Dr. Turner lay facedown on his desk in a pool of blood, his throat slit from ear to ear.
Chapter 27
After we’d found Dr. Turner, I’d called campus security, and then Michael and Lily. We split the day between the college and the police station, watching the coroner’s office employees enter and leave the building as they did their investigation, and then as the police brought in possible witnesses for questioning.
The wound had been inflicted fourteen hours earlier, with a six-inch blade, from behind. The killer had slashed from left to right. The same way Poe cut Emerson.
There was no doubt in my mind he was the culprit.
I kept seeing the knife slice across her throat at the Phone Company, her lifeblood leaving her body. The next second, it was Dr. Turner, a man with grandchildren and a pink flower in his jacket, slumped over his desk, blood dripping to the floor.
Since the moment we’d found him, I hadn’t been able to get a grip on my own emotions. Guilt, fear—other things I couldn’t name. It all added up to something so out of control my heart kept skipping beats.
Em wasn’t any better. We’d returned to the Peabody, where she’d taken a forty-five-minute shower. Now she sat on the couch, wrapped in Michael’s arms, a complete wreck. Lily was in the shower, and I sat in a chair in the corner, trying to block everything out. Finally, I couldn’t take any more.
“Em.” I reached for her hand. She looked at me blankly. “Let me take it.”
“Take what?”
Her voice was loud, as if she’d forgotten how to modulate. I pointed at her heart.
“The pain. You want to take the pain.” Her words weren’t a question. More like an accusation. I didn’t expect the laughter that came next, or her short answer. “No.”
She was in no shape to handle her emotions on her own, especially when she didn’t have to.
“I feel it either way, whether I take them or not,” I said, attempting to persuade her.
“I’m sorry my pain is inconveniencing you.”
“You know that isn’t what I meant.” The words came out harsher than I intended. Michael sat forward in his seat. I needed to temper my response. “Don’t shut me out when I can make it better.”
The bathroom door opened, and Lily emerged with wet hair and pink cheeks. I didn’t want her to hear any of this.
“Taking my emotions won’t make it better, Kaleb.” Em acknowledged Lily but didn’t lower her voice. “If you don’t like them, get out. Go in the bedroom.”
“The bedroom isn’t far enough.” I’d be able to feel her on the opposite side of the equator. At least if I took her emotions, I’d be able to control them.
“Then go somewhere else. Leave. Go ahead!” Her shouting caught me completely off guard. The Em I knew was violent with her fists, not her words. I’d never seen her be irrational. Michael’s worry and his expression of concern told me he hadn’t, either. “Make me worry about you, as long as it makes you feel better.”
“How far away do you want me to go?” I asked. She was spinning like a top on the edge of a table.
“Oh, that’s right. You can leave the situation behind without even leaving the room, can’t you?” She cut her eyes in the direction of the minibar. “Just crack a few open. All kinds of teensy little bottles in there that should numb everything right up.”
Her refusal to let me help made me angry for reasons I couldn’t name. “I offered because I care.”
Michael tried to pacify me, “She’s just mad. You don’t need to take care of her. I will.”
“Like you take care of everything, right?” I asked. Something broke loose in my chest, and my rationality flew out the window, right behind Emerson’s. “You always swoop in and save the day. You saved my dad. I could have prevented his death if I’d been more in tune with Cat and Jack. If I had, my mom would be awake and healthy. And if I’d taken the files out of Dad’s safe when I was supposed to, Jack would have never known about Emerson. So it’s all my fault.”
From the other side of the room, I felt Lily weighing whether or not to intervene.
Michael stood up. “Don’t do this. Don’t make today about you.”
“Oh okay,” I scoffed. “Because that’s totally what I’m doing, Mike. No, wait. I wasn’t making it about me. You did that.”
“You did that all by yourself,” Michael said.
Our emotions reminded me of a hurricane that stayed in one place, churning up destruction and then churning it up again. But there was no eye in this storm.
“I know how Dr. Turner’s family feels,” I said. “He will never go home to them. He doesn’t have a second chance like my dad did. There’s no rewind or easy out for a slit throat. There was a body. A slit, bloody throat. Someone had to identify him. Someone had to claim him. And now someone has to bury him.” I laughed, but there wasn’t an ounce of mirth in it. “So, yeah, go ahead and say today is all about me.”
“Stop.” Em covered her ears. “Stop it. Listen to yourselves. You’re making it about both of you, and Kaleb’s right. A man is dead.” She burst into tears, sobbing like she’d never be whole again, and started to slide to the ground.
Michael caught her before she could hit.
Without another word, he scooped her up and carried her into the bedroom, kicking the door closed behind them with his foot.
I grabbed a key card from the table and ran.
Chapter 28
Beale Street at night. A person could get away with murder in this kind of dark.
The wind blew colder than it had that afternoon. Music rolled out of every open bar, neon lights in every color of the rainbow made everything seem celebratory, and the crowd ranged through every emotion. Lust to anger to tipsy joy.
My fake ID was solid. I needed it to work tonight. I was definitely in the market for some tipsy joy, and maybe a couple of college girls.
I wanted to forget Em’s rejection. The confusion I’d seen on Lily’s face.
I couldn’t even think of Michael’s disappointment without boiling the blood in my veins. I’d offered to lay myself open for the girl he loved, and he’d shoved it back in my face. For the first time in a while, I hadn’t had one selfish motive, and he’d blown the whole thing completely out of proportion.
I wondered what Dr. Turner’s family was doing tonight. What had his granddaughter thought when she heard that she wouldn’t be able to take her grandfather flowers anymore, except for the ones she left on his grave?
Turning in the direction of South Main, I walked toward the Orpheum Theatre. After the rip experience at Ivy Springs Cinema, I was glad to see the marquis advertising an upcoming concert by a modern band. It was nice to be firmly planted in my own reality.
Now I was ready to plow myself out of it.
I followed a crowd of frat boys into a bar called the Love Shack. Holding my ID up in front of the bouncer’s face as the line went through, I engaged the guy in front of me in conversation. Casual. Cool. Easy enough.
I plopped myself on a bar stool and ordered a gin and tonic. “Extra gin.”
The bartender, a ridiculously hot redhead with a name tag that read “Jen,” offered me a crooked smile. “Right, baby boy.”
