Page 58 of Love Always

“What?”

“I am really glad you joined the team.”

It’s an odd time to bring this up, but I’ll take it. My first week on the job, I was concussed, nicked by a bullet, and left to deal with Bryce’s continued guilt over the accident, so this moment of whatever is nice.

“Out bro.” I slip the phone back in my pocket.

The drive is short and I park in the visitor’s lot, lean against my car, and I button up my coat. Shit, it’s really starting to get cold.

In ten minutes or so, an identical Lexus pulls up and parks at the far end, near an island so there was only a small chance of getting dinged on one side by a student driver.

I find Nic interesting. He is so quiet, so congenial and he exudes a professional warmth … yet there’s an aloofness which makes clear he’s hiding something and it seems as though he doesn’t involve himself much with Colton Security North-of-Portland. This aloofness has worked to my advantage so far: he left Bryce and me alone setting up this newer office in Portland. I like that kind of management.

Nic exits the car, slams the door, presses the key fob and it blips to lock. He’s wearing a dark, Navy blue pinstripe suit, a dark burgundy metallic tie, a charcoal gray shirt and a burgundy pocket square. He’s slender, with very crisp lines. Jackson told me he’s a marathoner, but his V shape tells me he doesn’t ignore his upper body. He’s also at least as tall as Finn.

Nic strides across the parking lot with gleaming leather shoes, reaches out and shakes my hand quite formally. “Thanks for meeting me here. I didn’t want to do this by myself.”

“You want to lead on questioning?”

He nods. “Finn is particularly concerned about Laurel’s position. He does think there is some risk to her. I agree. So, after this interview, you’re her detail.”

My heart rolls in my chest. “Are you sure I’m the right guy for the job?”

“Absolutely,” he says and looks around distractedly. “Okay, where do we go?”

We must have looked like two mismatched college students trying to find classes on the first day of school. We ask directions and finally find room 214 in Building 3. Office hours start at nine and it would be a miracle if he kept them. It turns out though, we don’t have to wait long. Professor Cruz shows up at ten after nine, flashes a glance at us and disappears into his office.

I tap on the door. “Professor Cruz, we’re with a private security company and we’d like to ask you some questions about Colleen Wilkins.”

The metal door opens a crack with an efficient click and the guy stares at both of us for just a moment. He speaks with his face visible in the three-inch gap.

“I’m happy to talk to you. I don’t know about what, though. I’m assuming it has something to do with information about her and if she wrote anything in her papers. I probably should just talk to the police.”

I hold out detective Carlson’s card. “Feel free to contact him, but we would like to speak with you. It’s up to you, of course.”

The moment someone feels they can control an outcome is when I often find access. It works. The door opens wider and he stares at us for a moment. His salt and pepper hair matches his scraggly beard. Maybe he was once attractive and now he’s trying to come across in a Neil Gaiman messy sort of way. It’s a fail though. He can’t pull it off.

To his credit he waves us to two of three plastic chairs against the wall, but I choose to sit on his desk, leaning mostly to get off my leg. Since my nightmare, the phantom pains are fleeting, but are often triggered by stress and sudden pressure changes. It’s easier to keep some weight on Nubby but standing is out of the question—it creates an imbalance of power in the room.

The office is a mess. Stacks of papers, books, a computer screen left on overnight, and an array of mismatched coffee mugs with various positive messages are scattered across his desk. There’s a dead floor plant. We make our introductions and he offers us some coffee from a very dirty looking coffee machine. He dips a spoon caked with powdery coffee creamer into a jar and scoops some.

“So, you knew Colleen, Colleen Wilkins?” He seems eager to control the conversation.

Nic says nothing and I refuse to bite.

Cruz stirs the mess into his coffee. “Yes. Well. Yes, she was in my Intro to Comp course. It meets today actually. I have a meeting with disability services in half an hour to go over how to address her death.” He shakes his head. “It’s horrifying. Was she really murdered?”

I take a breath, making my answer as perfunctory as possible. “She was shot point blank in the forehead. Consensus is she probably knew the person who killed her.”

He shivers so strongly he nearly sloshes coffee out of the mug as he sets it on the table and sits down. Running a hand over his slightly balding head, he gives it a light tap at the crown where there is no hair. “Fuck.” Then he looks up as if he startled himself. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, that was disrespectful. I didn’t know Colleen at all except that she’s had a rough life so far. Most of her writings were about her childhood, you know, trouble she got into in high school, issues she had with men and with boyfriends. I knew that she had used drugs in the past, so I knew her life was rough and I’m sad that it ended. She seemed like a nice young woman.”

He says this in one large speech, all the time looking right at me and Nic. When I avert my eyes for a moment to see if he breaks his pitch, he doesn’t. It’s rehearsed and he had no trouble with shifting from past to present tense or back.

Nic removes his phone from an inside suit pocket. Man, the guy is slick. He presses it into action and the screen flickers as he scrolls a few times and then hands the photo the Cruz. “We are most concerned with this package,” he says and points. “The one, right there, in Colleen’s hand.”

Cruz starts to shake his head. “I don’t—oh,” and then he punctuates the rest of the sentence, wagging an index finger up and down three times: “wait a minute.” This time his stare settles on Nic. “I knew I had seen this somewhere. I have caught a couple of students with these boxes, but don’t know what they are. Count me as an old timer. I guess I thought it was music. You know, CDs. It’s about the right size.”

Nic takes a slender pen and thin leather pocket journal from somewhere inside that suit jacket and starts taking notes. Cruz tips his head, trying to see what Nic is writing. “You’re working with the police then?”