The Professor Read Free

other side.
    If anyone deserved the chance to make a fool of herself, it was Didi, but drunkensex as a spectator sport went too far. “Do something, Tony.”
    “Com’ on, Teach. They’re just doing what comes natural.”
    More people poured from the surrounding buildings and camera phones flashed.
    “We can’t let them screw in front of everybody.”
    “I’m not sure they know or care.”
    Meg gave him an exasperated glare and shoved past the people closest to the fountain. “Didi,” she called as she pulled off her first sneaker.
    Tony sighed and followed her. “I’ll do it.”
    He stepped over the ledge and waded toward the oblivious couple. Smacking Brad’s shoulder, he knocked him back several feet. Didi lost her balance and fell, landing in a billow of bubbles. Brad gaped drunkenly at Tony. “Wha-a?” He looked around as if he’d lost something, but couldn’t quite remember what. “Didi?”
    Tony hauled Didi to her feet. “She’s right here. You need to get a room, man.”
    The pair gaped at him, as if their hearing were on a time delay setting. Slowly, Didi’s head turned, her eyes squinting at the sea of faces surrounding the fountain. A flurry of activity caught her attention, and a well-dressed brunette emerged from the crowd.
    The woman stared, horrified, at the sodden trio. “Oh, my God, Didi. What did they do to you?”
    Didi blinked as her friend’s words apparently registered. She sank to her knees and crossed her arms over her chest. “They made me do it,” she sobbed.

Chapter 2
    Thursday, late morning
    Mick O’Shaughnessy sat in his car behind the brick building that housed the county medical examiner’s office. The sun shining through the window felt good against the morning chill. He cracked the window, savoring the fresh air, and slumped in the seat, postponing the moment he had to enter the building.
    His empty stomach rumbled—the coffee he’d had at the Geigers’ burned—but he never ate before an autopsy. He dreaded autopsies—a necessary evil in homicide investigations. He couldn’t imagine working with the dead day in and day out; better Dr. Spindler than him. Technically, he wasn’t required to attend, but he needed to observe. Everything in the field pointed to the killer he’d been tracking for months. If it was the same man, he wanted to learn it firsthand, not read about the signature detail in a report.
    Mick slammed the car door and walked into the building. He’d spent the morning with Emily Geiger’s shattered family. While the crime scene techs processed the girl’s bedroom, he interviewed—or at least tried to interview—her parents. The victim’s family usually talked more, remembered more details, in comfortable surroundings, but the experience was always surreal: the sunny living room, family portraits smiling from the walls, the central player gone forever, the ones left behind slack with shock. Like the other families, the Geigers lived in an upscale development, this one wrapped around a golf course. The lavish appointments hadn’t kept tragedy from finding them. This family was as bewildered as the rest, endlessly wondering what they’d done wrong.
    Mick had read the statements taken when Emily disappeared, but he’d pressed for details, searching for and finding the pattern of harassment. She’d mentioned the feeling of being watched. Her laptop confirmed at least one harassing e-mail message. If she’d deleted others, the computer jockeys in Columbia could recover them. Her parents had been stunned, then angry. They’d lashed out at Mick, as if his uncovering the information made him responsible for her death.
    In the autopsy suite changing room, Mick layered a surgical gown and shoe covers over his clothing and added a paper cap. The cap kept his stray hairs out of the operating field. The rest was because he’d seen what spilled off the table. The stench he’d carry home in his hair and clothes was bad enough. He didn’t need to