“No. Digital. Fancy, expensive. Had to use a crowbar to get it open.”
Vaughn took a moment, a breath—regretted it.
Goddamn eggs. What the fuck is that smell?
“Darnell? I thought you said ten bodies?”
Landon was the one who answered.
“Yeeeeah, we’re not done yet.” He made a wide berth around the corpses to a door on the other side of the room. Vaughn noted the digital lock. Landon gave the door a small push, and it slowly swung inward. “Had to pry this one open, too.”?
?Chapter 8
It wasn’t thatIvy didn’t like Dr.Ben Moorehead. It was more that there was a divide between them. Not intellectually, not professionally, and definitely not politically.
But he was the department head; she, a tenure-track professor. One might be inclined to think that this made them aligned. But a professor, tenure-track or not, is to the department head as a widget maker is to the CEO.
Different bottom lines.
Dr.Moorehead was bald with a liver-spotted head. Round glasses. Trendy, if unironic.
“Dr.Reeves, I wasn’t expecting you today. How are things?”
“Well, to be honest, I have a bit of a problem.”
Ivy produced the two tests, placed them on Dr.Moorehead’s desk.
Dr.Moorehead didn’t like problems. He liked grants, awards, prestige.
For someone with advanced alopecia, Dr.Moorehead had an impressive set of eyebrows. Spent a considerable amount of time mastering their movements, too.
They did a little dance.
Nope; the man did not like problems.
“What is it?”
“Remember the student I mentioned a few weeks back? Zeke Godfrey?”
“Yes.”
“I was concerned that he was cheating.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I have these tests here... the class as a whole did poorly, but two students did particularly well.”
Dr.Moorehead glanced at the tests over the top of his glasses. Made no move to pick them up or inspect them more closely.
“Did you get around to speaking to Zeke about the last time?”
Dr.Moorehead said nothing as he finally lowered his gaze and allowed his eyes to skip across the pages.
It wasn’t the department head’s job to deal with cheating—not unless things required escalation. And if it had been any other student, Ivy would have spoken to them directly. But Zeke wasn’t just “any other student.”
Even Ivy, as a lowly widget maker, knew this.
Dr.Moorehead’s eyebrows lowered. Bounced up, lowered again.
