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Zack walked back to the helm, speaking over the exclamations of the girls.
“What do you mean, dead?”
“Dead, asshole,” John shouted. “Murdered. It’s a fucking Freddy Kruger house in that cabin.”
Zack opened his mouth and nothing came out.
He gunned the engine and they leapt out of the water. John fell painfully to the deck, but scrambled up again. He pushed his way forward, the images he had seen burned in his brain, grabbing Zack’s shoulder. The other man pulled away roughly and steered to the middle of the channel.
“We have to go back!”
“Back off, dawg, it’s my boat.”
“She’s dead back there.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do.”
John fought for the wheel, unsuccessfully.
“Go back!”
“Are you crazy?” Zack shouted. “I’ve got a boat of ecstasy and drunk underage girls. No fucking way.”
It was no use. The bright lights of downtown Cincinnati were in their faces and reflecting off Zack’s sleek, shaved head, as if they had suddenly emerged from the past into the present.
Zack steered over to the Serpentine Wall and cut the engines, jumping out to tie up. He leaped back in and took the cell phone from John, rage in his bright blue eyes.
“Don’t you get it, cop’s son? We’ll be the first goddamned suspects.”
Monday
Chapter Three
With an hour to spare before her meeting started, Cheryl Beth locked her car and began her walk across campus. It was the loveliest day she had seen this year, as mother nature felt the intoxicating sense of her power to give rebirth. A rainstorm had come through in the early morning and now the day was sunny and warm. She gloried in the bright green of the Ohio buckeyes, the sweetgums with their star-shaped leaves, the dense beech trees. A woodpecker was working on an oak, a scarlet crown on his head. Her mother had taught her to identify trees when she was a little girl. She had given her that, at least.
The morning fast-walks were important, Cheryl Beth knew. After she had turned forty, she could no longer keep weight off effortlessly. She was still an attractive woman, with light brown hair worn in a long shag cut and large brown eyes in a face that still held the too-young look that had often caused her to be underestimated. She smiled easily and men still noticed her. But she was trying to be healthier. Too many years as a nurse had taught her the senseless, incomprehensible ways our bodies could go wrong; no need to help the process along.
Her surroundings made such worries seem impossible. The surreal beauty of Miami University never failed to move her. It was like a college setting out of a novel, with stately brick buildings, a lush, precisely maintained campus, and the quaint town of Oxford. The sense of safety was overwhelming. What a change from the grittiness of the old hospital in Cincinnati. She started through the dogwood grove that would take her to the Formal Gardens. It was one of her favorite spots.
This was the first time in her career when she wasn’t practicing as an RN on a hospital staff. It felt strange to go to work as a teacher of nursing, not to be in scrubs but dressed up. She had worn scrubs for more than twenty years, working in the hardest jobs at the hospital that handled the toughest cases. She was known as the best pain management nurse in three states and wouldn’t dispute it. But she needed this break. She was a natural teacher, and the clinical part of the job still gave her hospital time.
She liked her students, even though their reputation at “J. Crew U.” was sup
posedly that of clueless privilege. Many were older, starting new careers. A few were her age, and quite a number were men. The clinical work in the hospital came naturally. She cared less for the nursing classes that were held in Middletown and Hamilton, the onetime industrial towns being so forlorn. So she appreciated the few times she actually got to teach on the main campus. Some days she thought about moving to Oxford and saving the drive from Cincinnati, but it was still early in this new work and she couldn’t shake her love of the city. Her black Audi A4, her one serious indulgence, made the trip easier.
Much of the time she missed the old hospital for all its flaws. She missed the patients, and especially her old coworkers and their mostly endearing eccentricities. The university had plenty of smart, pleasant people, but it was very politically correct. The old Redskins mascot had been changed to the Red Birds. The nursing faculty was highly capable, but she knew she could never make the dark jokes or have the irreverent fun with them that she so enjoyed with the staff at the hospital, things that had kept her sane.
As she came closer to the Formal Gardens, she saw the police cars. She had only seen so many in a single place one other time. The cars were from the campus police, Oxford Police and Butler County Sheriff, all crowded together, many with their lights flashing.
“I can’t let you go closer, Professor Wilson.”
A young man with close-cropped hair, wrap-around sunglasses, and uniform stood on the sidewalk. He was a campus officer she had become acquainted with when he helped her get a jump-start on her car back in the winter. He had all manner of things on his uniform belt besides his gun and handcuffs, and she couldn’t say what half of them did. “Professor Wilson” was still new to her, and she urged her students to call her Cheryl Beth. But this young man was one of those who couldn’t break the habit. Maybe saying “professor” made them feel as if they were getting their money’s worth.
“And you’re probably not going to tell me why.” She smiled and he reluctantly smiled back, shaking his head.
“You know how it is.” He slipped off his sunglasses. Over his shoulder, she saw some officers erecting a blue tarp beyond the circle of benches that stood at the heart of the Formal Gardens.
“Kind of ruining my walk,” she said, and instantly regretted it, not even knowing what tragedy was unfolding at the head of the long string of police cars. As if she herself hadn’t had enough dealings with the police to last a lifetime.
