“Yes, he is,” Erin agreed, though not enthusiastically.
Mary Alice appeared not to notice. Her eyes glowed with admiration. “He and my husband have been friends for years, and I went to college with his stepdaughter. That’s how Phil and I met.”
Erin wasn’t sure how she was supposed to respond to that, so she merely smiled.
Mary Alice lowered her voice intimately. “You may have heard what happened to her.”
“The stepdaughter?”
She nodded sadly, but there was a strange glow in her eyes, almost as if she relished retelling the story. “Her name was Ashley Dallas. She was murdered eight years ago at a college party. Not Hillsboro,” she quickly added, as if to assuage any fears the information may have generated in Erin. “A man was convicted of her murder, and he’s been on death row for several years. Now, however, there’s a possibility he may be released.”
Something akin to a premonition swept over Erin. She felt chill bumps up and down her bare arms. “Why?”
Mary Alice shrugged. “Some unfortunate legal technicality. It was discovered a few months ago that evidence was deliberately withheld from the police investigation, and the man’s lawyers have pressed for a mistrial or a new trial or something. There was a real brouhaha in the papers about it a few months ago, and some of his groupies organized a protest march at police headquarters. According to the newspaper accounts, the scene got pretty violent.”
“I haven’t heard anything about it.” Erin rarely had time for reading newspapers or even watching the news on television, which quite often made her feel hopelessly out of the loop. She supposed she was the quintessential scientist, cooped up in her lab and shut off from the rest of the world.
“I’m surprised, given the level of publicity it’s received,” Mary Alice said. “But then, I guess you haven’t been in town all that long, and things have recently died down a bit.” She looked as if she wanted to say more, but just then, Russell Quay, another anthropology professor and member of the FAHIL staff, hurried over and tapped her on the shoulder.
Mary Alice turned, automatically plastering a smile on her lovely face. “Russell! I haven’t seen you all evening. Where’ve you been hiding, you handsome devil, you?”
The diminutive professor beamed up at her, obviously smitten, and when Mary Alice bent to say something to him, putting her “attributes” at his eye level, Erin thought he might faint dead away.
After a moment, Mary Alice excused herself, and her admirer turned anxiously to follow her with his gaze. Behind his thick, bottlelike glasses, his eyes looked dazed and slightly guilty, like a kid who’d purloined his father’s Penthouse.
“Dr. Quay?”
He turned, startled, as if he hadn’t seen Erin standing there. His face flushed a deep, mottled red, and he muttered something under his breath, quickly whirling away to run headlong into a uniformed server carrying a heavy, silver tray of canapés. Somehow the young woman managed to keep her balance, and after a bit of two-stepping, Russell darted around her and disappeared into the crowd.
“The poor man is obviously sexually deprived,” Lois Childers, an archaeology professor, commented wryly as she ambled up beside Erin. “That’s the kind you have to watch out for, you know. Their frustrations sometimes manifest themselves in very disturbing ways.”
“You sound as if you’ve had some experience,” Erin remarked mildly. Lois was a tall woman, in her early forties, with handsome features and a raspy, sexy voice deepened even more so by her chain smoking. Her auburn hair was shoulder length and blunt cut in a Cleopatra style that highlighted her angular cheekbones. Tonight she wore a gold brocade suit that made her seem positively regal as she gazed upon the proceedings with airy disdain.
“I’ve known my share of head cases,” she blithely admitted. “I’d watch out for Russell if I were you.”
Erin glanced at her in surprise. “Why?”
Lois shrugged. “He thought he would be the one put in charge of FAHIL. Dean Stanton gave him every indication that he would be, then suddenly—” she snapped her fingers “—here you are.”
“I didn’t know,” Erin said, although it was hardly a surprise. Universities were as competitive as multinational corporations. Her appointment was bound to cause some hostility. “I don’t know Dr. Quay all that well, but he doesn’t seem threatening.”
“Well, hell,” Lois said, eyeing Erin over the rim of her wineglass. “Neither do many serial killers.” She paused. “I’ll lay you two to one odds that the little general is still a virgin. His mommy keeps him on too tight a leash.”
“His mommy?”
Lois snorted. “Didn’t you know? Russell still lives with his mother. He asked me to dinner once and the old bag had to come along with us. Do you remember the mother in Throw Momma from the Train?” When Erin admitted she did, Lois nodded grimly. “Well, then, you’ve got the picture.”
“You’ve dated Russell Quay?” Erin hadn’t meant to sound so incredulous, but a more unlikely couple she couldn’t imagine.
“Well, hell,” Lois said. “I’m not getting any younger, and besides, in case you haven’t noticed, the pickings on campus aren’t exactly prime. We can’t all have tall, dark, handsome detectives traipsing through our offices.”
Erin froze. How had Lois known about Detective Gallagher?
Almost casually, she said, “So, who have you been talking to?”
Lois smiled mysteriously. “I have my sources.”
“This is serious, Lois. If there’s a leak at FAHIL—” Lois rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. Lighten up, Erin. A good-looking man causes talk. I saw him coming out of your office and I asked Gloria who he was. She obviously had the hots for him herself.”
Gloria Maynard hadn’t exactly overwhelmed Erin with her competence and trustworthiness, and now to hear that she’d been talking about a visitor to the lab, even to Lois, did not bode well for their future working relationship. Erin would have to speak to her secretary at once, warn her to be especially discreet where FAHIL was concerned.
Still, Lois was right. A good-looking man did cause talk, and Nick Gallagher was nothing if not good-looking. An image of him flashed through Erin’s mind, and she felt that same flutter of nerves in her stomach that she’d experienced upon meeting him. She told herself again it wasn’t attraction. She had some sort of sixth sense about the man. Some internal alarm warning her that he meant trouble.
Lois gave her a smug look. “I’ll lay you ten to one odds that man doesn’t live with his mother.”
No, Erin thought. For all she knew, he lived with his wife. Or his lover.
That notion gave her another odd feeling, making her stomach tremble even more, and she took a sip of her wine, trying to chase away the unfamiliar sensation.
“And I can tell you without a doubt, he’s no virgin,” Lois declared.
Erin gave her an amused glance. “Without a doubt? You know, of course, that implies a certain knowledge of the fact.”
Lois gave a sensual wince. “Don’t I wish. That dark hair with those blue eyes…that body…” She shuddered. “He’d be an incredible lover.”
Erin’s amusement evaporated, and she became annoyed with the conversation, although she couldn’t say why exactly. “Just because he’s good-looking—”
“It’s more than that,” Lois declared. “When you get to be my age, you have a certain instinct for men. It’s like a radar. You know almost