Laura Anne Gilman Read Free Page B

had both known, so fast, never any doubt...right?
    The cop looked her up and down, as if he was trying to memorize her to pick out of a lineup, later. “Have you heard from your boyfriend recently?”
    “No. I came over... I haven’t heard from him in a couple of days, and that’s not like him at all. Are you... Did someone hear something? Is he okay?” Panic swamped her, cold and hard. Why else would the cops be here? Had the super heard or seen something, and not told her?
    “He resigned his position but failed to return his equipment. I’m here to get it back.”
    Her eyes focused on the badge on the shoulder of his uniform: not a cop, campus security. Then the words he’d spoken registered with her.
    “Resigned?”
    The security guard gave a shrug, as if he didn’t really care either way. “Polite way of saying he blew a major deadline, and hasn’t responded to the boss in three days, so they terminated his contract. Didn’t tell you, huh?” The look the man gave her now was filled with pity.
    Jan swallowed, hard. The panic had subsided, leaving her too drained to move. “No.”
    “Well, he did. People think that working out of the office means they can do whatever they want, they get an unhappy surprise. His choice. But the school wants its equipment back.” The guy wasn’t being mean, just matter-of-fact. He stepped forward, moving around her when she didn’t get out of the way, and knocked once, hard on the door.
    Jan wanted to defend Tyler—he wasn’t like that!—but she couldn’t. Because that was just what he’d done, wasn’t it? Just disappeared, dumped all his obligations, responsibilities. And that wasn’t like Ty, wasn’t like him at all. But he wasn’t sick, he wasn’t in the hospital, so where was he?
    There was no response to the knock, not even the sounds of someone trying to avoid visitors.
    He knocked again, and then Jan spoke up.
    “He’s not there. But I have a key.”
    It was as much stubborn pride, a reaction to the way he’d looked at her, that made her say anything. See? I have a key. I’m not some fly-by-night chickie he just forgot about. Plus, if she was helping someone else get their property back, it wasn’t breaking and entering. Or being stalkery. Right? It was just keeping Tyler out of trouble. Out of more trouble, anyway.
    The guy stepped back and let her have at the door. Her hand trembled a little in the locks, then she heard the dead bolt snick free, and the handle turned, opening into Tyler’s apartment.
    There was no body lying sprawled in the main room.
    The apartment looked...exactly the way it had the last time she was there. A lot of open space, and the whitewashed furniture with denim upholstery that looked as if he’d stolen it from some WASP’s vacation home. He’d always laughed and shrugged; he liked to confound expectations, although he’d never admitted it.
    If the super had poked around, he’d not disturbed anything.
    The apartment was also weirdly silent. She couldn’t remember it ever being that quiet. Tyler always made noise, muttering to himself as he worked, occasionally singing under his breath, in constant movement. She would sit, her legs crossed under her, and not move for hours, while he buzzed around the space, the activity in his brain echoed in his actions.
    Nothing moved. Even the two of them, once inside the threshold, seemed frozen, as though something held them back.
    “All right. Where would his tech be?” The security guy’s voice was too loud; it didn’t belong in this quiet space, and Jan shuddered in reaction, as though he’d said something vile.
    “In the office.” She led the way across the floor to the small room in the back that, for someone else, would have been the bedroom. Two glass-topped desks filled the space; one laden with monitors and decks, the other at a right angle to it, holding only a laptop and a three-level filing box that was stuffed to overflowing with papers.
    The security guy went