyx stones.

“Professor McClain?”

“Yes. Can I help you?”

The young man stuck out his hand. “My name is Cam. I’m transferring from MIT. I’ll be taking your class, Macro Economics of the Irish, this summer.” For a man with a slight frame, he had a strong grip.

“Wonderful.” Why was he here now? Students didn’t normally come knocking. Obviously this was an overeager overachiever. Not many of them around anymore. Too many students seemed jaded and uninterested in more than how to make a quick buck. “Do you have the list of required textbooks?”

“Yep. I’m all set. Just putting a face to the name on the syllabus,” Cam stated with a pleasant smile. “I—”

“Oh, bummer!” Anne’s voice interrupted.

Patrick glanced at Anne. She was shaking her head, her gaze fixated on the new computer screen. “Problem?” he asked.

She nodded but didn’t look toward the door.

Wanting to end the interruption, he turned back to Cam and asked, “Is there anything else I can help you with tonight?”

Cam shook his head, his gaze riveted on Anne. “No, thank you.”

“Okay, then.” Patrick stepped into the man’s line of vision.

Those obsidian eyes shifted to meet his gaze. “I’ll see you in class, Professor.”

As Patrick shut the door behind his new student, a chill skated across his flesh. There was something odd about Cam, something in the way the black of his eyes seemed depthless. Overeager, overachiever and off balance? He’d have to watch the guy. Patrick didn’t want a Virginia Tech tragedy happening at Boston College.

Shaking off the strange notion as nothing more than his worry over his work, he turned his attention to Anne. Her bright red, spiked hair didn’t look nearly as stiff tonight, as if she’d run her fingers through the points, loosening their rigidness.

Her high forehead creased with concentration and her lips moved without audible sound. The jacket of her ill-fitting brown suit hung off her shoulders, making her look slightly stooped.

“Why the bummer?” he asked as he came to stand at her side.

She sighed as she sat back. Her right hand reached up to massage her neck. “I zipped your files together and changed them to RTF. I just ran a program to import them to the new system and the computer didn’t like it.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” Patrick tried to keep a quiver of panic from seeping into his tone. If he lost his work now, he’d have a hard time retrieving it.

“It’s not,” she replied.

Heart beating in his throat, he asked, “Have I lost anything?”

“No.”

Breathing more normally now, he relaxed slightly. “What exactly is wrong and how do we fix it?”

She turned her purple gaze on him. “Your old computer software program is not talking nicely to the new software program. During the transfer, the formatting was lost. I can go in manually to each file and correct the formatting. It will just take some time.”

“How much time?”

“A day, two at the most.” She clicked open a file. “See.”

The text on the screen was from one of his fall lectures, that much he could tell, but the words were all jumbled with paragraph breaks and tab spaces and what looked like hieroglyphics. He pointed to the screen. “What are all those?”

“Computer language. The new system has converted some of the letters and symbols. It’s easy enough to read through and correct by deleting and replacing each symbol. But I can’t do a global search and replace.”

“This is bad,” Patrick stated and plucked his glasses off his face to rub with a cloth he withdrew from his pocket.

Anne stood and placed a hand on his arm. “It’s not dire, just time consuming.”

The spot where her hand rested on his arm fired his senses beneath his sports coat. He cleared his throat. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow then?”

“Yes. And I think I should start first thing in the morning, if you don’t mind?”

Staring at the smooth, elegant fingers on his arm, he said, “The morning will be fine. I have a department retreat off campus until late afternoon.”

She removed her hand and began shutting down the computers. Patrick replaced his glasses and watched her movements. Efficient, graceful. Competent. Not at all like he’d first thought.

When the office was locked up for the night, Patrick handed his office key to Anne. “Can I walk you to your car?”

She put the key in her purse. “Actually I’m headed to the cafeteria. But thank you, Professor.”

“I’m not really a professor.” Now why had he blurted that out?

Her eyebrows rose. “You’re not?”

“I’m only an associate professor.” Heat rode up his neck.

She gave a small laugh. “But you’re still a professor.”

“True, just not a full professor.”

“Okay. And you’re telling me this…why?”

“You can call me Patrick.”

“Oh. Well, then. Good night, Patrick,” she said, giving him an odd look before hurrying away.

Patrick could just imagine his father shaking his head and saying, Smooth, boy-o.

A sadness that always burned just below the surface bubbled, reminding Patrick of all he’d lost. Reminding him of all he could lose if he ever let himself care too deeply ever again.

Anne paid the cafeteria cashier for her meal of egg salad sandwich, side garden salad and a bottle of water. One of the perks of temping at the college was the food discount in the cafeteria, though under the harsh fluorescent lights the egg salad had a greenish tinge that wasn’t terribly appealing. But she’d had one a few days earlier and had enjoyed it, so she wasn’t going to let a little green rob her of her dinner.

Halfway through her meal, she had the strange sense of being watched. Her gaze swung over the few other late evening diners and landed on the student who’d come to Professor McClain’s door. Cam, he’d said his name was, stood near the vending machine, his lean, wiry frame still and his black eyes boring holes right through her.

She frowned, hoping to convey her displeasure at being stared at.

He turned abruptly and put his money in the machine. Once he had a can of soda in hand, he moved out the door and into the dusky night.

A shiver of recognition slithered along Anne’s arms, prickling her skin. She was sure he’d been the man standing in the shadows yesterday.

Was his claim of putting the professor’s face to his name true? Was Cam really a transfer student or someone more sinister? Had she been found? Would she have to run again? Where would she go? How far would she have to flee to be safe?

“Stop being paranoid,” she muttered to herself.

But just in case, she’d like to be safe inside the four walls of her apartment.

Gathering her belongings, she quickly left the cafeteria. The balmy June air bathed her, sending the last of the air-conditioned chill of the cafeteria away with a shiver.

Glancing around to be sure no one followed, she hurried to her four-door sedan parked beneath one of the tall parking lot lamps.

As she drove, once again taking a different route to her street, she pulled out her cell phone and pushed the speed-dial number for the one person who wouldn’t think she was totally off her rocker for being paranoid.

“It’s me,” Anne said to the woman who’d picked up the line.

“What’s the matter?” The sharp edge of concern echoed in Lieutenant Taylor’s voice.

“Nothing, I think. I don’t know. I’m just getting antsy.”

“You wouldn’t call just because you were antsy.”

“You said to call if anything seemed out of sync. This student…I don’t know. He gives me the creeps. There’s something vaguely familiar about him.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Cam. That’s all I got. He said he’s a transfer student from MIT. He’s taking one of Professor McClain’s classes this summer.”

“I’ll check into it.” There was a moment of silence. “How’s it going with the professor? Is he as stodgy as his profile says?”

Anne hesitated. Stodgy? After spending so many hours with him, that wasn’t a word she’d use to describe him. Cute for a geek. Adorably nerdy. Definitely charming in an odd way. Maybe too charming. Too easy to get caught up in. You can call me Patrick. “He’s an academic. Just the titles of his published articles make me yawn.”

An indelicate snort met her statement. “Don’t get attached. You’ll be leaving there soon.”

Anne sighed. “I know. Thanks for the reminder.” As if she could forget. “How soon?”

“Hard to say. The D.A. has you scheduled to testify right before closing arguments so you won’t have to come back to New Jersey until them.”

“How’s the trial going so far?”

“Slow. I’ll be in touch. And, hey…”

“Yes?”

“Everything’s going to be all right. You’ll get through this, you know You’re strong.”

The reassurance soothed some of Anne’s tension. If only she felt strong. “Thanks.”

“Call if anything else strange happens. You can always reach me at this number.”

“Will do.”

Anne clicked off and tried for some deep, calming breaths as she pulled her car into her parking space right in front of her building door.

Inside the safety of her studio apartment, Anne was greeted by a large white Persian cat with only one eye and a pink collar sporting a dangling, sparkly tiara charm.

Relaxing her voice, Anne said, “Hello, sugar.” She picked the cat up and snuggled her close. For a moment Princess allowed the contact before squirming to get away. Anne set the cat back on the floor with a sigh. Sometimes she wasn’t sure if the cat loved her or not.

A few days after moving to Boston she’d gone to the humane society looking for a guard dog and ended up with a cat. The minute she’d seen the feline, she fell in love with the ball of fluff named Princess and had brought her home.

Princess marched straight to her bowl, tail stuck in the air, and meowed.

“Ah, we’re hungry.” Anne opened a can of food and left Princess to her dinner.

Making her way over to the Murphy bed, Anne kicked off her shoes and stretched her toes. She hated heels, but the role she was playing required sensible pumps and the itchy dress suit. Thankfully bare legs were an acceptable style. The thought of nylons made her shudder.

She changed into soft cotton pajamas and crawled under the down comforter. Her mind wouldn’t quiet down however. Her thoughts kept churning through the morass of danger that lurked. Was Cam a student or a henchman for Raoul Domingo? Would one of them slit her throat as she slept? As she came out of the school building? Went to the grocery store? Would she ever feel safe?

And what of the professor? And how much she enjoyed being around him?

Thinking about Patrick was more productive than angsting about the threat she couldn’t control.

There was something very steady and reassuring about him that drew her in and made her wish he could see her as she really was.

But he might not be so nice to her then.

The social-status-conscious “associate” professor wouldn’t want to socialize with a woman who had barely passed high school and had grown up in a trailer in the backwoods.

She punched the pillow with a groan. The sooner she got his computer up and running, the sooner she could move on to another project and another professor before her time was up in Boston.

She couldn’t afford to get too chummy with anyone.

Or “attached.”

She was pretty sure she could keep from revealing her past, but she wasn’t sure that she could keep her lonely heart from wanting what she couldn’t have.

A friend. Love. A life without fear.

As one day turned in to two days of deleting, replacing and reformatting, Anne’s eyes stung with grit and fatigue stiffened the muscles in her neck and shoulders. She’d figured out how to convert the old computer software into a language the new software could easily and readily read, but just to be on the safe side she’d been reading through each file and would occasionally find a trouble spot that she had to manually correct.

Though the subject matter of economics wasn’t something she found interesting, she’d certainly learned a lot. There was one file that looked huge and she’d been saving it for last.

She glanced at the computer clock. She should be able to finish with the files and get the docking station set up before Patrick returned to his office.

She clicked to open the file, “Turned Up Side Down” expecting to see more charts, theories and statistics, but instead she found herself staring at a work of fiction.

A novel. Written by Patrick McClain.

Both curiosity and the desire to make sure the file hadn’t lost all of its formatting urged her to read.

Fascination kept her glued to the words.

Soon she was hooked into the story of a young boy who loses his father and must step into the role of man of the house.

She laughed at the antics of the boy and his siblings and fought tears of empathy for the characters. She reached the last page with a satisfied sigh, yet knew she’d seen some formatting issues but she’d been so engrossed in the story that she hadn’t wanted to stop reading to fix.

She’d have to read through it again. She rubbed at her eyes. It would be easier if she could read the words from a hard copy. She began printing off the book, while her mind raced with thoughts of the story and Patrick.

She realized she knew very little of his private life. Was this book autobiographical or purely fiction? If autobiographical, she was in deep trouble.

Weren’t damaged hearts notorious for falling for their like?

After his meeting with the department chair, Patrick headed to his office, expecting to find Anne waiting for him with his computer ready to go and trusting his files to be intact.

Instead he found his office door wide-open and Anne sitting in his chair, her fingers clicking on the keyboard. Off to the side his printer hummed as it rhythmically spat pages into the tray.

Patrick couldn’t help the little glow of approval in his gut for how hard the woman worked. A very admirable trait. She definitely had surpassed his expectations, her fashion choices notwithstanding.

Tonight, though, she wore another ill-fitting, conservative dress suit, and her spiked hair seemed especially…barbed. Her normally creamy complexion held a hint of makeup and beneath her dark lashes, circles of fatigue marred her delicate skin.

She glanced up. Her wary smile made him feel as if he’d walked in on something he shouldn’t have.

“Hello.” He stepped through the doorway and hovered near the desk.

“Uh—hi. I’m sorry, I had hoped to be done by now. This last file has been sticky.”

“No problem.” He glanced at the printer. “What’s this?”

“Your book.”

Distress grabbed his throat as he reached for the top page. He barely glanced at the words. His agitation increased until shock and rage choked him.

She was printing his book.

“How could you?”