Chapter 24
Amidst the small crowd of students stopping to congratulate him on the Harper’s feature, Paul spots Charlie leaving and calls her down.
When he first saw her tonight, surveying him with those dark eyes, he felt skittish and guilty.
He thought of all the time he’d spent with her in his mind, lonely on his couch, and the sad shabbiness of it made the glamorous day he’d spent at Doven wither and recede; he wanted badly to grasp it back.
He thought maybe if he could grasp her—or jostle her, unsettle the girl who might be his letter writer and was the girl who liked challenging him in front of the class—he could regain his confidence and recapture the loftiness of his newly minted existence.
But as she nears him, coming into soft focus like a classic movie queen, he catches himself staring at her breasts beneath the thin fabric of her sweater, the dramatic curve of her hips in her bell-bottomed jeans. He struggles to meet her keen and questioning—and laughing?—dark brown eyes.
“Hey, Charlie,” he says, feigning nonchalance. “What did you make of the Harper’s portfolio? I assume you saw it.”
“It was out of this world. Fantastic,” she says, her face lighting up. It stirs something in Paul; she’s become warm again, readable. Fuckable. She’s impressed with what he’s done and she can’t help showing it. Glowing with it, even.
“I just love her work so much,” she goes on, cheeks flushing.
“I can’t believe I was in class with her.
Her pictures are so—powerful. Like magic, almost. They speak to me—and to so many people I know.
She was a genius,” she says reverently. Paul could be anyone—one of her peers, or a table, for all his presence matters to her. His lust shrivels to nothing.
“I agree. I, uh, enjoyed writing the introduction,” he says, giving her an unsubtle nudge.
She doesn’t notice, or pretends not to. She stares at him and simply nods, holding his gaze.
Says nothing about his introduction. He knows she read it; curiosity alone would have driven her to read it.
Her silence resounds in the empty classroom like a booming judgment.
Paul scrabbles at his jacket pockets for his cigarettes.
He’d be all right, he’d handle this just fine, with a cigarette.
“Professor—Paul—did you want something else? I’m about to miss my ride,” Charlie says, and a swift, bright fury rears up in him.
He drops his hands, forgetting the cigarettes—he wants something else.
He wants to grab her arm, press her up against a wall, grind into her with a hot hand smothering her mouth. He wants to hear her trying to scream.
“No, no,” he croaks out. “I just wanted to get your take on the Harper’s thing. Glad you enjoyed it.” He spits the last words, but she misses—or ignores, again—the bitterness.
“I loved it. I’ve looked at the pictures like a million times.
” No mention, again, of his introduction, of anything to do with him, even though he made the portfolio happen—as she damn well knows.
He can’t help thinking she’s withholding that praise intentionally.
Because she hates him. Enjoys pricking his ego in person, and maybe also in neatly printed block letters.
Charlie turns and walks briskly up the stairs, giving him nothing but her beautiful behind.
When he’s certain she’s gone, he smashes his fist into the table beside him and stands there, breathing heavily, holding his throbbing hand, until the anger fades. Depleted, he gathers his belongings.
He finally lights a cigarette when he steps outside, and stands smoking it under the awning.
His is the only car left in the lot. The nicotine doesn’t calm him like he thought it would; he starts staring around at still and moving shadows, at the swaying tops of trees.
He feels nervous and observed. He’s been so focused on Charlie tonight, but what if there’s someone far more dangerous out there now, watching him?
Judith’s killer must be aware of the Harper’s feature; he may have even read or watched Paul’s interviews.
If he has, he knows Paul was here that night and could have heard something, seen something.
And Paul is easy to find. Especially easy to find in this dark parking lot.
He takes one final inhale before crushing the cigarette beneath his heel and walking quickly to his car.
As he fumbles for his keys, he senses a presence just behind him.
He whirls around as he opens the car door, seeing nothing, no one there.
Only the darkened school entrance and the bushes around it, slightly stirring like the trees.
He gets in the car, tosses his bags beside him, and forces himself to sit there with the doors unlocked and his window down while he lights another cigarette.
Why in god’s name would Judith’s killer come after him?
If he’d been useful to the police, they would have caught the guy already.
Paul isn’t thinking clearly. He blames Charlie for rattling his confidence the way she did.
If she’d just given him one word of praise or thanks or congratulation, he wouldn’t have walked out feeling twitchy.
But she couldn’t spare it, could she? She had to make it all about Judith.
If Charlie is the one writing to him, it’s because she’s eager to puncture the bubble of his success.
She thinks he deserves to have it punctured.
Well, he won’t let her. He’s been handing her the power to harass him, when he’s the powerful one.
The someone. He starts his engine, revs it, and goes peeling out of the parking lot.