19. Tallus

Diem’s heart raced with such rapidity under my ear that I thought it might explode. His breathing remained erratic for a long time, and I was sure it had less to do with the orgasm and more to do with our physical connection. His hands rested clumsily on my hips, grip loose and unsure. I could tell he wanted nothing more than to let go and run away. The intimacy of the situation was jacking up his blood pressure, and I feared he’d give himself a stroke if I wasn’t careful.

I closed my eyes and absorbed the concrete wall of Diem’s body for a few more precious seconds, knowing it couldn’t last. I should have been disappointed with his minimal participation, but I hadn’t expected more. The man was a wreck, and I’d pushed his limits. But he’d tried, and I appreciated the tiny effort.

It was the first time I’d seen his bare thighs. During our previous encounters, Diem had ensured they’d stayed hidden. Beneath the jeans, I’d found dense, artistic tattoos. They covered dozens of long thin scars, ones that seemed self-inflicted.

After what Kitty had shared, I knew them for what they were. Diem’s body was a battlefield. He’d fought a war against a merciless foe, and I suspected the war wasn’t over. Perhaps it had shifted and changed, but he still wore the cloak of an active victim. The silver scars on his thighs, although faded and disguised under ink, told a story all on their own. Diem was not fully healed. He was a man still suffering.

When the muscles throughout his body tensed further, I showed mercy and moved away, putting space between us. He couldn’t look at me, and I knew he needed permission to escape.

“You know where the bathroom is. Help yourself to a cloth. They’re in the cabinet behind the door.”

He offered a clipped nod, bent to hike his pants, and got out of there like his ass was on fire.

If he’d suffered abuse as a child, the scars made sense. What I couldn’t figure out was his inability to physically connect. To touch. Be intimate. It was like he didn’t know how. Hadn’t learned? Never experienced positive touch?

I could have pondered for hours, but it threatened to reignite my migraine, so I let it go and found clothes to dress.

Diem didn’t return to the bedroom.

I found designer jeans and a nice shirt before spending another ten minutes in the bathroom, fixing my hair and bringing myself back to life after two days in bed. I took a final migraine pill to be sure it stayed away. I probably shouldn’t be going out, but I’d be damned if I missed the action.

When I finished, I found Diem pacing a strip off the living room carpet, biting his nails, and likely craving a cigarette or drink. The man had tells.

At least he hadn’t run out the door.

“Ready?” I asked, steering clear of mentioning our recent activities. With Diem, avoidance worked best.

He nodded—no eye contact—then moved to the door, escaping into the hallway the second his shoes were on.

I had a feeling it would be a silent ride to the university.

***

York campus was not as busy as it would have been during the fall and winter semesters. At most, a few hundred students participated in summer courses, catching up or trying to get ahead. It was midafternoon, and the outdoor areas were occupied by several groups of young adults enjoying the sun. A lot of skin on display. Tank tops. Shorts that rode high up thighs. Shirts showed off tanned bellies—we hadn’t had enough sun to produce those results, so they must have been artificial.

The temperature had risen in the two days I’d been stuck in bed. According to the Jeep’s readout, it was a balmy twenty-seven degrees that afternoon. Warm enough to shed hoodies and jackets and don summer wear. Maybe a warm front had been the cause of my migraine.

“Do you know where David Shore teaches?”

“North building.” It was the first Diem had spoken since leaving the apartment. He was no longer grinding his teeth and clamping his jaw, but he still wouldn’t look at me.

He parked, and we walked along a paved path toward the north end of campus, catching the attention of a few students. Diem kept his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, shoulders near his ears, face set in a scowl, and gaze on the ground. He was without his trusty trench coat and hat for once—it was much too warm. Maybe he felt exposed with so many eyes on him. God knows he hated attention. However, I was more apt to believe his discomfort was a residual effect of earlier activities.

Diem was still processing.

I let him. No sense poking an infected wound.

“His office is this way.” Diem veered along a different path, one that weaved around a squat building on our right, and I followed.

“He won’t be there, will he?”

A grunt.

“D?”

“Maybe. He’s keeping office hours even though he’s suspended.”

“How do you know? Wait. Have you been here already?”

No answer.

I snagged his arm, drawing him to a halt and spinning him to face me. “Have you?”

“Yes.” He gazed over my shoulder.

“Then why are we here now?”

“We need to talk to people. Find out what they know. You’re… better at that. I only looked around. Wanted to get the lay of the land. I saw him with his wife. I saw him go to his office. I saw him get coffee and watched the students stare at him like he was an abomination.”

“Same guy we saw at the hotel?”

A clipped nod. Diem still wouldn’t meet my eyes. “He worked in his office for a while. Takes the bus when he comes and goes. I didn’t… I stuck with minor surveillance. I… knew you wanted to help, and…”

I considered. “How was he with his wife?”

“Angry. She’s bitter. Nasty accusations are circulating. I hardly blame her. She went to live with their daughter. I think it’s a daughter. She’s younger. They look alike. I don’t know. It could be a cousin. Baby sister? I didn’t look into it. Didn’t matter.”

I rattled my head, trying to align my thoughts. “Okay. That’s something.”

Diem shuffled his feet, met my gaze briefly, then looked away. “I tried not to do too much without you. You said… It was trivial. What I did. The surveillance. I wanted to be sure I had the right David Shore.”

“Thank you for including me.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. It was a big deal, but I didn’t think puffing my chest and showing excessive glee would be wise. “Lead the way.”

David Shore wasn’t in his office, so far as we could tell. It was dark beyond the frosted glass. He taught statistics, and the mathematics department where his office was located took up a better part of that particular north building. It included a minimal cafeteria and library on the first floor.

We wandered as I considered how to approach students to inquire after a sketchy professor. Diem obviously didn’t fit in with the college crowd, but I might pass as a student, considering my age.

Somehow, we landed amid an excited discussion in a stairwell as we descended from the third level after finding no one in David Shore’s office. A group of five people stood on the landing between the first and second floors, and the central focus of their discussion seemed to be our professor.

“Shore is so fucked, man. I heard they found something in his car.” A guy with a bushy unibrow, who wasn’t far out of his teens, said to his friends as Diem and I moved past them to head down the stairs.

“What’d they find?” asked a girl.

“How the hell do you know that?” another guy asked. This one was tall and skinny, tossing an apple like a softball, spinning it, and catching it before launching it higher.

“Because they must have. They impounded the clunker weeks ago. Man, his wife was so pissed. She called him every name in the book as they hauled him off earlier,” Bushy Eyebrow said, laughing.

“But what did they find?” Apple Guy asked.

“I don’t fucking know,” Eyebrow said. “Something. Obviously.”

I stalled and turned back, uncaring I was interrupting. “Are you talking about David Shore?”

Eyebrow blinked a few times, checked with Apple Tosser, then nodded. “Yeah. Why? You know something else?”

“Isn’t he the professor accused of having relations with his students?”

The girl beside Apple Tosser gave a haughty laugh. She wore a short skirt with a blouse, unbuttoned enough to show her bra and too much cleavage. “That’s old news.”

“Yeah, man,” squeaked a third guy with an acne-dotted forehead and greased-back hair that reminded me of a dated John Travolta movie. He of barely broken vocal cords grinned, showing off crooked teeth in desperate need of braces and Colgate. “They keep digging and digging, and they keep finding more and more dirt. Then boom.” Squeaky clapped his hands together for effect. “Fucked.”

“Boom what? What dirt?” I asked, knowing about the drug accusations but playing dumb. People liked to gossip, so I gave them plenty of room to share.

Diem had descended a few more steps. I wasn’t sure if it was intentional, but it made his size less imposing. It also removed him from the conversation, which likely helped.

Apple Tosser filled me in. “Well, initially, it was the girls, right. I mean, it’s not technically illegal, but it’s fucking gross because he’s not exactly good-looking, but they were of age. The school didn’t like it. Can’t have relations with students. Big no-no. Word got out, don’t know how, and someone made an anonymous call to the cops about him dealing. I mean, whoever did that is a fucking idiot. Everyone knew Shore was selling. He’s the go-to guy around here, especially if you want the good stuff. He can get anything. Anyhow, the cops checked it out, and it’s been red-hot around here ever since. Lots of badges asking questions.”

Squeaky continued. “School suspended him, his wife left him high and dry, and then a couple of weeks ago, they confiscated his car. Right here on fucking campus, man. It was awesome. Dude, we watched them tow it away, laughing our asses off. No one knows why they took it.”

“Figured it was the drugs,” Apple Tosser said. “Then today, serious-looking dudes showed up. I mean, they weren’t your regular run-of-the-mill street cops. No way.”

“FBI.” Eyebrow nodded.

“There is no FBI in Canada, idiot.” Apple Tosser smacked his friend’s shoulder.

“Well, I don’t know. Whatever the equivalent is.” Eyebrow scowled at his buddy.

“They were detectives.” This from a different girl, dressed in cutoff jean shorts and a crop top. Tattoos and a navel ring decorated her exposed belly. A beaded purse hung over her arm. She’d been quietly observing until then.

“How do you know they were detectives?” I asked.

She shrugged. “They had a look.”

“What did they want?” I peered among the group.

“Keep up, man,” Eyebrow said. “They arrested his ass.”

“They what?”

Eyebrow nodded. “Like I said. They must have found something in his car. Forensics takes time, so it makes sense. They showed up this morning, read him his rights, cuffed him, and took him away.”

I was about to open my mouth and ask more questions, but Diem snagged my upper arm—his hand wide enough to completely circle the appendage—and dragged me back up the stairs from where we’d originally come, taking them two at a time. I barely managed to thank the group and keep up as I stumbled after him.

“We really need to talk about this dragging me around obsession,” I muttered as we hit the landing on the third floor.

The minute the stairwell door slammed behind us, I dug my heels in, stopping Diem’s momentum, whispering, “Did you hear that? Shore was arrested. For what? Do you think it’s about Beth? Oh my god. He killed her, didn’t he?”

Diem didn’t respond or release me. It wasn’t the first time he’d physically tugged me along to places unknown. Alas, it was part of the whole Diem Incommunicado Package. I went along with it for now, but we would have a lengthy chat about it later.

We landed back at David Shore’s office. Only then did Diem let go of my arm. When I rubbed the spot in question and made an overly dramatic display of being wounded—I wasn’t—he seemed to realize what he’d done.

Wincing and fisting his hands at his sides, he muttered, “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I chuckled when he clearly didn’t believe me. “Really, though. You’re a bit of a bully. Tone down the alpha mode, and we’ll get along great.” I paused, considering. “Actually, I don’t mind a bit of alpha in the bedroom.” I wiggled my brows. “It’s kinda hot.”

Diem squirmed.

“Good grief. Pretend I didn’t bring up sex. My bad. I should know better. Talk to me, D. What are we doing?”

“Keep watch,” he grumbled, then paused and added, “Please,” under his breath before dropping to his knees and digging his lockpicking kit from his jeans pocket. Did he carry it everywhere?

I whipped my head around, but the hall in both directions was empty. It was an administrative wing of the building, but still. “Is this wise?”

“They arrested him. He’s not exactly coming back in five minutes.”

“It’s the middle of the day.”

“We’ll be fast.”

“What if he shares an office with someone?”

Diem tapped the decaled name on the door’s window that clearly stated he didn’t.

“Diem, anyone could come along and—” The lock clicked, and the door swung open. “Christ, you’re fast.”

No response, but I earned a smug expression, one I’d never seen on Diem, one that almost contained the tiniest trace of humor.

We entered.

The office was bathed in afternoon sunlight streaming from the uncovered window on the far side of the room. Dust motes hung in the air, as did a faint hint of something musky and familiar. It made my nose twitch.

“Weed,” Diem said, putting a name to it.

“Oh, the college days. It’s all coming back to me.”

Diem gave me a look.

“Oh, come off it. Don’t tell me you never smoked pot.”

No response.

Diem moved to the cluttered desk by a tall bookcase, grunting and pointing at the door. He was back in mime mode.

I arched a brow. “I assume those caveman noises mean you want me to keep a lookout?”

He glared. I glared back, and Diem added a husky, “Please.”

“One of these days, Guns. There’s got to be a YouTube channel you can browse. ‘How to Communicate with your Partner.’ Or maybe ‘Speaking Without Grunting. The New You.’” I waved a hand in the air as though it was displayed on a sign.

Diem narrowed his eyes. The hint of mirth was back. “We aren’t partners.”

“So you keep saying. But you showed up at my house, remember? All on your own. You didn’t lock me out like I thought you might. It means something, D.” I patted my chest over my heart. “I think you like me a little.”

“Watch the fucking door.”

I chuckled and poked my head out to ensure we were still alone.

Diem scoured the debris-littered desk, rifling through papers, scanning and tossing them aside.

Minutes ticked by, and he mostly made guttural noises in his throat.

“What are you expecting to find? A confession?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

“What do you think they found in his car?”

“We don’t know that it had anything to do with his car. Those students aren’t exactly in the know.”

“News flash. Neither are we. It explains why he takes the bus all the time.”

No response.

“Maybe Shore injected something into Beth to kill her. Do you think he killed her? That’s why they arrested him, right? I mean, we don’t know that for sure either. How do you think they connected him to Beth? I mean, we connected the two because—”

“Stop talking. I’m trying to think. You’re the worst partner ever.”

“I thought I wasn’t your partner.”

The bear in his chest awoke, and I smirked, resuming my surveillance duties.

The hallway was still empty, so I moved to the desk to help Diem look. For what? I didn’t know. David was a slob, and because there was so much crap, we would need far more than five minutes to go through it.

“No laptop,” Diem said.

“Probably keeps it on him… Or the police took it with his car. Planner?”

Diem grunted in the negative.

We dug in silence, both skimming, both searching. Near the bottom of a pile, a business card caught my eye. I tugged it free, read the name on the front, almost dismissed it, and flinched.

Bill Tudor.

I flicked it around and showed Diem. “Is this the same lawyer guy Sean met with?”

Diem glanced up, read the card, and tore it from my hand. “Yes. Fuck.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know.” He scrubbed a hand over his scruffy jaw, winced when he grazed the cut, then dropped it again. “We gotta get out of here. There’s nothing to find.”

We slipped from the office as voices and heavy footfall rose from the eastern stairwell at the far end of the hallway.

“Shit. This way.” Diem caught my arm again and physically moved me.

“We are having a long talk about this manhandling thing,” I hissed. “I’m serious. It’s borderline annoying.”

He loosened his grip and muttered an apology but didn’t slow down.

The door at the opposite end of the hall opened. Men’s voices grew louder. There were at least two. One of them sounded familiar, but I didn’t stop to look over my shoulder. When we reached the junction on the far west side of the building, we rounded the corner, ducking into a new hallway.

I tugged Diem to a stop, wrenching free from his hold, and held a finger to my lips. The voices were louder.

“Hang on.” I poked my head around to see who they were and caught sight of four people before they entered Shore’s office. I didn’t know two of them, but they carried heavy-looking gear and wore protective outfits I recognized all too well. The other two men were most certainly the faux FBI agents the students had mentioned seeing arrest Shore earlier that day.

“Oh boy.”

“What?” Diem asked.

“Doyle, Fox, and a forensics team just entered David’s office.”

And if that was the case, Shore was definitely being investigated for homicide.