“We’re going to talk to you about your boyfriend,” they say.
“Dave?”
“What? No. Who the hell is Dave? We’re talking about the man currently posing as Samuel Rollins.”
“You mean my… psych lecturer? He’s not posing. He’s really a psychologist. He’s famous. What is this? Is this for extra credit or something?”
I am just saying anything I can think of to seem and sound innocent. Playing dumb is the best way. If I so much as admit there’s anything intimate between Sam and me, there’s a real chance they’ll kill me. People capable of an elaborate plot to kidnap a coed with a city bus are capable of anything.
“We know he is in your apartment. He was followed there.”
“If you followed him there, why don’t you just get him?” It’s a disloyal thing to say, but I don’t want them thinking I am loyal. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I have a test in the morning, and if I miss it I’m going to be down twenty percent on my grade in history, and I’m already down in English, and I don’t have the money to be re-sitting papers, so…”
“Quiet,” the man behind me says.
“Did you buy the bus? Did you rent it? Is it a city bus, or did you get one and make it look like one, because that has to be expensive as all hell.”
“Quiet,” he repeats.
“Can I have my phone back? I was watching some reels about narcissists,” I say. “I had just got to the part that tells you what you’re supposed to do, and I really want to know.”
“No contact,” the other guy behind me says. “Only way to deal with them.”
“Is that right?”
“Yep. Had to do it with my…”
He gets a nudge in the rib from his other suited friend. They’re not supposed to be talking to me about anything. It’s the youngest of the three who had something to say about an ex, I bet.
But that’s the end of the conversation in this weird, overly engineered abduction.
A few minutes later we drive into a warehouse that makes the bus look relatively small, and then I am disembarked out of the bus to a chair that faces a desk on which a lamp is placed.
I thought these men were criminals. Now I’m starting to think they’re something worse: government agents. This plan is completely over engineered and could have been done in an office. There’s drama here that doesn’t need to be here. They’re making a show of power, making it clear I can be plucked from my life without anybody knowing.
I try to be more impressed because I know they want me to be, but right now all I can think of is how pissed Sam is going to be about this whole situation. Is he going to be mad at me for not calling him right away when I first saw them?
I’ve got to start paying more attention to my gut instincts, I think to myself as they guide me to the table and sit me down. One of the agents—I am almost certain they are agents now—sits down in front of me.
I say nothing. I know they probably want me to act all wild and afraid, but I recently witnessed a murder that literally nobody seems to care about, and Dave is still missing. I tried to report that second one as a crime, but nobody seemed interested. Point being, I’ve been on the wrong side of the law, or completely outside of it for a while now.
“Laura Brown,” he says.
“Yes,” I say. “What’s going on? Why are we in a secret bus terminal?”
The man in front of me gives a brief pained expression. They want me to think I’ve been abducted. Saying secret bus terminal really undermines the whole intimidation factor.
“We have reason to believe that you have been consorting with one Professor Samuel Rollins,” he says. “We’d like to talk to you about that relationship.”
“He’s my professor. I don’t know what consorting means. I have been to his office hours once or twice?”
I like to think I play dumb pretty well. It comes in handy sometimes when customers are hitting on me and I really wish they weren’t. Pretending not to understand that someone is interested is an easy way to take the wind out of their sails without inviting anger. I sigh inwardly as I realize just how much of my life and mental energy is devoted to dealing with men and their feelings.
Two of the agents are standing behind me, just at the edges of my peripheral vision. They obviously want me to feel surrounded. And good for them, I do.
The agent clears his throat and tries again. “The man you know as Samuel Rollins has been operating in this area for a year now. We believe he is responsible for the murders of several girls. You’re his latest target.”
“In class?”
