Chapter 3
CHAPTER
I t’s a bright spring day, warm air floating between campus buildings, navy-and-gold Pace flags fluttering in the wind. Usually, I’d grab a coffee and sit and enjoy the sunshine, or maybe finish up grading on a park bench. But today, I have a singular goal.
The main office is a DMV-like setup, with seating to wait and numbered stations, staff calling up students.
I peer around for someone to help me. Of course, only two of the stations out of twelve are currently staffed with employees.
One of them I recognize. The twentysomething doesn’t just work here.
Eric’s also a student. He catches my eye and smiles.
I’ve dealt with him a few times before, when I had scheduling issues and errors in my class roster.
He’s the sort whose eyes rest on you too long, who remembers your name and classroom when he shouldn’t.
And every single time I’ve spoken to him, he’s given me a compliment of some sort.
But that might work to my advantage today.
He finishes with a student, so I step up to his station. “Hi, Eric.”
“Aaron,” he corrects, yet smiles. “But how are you, Elizabeth? It’s been a while.”
I should remind him it’s Professor Davis, not Elizabeth , but instead, I smile. “Right, of course. Aaron. I’m doing well. How about you?”
“Can’t complain.” He eyes my hair. “I’ve always wanted to ask you . . . Is that your natural color? Usually, red is sort of orangey, but yours is more like a cinnamon.”
Who asks a woman if she dyes her hair? Certainly not a student. Yet I twirl my hair like some flirty teenager and lean in, because I’m not above anything today. “It is. Do you like it?”
He leans closer, too. “It’s beautiful. Makes your green eyes stand out.”
Oh God. It’s difficult not to roll those eyes. I need to cut to the chase. “Listen, I need help, Aaron. Do you think you can help me?”
“Of course. Whatever you need.”
Perfect.
“I’m having trouble reaching a student. She’s not answering her student email, so I was hoping she might have another email listed in the school’s records? Or a phone number or an address? Some other method of contact.”
“Oh, that’s . . .” He swallows, looks down at his hands. When he looks back up, he won’t meet my eyes. “I’m afraid it’s against policy to give that out to anyone, even professors.” Aaron fidgets. “ I’m sorry.”
“It’s really important,” I press, dropping my voice. “She could fail the class if I can’t get ahold of her. I would feel really awful. Aaron?”
“Yes, ma’am?” He looks up, locks eyes with me.
“I think this once we could make an exception, right? Help out a fellow student. And because we’re friends. Right?” Another smile, just between us.
“Well . . . okay. But don’t tell my boss, all right?”
“Oh, I thought you were in charge.” I slide him a paper where I’ve written down what I know about Hannah Greer. “This is her name and student number.”
“Let me . . .” He types away, clicks the mouse, then pulls the scrap of paper toward him and scribbles a Gmail account. “Oh, interesting,” he mutters. “This might be why you can’t get ahold of her.”
My ears perk up. “Oh? Is something wrong?”
“No. But she’s a visiting student.” He slides the paper back. “Nonmatriculated. It looks like yours is the only class she’s taking.”
I pause, sirens blaring in my head. So “Hannah” could be anyone, anyone who only signed up for my class.
“Thank you so much, Aaron. I owe you.”
Stepping outside lets me breathe a little easier, but not for long.
My nerves come back full force as I glance down at the sheet.
Hannah Greer. I have a Gmail now. I would have preferred an address.
I’ve slowed to a stop, lost in thought, staring down at the scrap of paper, when someone bumps into me.
“Excuse me,” the man mutters. He’s tall, wearing a dark jacket, and continues striding down the sidewalk.
I look up, watch him go. There’s something familiar about him, but then again, I’ve had hundreds, thousands of students here.
Of course I recognize some. I glance over my shoulder, cross the street, and hurry toward my office.
I can’t help it—once I’m across, I look back one more time.
The man in the dark jacket, he’s stopped. And he’s looking right at me.
Is he watching me?
Did he bump into me on purpose?
Could he be Hannah?
No, no, no. I’m being paranoid. Have been since I read that damn chapter. The chapter that’s a coincidence . A very big one, but a coincidence nonetheless. It has to be. Once I sort out who this student is, I’ll know for sure.
Back in my office, I pull off my jacket, unwind my silk scarf.
They both go on a hanger, and I adjust my blinds so the outside is blocked—as if someone might want to see what I’m doing.
I sit down to type at my laptop, speedy pecks of keys, entering the Gmail account and hitting search.
I already know from my Google research this morning that the name alone returns millions of hits.
It’s too common. Maybe that’s the reason they chose it.
But nothing comes up with the Gmail account, either.
No social media tied to it. No image of a person.
I huff in frustration and repeat the same search, this time adding the name Hannah Greer to the Gmail account—still nothing usable comes up. My phone vibrates from my purse, and I pull it out, annoyed by the interruption.
Sam.
Again.
I need to cancel tonight, so I swipe to answer.
“Hi, Sam.” I stare at the tiny cactus on my desk, the one that’s shriveled into a collection of brown, dead spikes—a sign that I should not be in charge of the care of any living creature.
“Hey. Sorry to interrupt your day, but I thought I’d see if maybe you wanted to come to my place tonight,” he says. “I can cook us some dinner. I’ve been told I make a mean chicken piccata.”
Sam and I don’t have that type of relationship.
He’s a nice guy, a handsome police detective who will probably make some lucky lady a great boyfriend or husband someday, but that’s not what I’m looking for, and I was up front about that from the beginning.
He’s been good with our arrangement, too.
Though lately, I’ve suspected he wants more.
“I think I actually need to cancel tonight. I have a lot of work to finish up for this class I’m teaching. ”
“Oh. Then maybe we can just hang out like usual and do dinner another night?” A car door slams shut, and the city sounds in the background go quiet. “I caught this call last night. I’m going to be pretty busy with it for a while, at least once the autopsy comes back in tomorrow.”
The word autopsy makes me go still. “Someone died?”
“Well, yeah. It’s New York City. We average more than one homicide a day.”
My voice climbs an octave. “That’s . . . that’s awful.”
“You get used to it, sadly,” he says. “Looks like an older-man-younger-woman thing this time.”
My eyes flare. “What happened?”
“The suspect was his mistress. We can’t find her. She took off, but no one else had motive.”
I swallow back the rise of fear. “How much younger was she?”
Sam chuckles. “Not getting ideas, are you? Killing an older man you’re sleeping with?”
“Of course not.” I force humor into my voice, levity. Inside, though, I’m sinking deeper into a dark place. Nothing about the last twenty-four hours feels like coincidence right now. “How would I ever get that home-cooked meal then?”
“I could make dinner at your place while you work tonight. You gotta take a break to eat sometime, right?”
I open my mouth to tell him I can’t. The last thing I need is to spend time with a police detective right now, but the scrap of paper on my desk catches my eye, gives me an idea. “Hey, I have a question.”
“What’s that?”
“Is there a way to trace an email address?”
“Just an email address? Or an email received?”
“The address.”
“An email address by itself can be tough. But you can usually trace an email received back to the approximate location of the sender using their IP address, as long as they’re not using a VPN.
Though you would need an incoming email for that.
” He pauses, and the wheels turn in my head. “You need to track someone down?”
“Just wondering.” I chew the end of a pen, practically hearing the curiosity on his end as silence fills the line. “One of the students in my fiction-writing class had a character track someone’s location from their email in their story. I didn’t know if it was accurate or not.”
“Oh, gotcha.”
“Listen, Sam, someone just walked into my office,” I lie. “So I have to run. Maybe we can get together next week?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Good luck with your . . . homicide.”
We disconnect. My brain tingles with the information he’s given me. I want to think about the woman murdering the older man, but I’ve got other things to keep me busy.
I pull up a new email, type in the address Aaron provided, and compose yet another lie:
Hannah,
I received the chapter you submitted through Blackboard. However, for some reason I was unable to open it. It’s a system glitch, which happens occasionally. Can you please email it to me directly? At this address would be fine.
I stare at the screen. Hit send. And the wait for a response begins.