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In this situation, what is godly and what is sinful? More importantly: what does it matter? I push out of Craven and into the rainy evening. A curtain of fog draws close to the university’s rooftops. A group of grackles chatter in a shadow-robed tree.
“Lacie?”
I shouldn’t be surprised. Turning, I raise my umbrella’s bell to look into her bright eyes. “Marcella, what are you doing out so late?”
A skitter of worry runs my skin: shouldn’t she be worried about the murders, too? And if not, should I be afraid of her? Every murder has come with a side of Marcella’s smoky voice, her calculation.
The thought occurs to me again: what if it’s her who’s killing everyone?
“Oh, I couldn’t rest.” She clasps and unclasps the second brass hook on her wool cape, a deep shade of eggplant in the jaundiced light of the sodium street lamp. Her face is prettily shaded beneath its hood. “Though I should ask the same of you.”
Rain patters over the umbrella’s bell. “I was—” I was heading to the campus chapel. I have so much guilt, so much pain; it’s so heavy, and all I’ve managed is to cling to the oblation of classes and grading as I try to forget the color of Laurel’s and Therese’s blood on the ground. Sucking a breath through my teeth, I shrug. “I don’t even know what I was doing. Honestly. Trying to grade but I couldn’t make myself think. You know how it is.”
Marcella comes closer, a panther in her dark suit: soundless and eerily smooth. “Have you eaten? You look pale.”
I laugh, but it’s nervous, and my throat turns it into a near scream. “Have you?”
“So, no. Do you think that fellows’ restaurant you were talking about has room on a dreary night like this?”
“Dinner? Now?”
“Don’t act like you haven’t eaten at 1:30 AM in the library stacks before. By those standards, this is practically the blue-hair special.” She gives me a glittering grin shot through with something a little like sheepishness. She must know on some level that I’m wary of her. “Come with me? Let’s get something better than scavenged faculty pastries and bad coffee.”
“I was going to church. Confession.”
Marcella levels her gaze. “And what, pray tell, do you need to confess to a priest? Come now, you’ve been a very good girl. Let’s have a nice dinner.”
I could use plenty of excuses: the fellows’ restaurant is invite-only, I have an appointment I booked before I left my apartment, or I have papers to grade, or, or, or—but instead I wrap my fingers around her woolen sleeve. I stare up into her beautiful eyes and nod. It’s easier this way.
Not fighting.
My god, I’m so tired of fighting all the time and making no headway. She’s beautiful and terrifying and I like her company, even when she’s making me so angry I could scream, even when she’s bounding past me for tenure. Maybe I like her because she’s always a challenge, but when I give in?
When I give in, she’s heady as an old wine. My heart skips a beat when she talks to me like I’m better than I am.
“Good,” she croons, smoothing a raindrop from my cheek with her cool thumb. “You should keep up your strength.”
My knees nearly give out at the frisson of her touch on my skin, so different than at the party, and even when we found Therese. She turns me, an expert in this dance of control and competence.
We walk in silence through the quad, our shoes clicking on the stone walkways, and I think for one blinding second how normal this could be, how lovely it is, to tuck myself into Marcella’s side and let her take care of me.
Inside the Faculty Center, it’s all dark wood paneling and leather. A conversational din echoes from a narrow, shadowed staircase. I’ve never been to the fellows’ restaurant, mainly because it’s invite-only, and who has time to chat up a departmental fellow? No time, never any time. The restaurant is on the second floor of the faculty building; on the ground floor there’s a faculty lounge with cozy, worn chairs and love seats, two massive old fireplaces that’ve, as far as I can tell, never been lit, and an ancient microwave that hums even when it’s off. The standard-issue beige carpet was replaced a few years ago by a deep-pile burgundy, which apparently was for the benefit of visiting board members, not the lowly assistant professor peons.
Deans and the like waste no time passing through the strangely liminal space and secreting themselves away in the fellows’ restaurant amid crystal chandeliers, humidors, and leather.
Marcella oozes confidence as she leans on the hostess stand. “Not invited, no—but surely you can make an exception”—she flicks her eyes to the brass name tag on the maître d’s chest—“Bradley.”
Bradley is a grad student—I think he’s studying modern languages. Italian, perhaps? Preston prides itself on placing an actual departmental hire in these service positions. It’s great networking, but requires at least a three-night-a-week commitment, which is brutal as a master’s student. Bradley himself has dusky under-eye circles and a haunted look about him, but he warms instantly to Marcella. Who wouldn’t?
“Alright, well, there’s a free booth … but it’s near the bathrooms,” he says, a little apologetic as he gathers two burgundy leather menus. The Preston coat of arms is stamped in gold leaf on their covers.
“No problem,” I reply, noting Marcella’s biting frown. “It’s fine,” I say to her. “Next time we’ll get a better seat.”
“Next time?” she repeats back to me as we step into the dining room. “That would mean this is a date.”
My face goes warm. Is it? What is this that we’re doing, circling around each other like sharks scenting blood in the water? Even if our ocean is instead a glittering dining room with leather cigar chairs and a roaring fireplace. Oily smoke skims the surfaces. A mercury glass mirror distorts the faces of the diners. “I—I—”
A booming laugh catches my attention as we pass tables of pale-faced guests, the sound of cutlery ringing dully through blue cigar smoke. “Marcella,” I whisper. “Look.”
