Was she really having a conversation about vampires with Lucretia?
“So what about Dr. Grotto?” Kristi asked, envisioning the tall sardonic man with such dark hair and intense eyes. “Do you think he promotes it with his classes on vampirism? Is he the cult leader?”
“What? God, no!” She set down her cup so hard that some of the foam and coffee beneath sloshed over the rim.
“But he teaches the classes—”
“Not on being a vampire, for Christ’s sake, but on the influence of the whole vampire, werewolf, shape-shifter, monster myth in society. Historically, and today. He’s an intellectual, for God’s sake!”
“That doesn’t mean he’s not into the whole thing—”
“You’re missing the point. It’s not about Dominic….” Lucretia shook her head vehemently and actually paled at the thought. “He’s a wonderful man. Educated. Alive. Look, this was a mistake.” Ashen-faced, she stood, and she was actually trembling as she gathered her things. “I thought because you’d been through a lot, because your dad is such a crack detective, that you might be able to help, that you might be able to convince your father to check into what happened to Dionne, Monique, Tara, and Rylee, but forget it.”
“Your friends are still missing,” Kristi pointed out, as she, too, got up from the table.
“They’re not ‘my friends,’ okay? Just some girls I knew. Part of a study group.”
“They knew each other?”
“Peripherally, I guess. I’m not sure. They were English majors and all of them, I think, were kind of troubled, lonely kids, the kind who could’ve gotten caught up in the wrong thing. But I should have known you’d twist it all around.” She rolled her eyes as she tossed the wet napkin into a nearby trash can.
“Did you tell this to the police?”
“No—I—I’m an assistant professor here now, but I’m not tenured, and I don’t have access to all the records as I’m not a full professor yet and…damn, it’s complicated. I can’t go spouting off about cults on the campus, but then I ran across you and…so, I’m telling you now. Because I thought your father could look into this quietly, without getting me into any hot water. Before, I wasn’t convinced that there was anything wrong. Dionne and Monique, they were pretty wild and always talked of just hitchhiking away, but now…I don’t know. Tara was unhappy, but Rylee?” She shoved her hair out of her eyes, caught sight of the boys at the nearby table, and lowered her voice. “Maybe I’m imagining all this. You know, the whole blur between what’s real and fantasy. I don’t know why I even told you about it.”
Neither did Kristi. She’d never seen someone go from ice cold to red hot in a matter of seconds. Obviously she’d hit a nerve bringing up Professor Grotto, who just happened to be the teacher of Kristi’s next class, the one she was late for, the one on vampires. Kristi decided she’d keep that information to herself for the moment. She gulped the last of her coffee and tossed the cup away while Lucretia gave the table one last swipe.
Kristi couldn’t help but notice the ring on Lucretia’s left hand. “Are you engaged?” she asked, and remembered the conversation Lucretia was having about the guy who was absolutely “amazing.” Could she have meant Grotto?
Lucretia stopped mopping for a second, looked down at her fingers, and her white face instantly flushed scarlet. “Oh…no…” she stammered. “It’s…it’s just…nothing.” Quickly she wadded the napkins over the old packets of sauce and dropped the whole mess into the trash bin. She added quickly, “And it’s not a ‘promise ring’ or whatever you called it when you were a freshman.” A little smile crawled across her lips. “Remember?”
“Yeah.”
Lucretia was wiping her hands on a fresh napkin. “Isn’t that a hoot? To think that the guy you tossed over when you were first here is now on the staff. Talk about a twist of fate.”
Kristi stared, trying to make sense of Lucretia’s comment. “You mean Jay?”
“Yeah, Jay McKnight.”
Her stomach dropped to the floor. Whatever she and Jay had shared was long over, but that didn’t mean she wanted to bump into him. No, Lucretia had to have gotten bad information. “He works for the New Orleans PD,” Kristi argued, then started to get a really bad vibe when she saw a glint of triumph in Lucretia’s gaze as she slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder.
“But he’s teaching a class here. A night class, I think. Filling in for a professor who had family problems and had to take a leave of absence or something.”
“Really?” Kristi couldn’t believe it, but wasn’t about to argue. Lucretia was just plain wrong or yanking on her chain just to bug her. She wasn’t about to give it any credence until she saw Jay McKnight with her own two eyes. Then she was hit by another bad feeling. “What class?”
“I don’t know…something in criminology, I think.”
Kristi’s stomach tightened. “Introduction to Forensics?”
“Could be. As I said, I’m not sure.”
Oh, God, please no. She couldn’t imagine Jay being her instructor—that would just be too much to deal with. She flashed on how she’d so callously broken up with him and cringed. Even though it had been nearly a decade, she didn’t want to think there was a chance she could run into Jay on campus. Or that he could be her teacher. That would be torture.
“See ya around.” Lucretia was already heading for the door when Kristi noticed the big clock mounted on the back wall of the building over the doors leading to the admin offices.
She noticed the time.
It was three minutes to eleven.
No way could she make it across campus. No doubt, she’d be late. But maybe it was worth it. Lucretia’s fears, her theories about a cult here on the campus, were definitely interesting. Worth checking out. But really—vampires?
“Don’t make me laugh,” she muttered to herself, then was annoyed by the involuntary shiver that slid down her spine.
CHAPTER 6
The double doors of the student union clanged shut behind Lucretia, then opened again as a wave of students, talking and laughing, dripping from the rain, pushed their way inside and headed for the counter to order.
Wasting no time, Kristi gathered her notebook computer and purse, then hurried outside and down the steps as the bells from the church tower began tolling off the hour. “Great,” she muttered, noticing how few people were still hurrying across the quad.
Because everyone’s already in class.
Even Lucretia, who had left just moments before Kristi, was nowhere to be seen, as if she’d vanished into the gloomy day.
This is no way to start the term, she told herself as she half ran along a brick pathway that led out of the quad and cut past the chapel and around Wagner House, the two-hundred-year-old stone mansion where the Wagner family, who had donated the land for the college, had once lived. Now a museum, and rumored to be haunted, the towering manor rose three full stories and was complete with mullioned windows, gargoyles on the downspouts, and dormers poking out of the steep, ridged roof.
Raindrops began to fall as Kristi dashed past the wrought-iron fence that separated the gabled house from the edge of the campus, then cut behind a science building. She rounded a corner and nearly crashed into a tall man dressed all in black who was standing with his back to her. He held a hand to his forehead, as if protecting his eyes from the rain. He was deep in discussion with someone Kristi couldn’t see, but as she dashed by, she caught a glimpse of his