Blood Will Tell Read Free Page A

television. Could I come with you, see what you do—then maybe buy you a pizza?"
    “I warn you,” said Brandy, “it's not very exciting!"
    “That's all right."
    “Okay. I'll meet you at the station."
    “Uh—could I hitch a ride? I walked to campus today,” he said as they rode down in the elevator.
    “Sure. Just remember, if you have anything weird in mind, I carry a gun."
    He chuckled, a small, quiet sound. “Anything I had in mind would not require a gun—or handcuffs, either, in case you were concerned."
    On the ground floor they stopped for Martin to turn off the monitor on his computer. “It's still running,” Brandy noticed as the power light stayed on.
    “Faxes may come in over the weekend,” he explained.
    Then he locked his office, a claustrophobic one without windows. There was no one else in the Computer Science suite, either, so he also locked the outer door, and they walked out to the parking lot.
    The night was almost as bright as day, the full moon riding large over the rooftops. It would be early fall in New England and along the Great Lakes, sweater weather, football weather. In Western Kentucky it was still late summer, hot by day, warm at night.
    They talked easily, like old friends, but Brandy could not have said what about. At the station Brandy wrote up her report as quickly as possible, growling as her tired fingers hit the wrong keys.
    Martin came up behind her, so silently she didn't know he was there until his soft voice asked, “How long have you been on duty?"
    Through a yawn, she replied, “Over twelve hours now.” She didn't mention how badly she needed the overtime.
    Warm fingers touched the back of her neck, massaged gently. “Relax.” The deep voice was hypnotic, the hands magic. He rubbed from her hairline downward, the pain and tension seeming to follow his fingers down out of her head.
    Brandy felt like a contented cat, ready to purr under Martin's petting. The cares of the endless week drifted away, and she leaned into his touch, entranced.
    When Martin stopped, Brandy wondered if she had been literally in a trance, for she was suddenly wide awake, refreshed, and serene. “If you could bottle that,” she told Martin, “you'd be a millionaire!"
    “I don't want to be a millionaire,” he replied. “I'd have to worry about people liking me only for my money."
    It was easy, once her headache was relieved, for Brandy to finish her report. She signed out at last, and they drove over to Pizza Hut. There they discovered that they both liked pepperoni pizza.
    Brandy was by now ravenously hungry. They had ordered a medium pizza—and only as she halted her reach for the last piece did she realize to her embarrassment that she had consumed four slices to Martin's one.
    “Go on,” he said when he saw her hesitation. “I had dinner earlier. You obviously didn't."
    The place was crowded with college kids, and there must have been a dozen cheery “Hi, Dr. Martin!"'s from students going in and out. But then, the new semester had just begun. Brandy recalled that students tended to like all their professors till about midterm.
    She took in stride the stares she received, remembering how odd it was to realize that one's teachers had a life outside the classroom. Probably, she thought, his students wouldn't think much of Martin's taste in women. Brandy was in her plain-neat-suit work clothes, her hair scraped efficiently back into a twist, her makeup minimal.
    Now that she thought of it, she was pretty much at her worst. Martin's interest seemed genuine. He asked about her work, family, education—and as they sat nursing the final drops of Pepsi in red plastic glasses she realized, “You know all about me—but I know nothing about you!"
    “I grew up in Iowa,” he said, “until I was twelve. Then we moved to Nebraska. I did undergraduate work in Computer Science at M.I.T., then got my doctorate at the University of Central Florida. I taught for a while at Florida State, then