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I grabbed a key card from the table and ran.
Chapter 28
Beale Street at night. A person could get away with murder in this kind of dark.
The wind blew colder than it had that afternoon. Music rolled out of every open bar, neon lights in every color of the rainbow made everything seem celebratory, and the crowd ranged through every emotion. Lust to anger to tipsy joy.
My fake ID was solid. I needed it to work tonight. I was definitely in the market for some tipsy joy, and maybe a couple of college girls.
I wanted to forget Em’s rejection. The confusion I’d seen on Lily’s face.
I couldn’t even think of Michael’s disappointment without boiling the blood in my veins. I’d offered to lay myself open for the girl he loved, and he’d shoved it back in my face. For the first time in a while, I hadn’t had one selfish motive, and he’d blown the whole thing completely out of proportion.
I wondered what Dr. Turner’s family was doing tonight. What had his granddaughter thought when she heard that she wouldn’t be able to take her grandfather flowers anymore, except for the ones she left on his grave?
Turning in the direction of South Main, I walked toward the Orpheum Theatre. After the rip experience at Ivy Springs Cinema, I was glad to see the marquis advertising an upcoming concert by a modern band. It was nice to be firmly planted in my own reality.
Now I was ready to plow myself out of it.
I followed a crowd of frat boys into a bar called the Love Shack. Holding my ID up in front of the bouncer’s face as the line went through, I engaged the guy in front of me in conversation. Casual. Cool. Easy enough.
I plopped myself on a bar stool and ordered a gin and tonic. “Extra gin.”
The bartender, a ridiculously hot redhead with a name tag that read “Jen,” offered me a crooked smile. “Right, baby boy.”
urner lay facedown on his desk in a pool of blood, his throat slit from ear to ear.
Chapter 27
After we’d found Dr. Turner, I’d called campus security, and then Michael and Lily. We split the day between the college and the police station, watching the coroner’s office employees enter and leave the building as they did their investigation, and then as the police brought in possible witnesses for questioning.
The wound had been inflicted fourteen hours earlier, with a six-inch blade, from behind. The killer had slashed from left to right. The same way Poe cut Emerson.
There was no doubt in my mind he was the culprit.
I kept seeing the knife slice across her throat at the Phone Company, her lifeblood leaving her body. The next second, it was Dr. Turner, a man with grandchildren and a pink flower in his jacket, slumped over his desk, blood dripping to the floor.
Since the moment we’d found him, I hadn’t been able to get a grip on my own emotions. Guilt, fear—other things I couldn’t name. It all added up to something so out of control my heart kept skipping beats.
Em wasn’t any better. We’d returned to the Peabody, where she’d taken a forty-five-minute shower. Now she sat on the couch, wrapped in Michael’s arms, a complete wreck. Lily was in the shower, and I sat in a chair in the corner, trying to block everything out. Finally, I couldn’t take any more.
“Em.” I reached for her hand. She looked at me blankly. “Let me take it.”
“Take what?”
Her voice was loud, as if she’d forgotten how to modulate. I pointed at her heart.
“The pain. You want to take the pain.” Her words weren’t a question. More like an accusation. I didn’t expect the laughter that came next, or her short answer. “No.”
She was in no shape to handle her emotions on her own, especially when she didn’t have to.
“I feel it either way, whether I take them or not,” I said, attempting to persuade her.
“I’m sorry my pain is inconveniencing you.”
“You know that isn’t what I meant.” The words came out harsher than I intended. Michael sat forward in his seat. I needed to temper my response. “Don’t shut me out when I can make it better.”
The bathroom door opened, and Lily emerged with wet hair and pink cheeks. I didn’t want her to hear any of this.
