The Professor Read online

  I put on my best ashamed face. “I’m sorry, Dr. Flynn,” I said, keeping my eyes on my feet. “I’ve been trying, but I haven’t been able to come up with an original take on Waverly’s history.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Regrettably, I am.”

  Flynn leaned over her desk. “Miss Costello, you give me no other option but to inform you that you will not graduate from Waverly University if you continue this self-destructive streak of procrastination. I knew it before, but I gave you a second chance because of your situation with your former advisor. You have already received special treatment.”

  I sat quietly, my hands folded together in my lap, as Flynn admonished me.

  “At this rate, you will never be ready to present your thesis to the board,” she continued. “I suggest that you plan to spend another semester at Waverly in order to complete your education. Perhaps in the fall, you will find the motivation you failed to discover this semester. Is that clear, Miss Costello?”

  I nodded.

  “Get out of my office.”

  It was a rough dismissal, but the chance to remove myself from Flynn’s presence was a relief. I stood, swung my bag over my shoulder, and headed for the door.

  “Miss Costello.”

  I braced myself. From previous experience, I knew that Flynn liked to drop her biggest bomb just as I was about to exit her office.

  Her dark eyes bore into mine. “Maybe you would have had more time to complete your thesis paper had you not been perusing the campus so late at night. Have a good day.”

  An icy chill that had nothing to do with the inclement weather outside permeated my lungs. Heart pounding, I left Flynn’s office and raced toward the stairs at the end of the hallway, hoping that the Black Raptor Society dealt out less severe punishments than murder for breaking and entering.

  8

  At the very least, my disastrous meeting with Flynn had relieved me of my obligation to her as my advisor. I could work on my thesis without her input now. With any luck, I could still complete it by the time I was meant to present it to the advisory board. Going over Flynn’s head would be an audacious move, but I couldn’t see any other way to get past her. Somehow, the Black Raptor Society had to go down, and I was the only person who had enough evidence of their illegal activity to bury them for good, as long as they didn’t bury me first.

  Though tempting, I didn’t call Orson Lockwood’s secretary to set up a meeting with him. I wasn’t savvy enough to trick Lockwood into a conversation about BRS. Instead, I redoubled my efforts in researching the Lockwood family. From what I’d already discovered, the Lockwoods weren’t just famous at Waverly. BRS practically rolled out red carpets and erected thrones for its Lockwood members. They were the kings and queens of the Black Raptor Society, and so I zeroed in on their most recent royal. Lauren, Orson’s daughter, was in her third year at Waverly, and the junior Lockwood was a lot less intimidating than Orson himself.

  It wasn’t difficult to find out a few particulars about Lauren, as the staff at the Waverly Daily adored her. In the Daily’s online database, I discovered multiple recent articles in which she was featured. The majority of them highlighted her accomplishments throughout her first three years of college. She was a member of the women’s rowing team, maintained a solid 4.0 GPA, and had pledged the sorority created by the St. Claire family during her freshman year. I downloaded and saved any pictures of her that had been included with the articles. When I zoomed in on the first photo, a trace of envy tickled my thoughts. Lauren stood between two of her sorority sisters, arms wrapped lovingly around each other. All three wore matching white dresses, and the trio appeared to have organized some kind of charity event. Another photo caught Lauren in action during a rowing competition, triceps bulging and her face still flawless despite a thick sheen of sweat. Lauren did not resemble her father much. She had long, coffee-colored hair that the camera captured flowing gracefully in the invisible breeze and high, plump cheekbones instead of her father’s thin, angled ones. The only thing that Lauren had inherited from Orson was her infectious smile, though hers did not come off nearly as devious. It was hard to believe that the young woman in these pictures was the same person who had coordinated Jo Mitchell’s academic failure. Digging into Lauren’s involvement with BRS seemed a surefire way to familiarize myself with the intricacies of the Lockwood family, so one morning, I decided to commit to a new surveillance project on her behalf.

  Waverly’s rowing team was infamous for practicing before dawn. Once or twice, I’d seen the crew of muscled girls step off the bus that shuttled them to and from practice on my way to my seven a.m. class. Two days after my meeting with Flynn, I left Wes and Franklin to make breakfast for themselves, strolled to the center of campus, and located a towering oak tree near the bus stop to hide behind as I waited for the rowing team to show up. As scheduled, the shuttle made its way into the bus loop shortly before seven o’clock. As the girls disembarked, all of them clad in matching navy and silver—Waverly’s school colors—athletic gear, I kept my eyes peeled for Lauren.

  She was one of the last girls to step off the shuttle, and unlike some of her bleary-eyed teammates, she was bright, smiling, and chatting animatedly with some of the other less exhausted crew members. I watched as she waved goodbye to her friends and kept an eye on her receding figure as she leisurely drifted toward the expensive dormitories—Waverly’s historic stone-hewn residence hall, which only the wealthiest students could afford—behind the quad. When there was enough space between us, and the rest of the team had dispersed, I emerged from behind the tree and followed casually behind Lauren.

  She kept a brisk pace despite the enticing lull of the early morning. I jogged to keep up with her, my breath uneven, as she crossed the slushy quad and cut behind the International Studies building. On the building’s opposite side, I thought I’d lost her, then caught sight of her blue-and-silver Waverly duffel bag already halfway across the dormitory lawn. The lawn lacked places to hide, so I slowed my pace and let her energetic gate increase the distance between us. However, instead of going up the steps to her dormitory building, Lauren glanced to either side and ducked into the alleyway between her dorm and the next.

  A crisp breeze whisked my hair back, chilling my neck, as I trailed along after Lauren. She’d disappeared from view again, but from what I could see, there was no side door that led inside the dormitory. Confused, I turned back, wondering if I had somehow missed her.

  “Hey!”

  A firm hand closed around my upper arm, its grip so tense that I could feel the pressure from each of its five fingers even through my thick winter coat. The hand spun me around, and its owner cornered me against the brick wall of the dormitory. Lauren’s friendly demeanor had vanished, and she regarded me with a deep scowl.

  “Why are you following me?” she demanded, her cheeks flushed from either the bitter weather or anger.

  “I… I wasn’t,” I said, but the waver in my tone indicated otherwise.

  “Bullshit,” said Lauren. She jerked her head toward the bus stop. “I noticed you as soon as I got off the shuttle. You really don’t know how to keep your head down, do you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She let go of my arm and released a sigh. “You’re an idiot. I know who you are, Nicole, and they do too.”

  “Who?”

  “The Black Raptor Society.”

  She answered so promptly and with such nonchalance that it forced me to take a step back. For a moment, I considered making a run for it, no matter how fruitless my efforts would be in comparison to that of Lauren’s highly trained muscles.

  “Relax,” Lauren said, noticing how my entire body had tensed. “I figured it was only a matter of time before you sought me out. What do you want to know?”

  That threw me for a loop. “Wait, what?”

  “Everyone else thinks you won’t get anywhere with whatever limited information you have,” Lauren
went on, rubbing her hands together as another chill swept through the alley. “But I’m not stupid. I know how effective a determined woman can be.”

  “I’m confused,” I admitted. “Shouldn’t you be reporting me to your father? I mean, you literally caught me stalking you. I know about the things that you’ve done for BRS.”

  “Then you know that I was arrested with Donovan Davenport last semester? And that it was me who tampered with his grades?”

  I hesitated before giving her a curt nod.

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek, which seemed like a strange acceptance of responsibility for her actions. “Listen. Messing with Jo Mitchell’s records was the last thing I ever did for BRS. I saw how it affected her. It was awful. I told my dad that I didn’t want to be involved with BRS anymore.”

  “How did he react?”

  She scoffed, scuffing the heel of her designer boot against the slushy ground. “BRS is blood in, blood out. Metaphorically, at least. My father agreed to give me a break, but he expects me to continue my membership with the society. Believe me, I’ve tried to swear them off.”

  “Do you know what happened to George O’Connor?” I asked, dreading the answer. Although after ambushing Lauren, I wasn’t sure I deserved one.

  “Who?”

  “Professor George O’Connor.”

  “Oh, that was the guy who went missing a couple weeks ago, right? What happened to him?”

  Either Lauren really didn’t know that her buddies at BRS had beaten O’Connor to death or she was a good liar.

  “You really don’t know?” I asked, taking a step closer so that Lauren couldn’t avoid eye contact with me. I knew from experience that it was a whole lot harder to lie if you were forced to stare at someone while doing it.

  For a second, Lauren’s expression held firm, but then her bottom lip trembled. “That was a mistake,” she whispered.

  “So you do know.”

  “I heard about it,” she admitted. “It wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s the first time BRS has been responsible for that kind of thing. They have no idea what to do with him. No one outside of the society has ever gotten as far as O’Connor did, and BRS has deep enough pockets to silence anyone who’s raised questions before.”

  It was a strange relief that I felt then. At least BRS didn’t make murder a habit. Even more encouraging, it sounded like the members of the society were spooked. They hadn’t found a solution to their problem yet, which would make it easier for me to find holes in whatever story they would inevitably come up with.

  “Look, Nicole,” said Lauren. “I just want you to know. I never had anything to do with O’Connor. I opted out long before BRS found out what he was doing.”

  “You benefited from your BRS membership in other ways,” I pointed out. “Any other student would’ve been kicked out of Waverly if they’d been busted for possession.”

  Lauren nodded solemnly. “I know that.”

  “It’s also hard to believe your grade point average is all your own doing, considering what I’ve found out about your BRS extracurriculars. You work in the records office, for shit’s sake.”

  “You’re wrong there,” she said, shaking her head. “I never needed BRS to help with my grades. I actually like school. I work hard. It’s the same with the rowing team. BRS didn’t buy my way in. I trained hard in high school to earn a spot with Waverly.”

  “Still.”

  “Still,” agreed Lauren. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “Nicole, my father might lack any kind of moral compass, but I don’t. I’m done with BRS, no matter what, and you should be too. Look at what happened to your professor.”

  “I’m not just going to drop this and kick it under the rug.”

  “I figured you’d say that,” she said. To my surprise, she pulled her cell phone out of her jacket pocket and handed it to me. “Give me your phone number. If I hear anything else, I’ll let you know.”

  I raised an eyebrow, skeptical. Even if Lauren was telling the truth, I was sure that BRS had plenty of ways to keep an eye on Lauren’s communications. “Won’t your dad find out?”

  “He’s not Big Brother,” she declared, retracting the phone. “He doesn’t monitor every aspect of my life. If you don’t want to, it’s fine. But don’t expect me to come looking for you.”

  In a split-second decision, I grabbed the phone, typed my number in, and handed it back to Lauren. She busied herself with it for a moment, and then my own phone, tucked in the pocket of my winter coat, vibrated.

  “Now you have my number too,” she said. “I’ll keep you posted. And Nicole, for the love of God, if you’re going to follow someone, learn how to do it stealthily.”

  I left Lauren to the comfort of her dorm room and decided to risk a trip to the library. If BRS already knew what I was doing, there was no additional harm in conducting further research in the public eye. After all, I was still a student at Waverly, and I had as much right as everyone else to study on campus.

  The campus had woken up during my conversation with Lauren. The quad teemed with students on their way to early morning classes. I cut a pathway through them, but as soon as I left the brown grass and stepped onto the icy sidewalk, I caught sight of a bicycle whizzing toward me in my peripheral. The cyclist swerved, but it was too late. The wheels slid out on the ice and took me out at the knees. We went down in a painful tangle of limbs and bicycle parts. My messenger bag tore open, spilling all of my belongings, including a couple folders of my thesis research, across the ground.

  “I’m so sorry,” said the cyclist. She was young, a freshman and unfamiliar with the hazards of riding so recklessly through a college campus. “I lost control. The ice—”

  Her helmet was askew, but other than a mild scrape on the palm of her hand, she seemed unharmed. I, on the other hand, did not fare quite as well. Sharp stabbing pains radiated through both of my knees where the bike had hit me, and a burning sensation on my stomach let me know that my winter jacket had ridden up during the collision and exposed my skin to a healthy dose of road rash. My right wrist ached from where I’d braced myself against the ground, and all in all, I thought I might break down and cry right there in front of the sputtering freshman girl.

  “It’s fine,” I managed. The breeze attempted to whisk away a few pages of my thesis notes, but I snatched them up, narrowly avoiding getting my fingers stepped on by another passing student.

  The cyclist went after a few of the windswept pages and brought them back to me. “I’m really sorry,” she said again, sticking her hand out to me.

  I let her pull me to my feet, grimacing as my knees protested the movement. “Just watch where you’re going.”

  “Yeah, totally. Sorry.”

  As she mounted her bike again and took off, I examined what was left of my messenger bag. It had split right down the seam in the collision. I shoved my notes inside, folding one torn flap over the other, and tucked the bag inside my coat for safekeeping. Then, no longer in the mood to spend any time in the library, I limped in the direction of home.

  I found Wes sitting on the bottom step of our apartment building. He rose as I walked toward him, his mouth dropping open when he saw the state I was in.

  “What happened?”

  “Bicycle took me out,” I said, stifling a groan as Wes inspected my wrist. A bright purple bruise had already bloomed there. “Damn kids don’t pay attention at all, do they?”

  Wes pressed worried lips to my forehead as he hugged me lightly. “I’m afraid I have to ruin your day further.”

  I drew back. “What do you mean?”

  “Follow me.”

  Wes led me to the parking lot around the back side of the building. There, his police cruiser was parked in its usual space, but it rested on slashed, deflated tires. On its hood, someone had spray-painted the BRS logo in red, and along the side, the words “watch your back” had been stamped in black.

  I dropped my head into my aching hands. “Are you fuck
ing kidding me? Did you call the force?”

  “Yup,” said Wes. “They’re on their way now to tow it. Wilson said they want to take pictures and look for fingerprints—that kind of stuff—to see if they can find out who did it.”

  “It’s kind of obvious, Wes,” I said, pointing to the red crest on the hood. “The Black Raptor Society strikes again.”

  “According to Wilson, the Black Raptor Society doesn’t exist,” said Wes, kicking one of the ruined tires in frustration. “It’s freaking me out, Nic, because I can’t help but wonder if one of the boys on the force is responsible for this.”

  I bit my lip, unwilling to add to Wes’s stress by agreeing.

  “And that’s not all,” he went on. “Jo Mitchell was arrested for public intoxication last night. I saw them bring her in during my night shift, and I overhead Whitehall speaking with some university official. She’s going to be kicked out of Waverly.”

  “No way.”

  This was the kind of stuff Lauren had warned me about less than half an hour ago. She was right. BRS knew who I was and what I had been doing. They’d vandalized Wes’s cruiser to make their point clear, and they’d obviously figured out that I’d spoken to Jo again. There was no way Jo, what with her determination to keep her head down, would get wasted in public. No, it had to be all BRS’s doing.

  “Let’s get you inside,” said Wes, taking my hand. “We should clean up those scrapes.”

  Once inside the apartment, I peeled off my clothes to tend to my various wounds in the bathroom. The rash on my stomach would heal quickly, but my knees had bled through my jeans. Franklin sat honorably beside me as Wes dabbed the cuts clean with a warm washcloth.

  “What do you think I should do?” I asked Wes, watching as he applied antibiotic cream to a gauze pad and stuck it to my left knee.

  “I don’t know if I can tell you that, Nic.” He secured the gauze with a few strips of medical tape. “Don’t get me wrong, I want these assholes to get nailed for their crimes just as much as you do. I just don’t want you to sacrifice your safety and sanity in order for that to happen.”