AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jack shoved away from his desk and paced his living room. He looked devastated. Horrified. Sierra wanted to wrap her brother in a hug. But she stayed where she was. She didn’t want to go all big sister on Jack. Embarrass him in front of Cody.
Jack finally stopped in front of Cody. “Why? Why would he do that?”
“I have no idea,” Cody said. He squeezed Jack’s shoulder. “But we’re gonna find out. You said you share an advisor with Kavanaugh?”
“Yeah. Professor Chang.”
“We need to talk to Professor Chang today. Show him the photos, both these and the ones from the surveillance cameras in your building.”
“Her,” Jack said, staring at the photos again. We need to talk toher. Dr. Chang is a woman.” He took a deep, shaky breath, then focused on Cody. Then Sierra. “She’s a full professor and she’s not even thirty. She’s done some ground-breaking research that intersects with my work.” Jack’s face flushed. “She’s pretty great.”
“Then I’m sure she’ll have some ideas about why Kavanaugh did this, and what she can do about it,” Jack said quietly.
Watching her brother, Sierra wondered if Jack had a crush on his advisor. It sure looked and sounded as if he did. And just as Jack had told her Cody was perfect for her, she suspected Dr. Chang was perfect for Jack.
Sierra hoped her brother and his advisor had a happy ending. Unlike her and Cody.
Staring at the photos, looking stricken, Jack nodded. “I’ll send her an email and let her know I need to talk to her today.”
“As soon as possible,” Cody said. “We need to move on this. Eliminate this threat to you.”
Jack drew in a deep breath. Glanced once more at the photos, then nodded again as he looked at his phone. He looked beaten down. Like he’d aged ten years in the last fifteen minutes.
The same way Sierra had felt when her life had unraveled less than a week earlier.
An hour later, his phone pinged with a text and Jack looked away from the newspaper. Opened his phone. “She can see me anytime,” he said. “She’s in her office the rest of the day and she doesn’t have any other appointments.”
“Then let’s get going,” Cody said.
Jack nodded. Pushed away from his desk. Grabbed his wallet, which was on his desk and said, “Right. Let’s get it over with.”
Sierra could see her brother’s distress. His confusion. Instead of her instinctive urge to comfort him, she said gently, “You might want to get dressed first, Jack.”
Twenty minutes later, they walked into Dr. Chang’s office. It was full of crowded bookshelves, with a desk in the middle of the room. The attractive woman sitting behind the desk had long dark hair pulled back in a braid, and when she looked at Jack, she smiled widely. “Hey, Jack, how’s it going? You have some questions about your project?”
Jack dropped into the chair on the opposite side of the professor’s desk. Shook his head. “No, this isn’t about my research.” He nodded at Cody. “This is Cody Parker.” He jerked his chin at Sierra. “My friend Sierra. Parker is a friend of hers. Dr. Chang is my advisor.”
“Nice to meet you,” Dr. Chang said, shaking hands with both of them. “Please call me Charlotte.”
Jack had hesitated when he’d called her his friend, but Sierra was pretty sure Chang hadn’t noticed. Her gaze was fixed on Jack’s face.
Jack drew a deep breath. “I had an incident a few nights ago. Someone tried to break into my apartment. I saw him on my security cameras, and he had a ski mask covering his face.”
Charlotte Chang’s smile fell away and she sat up straighter. Leaned toward Jack. “Are you okay?” she asked. Sierra thought the concern on her face was… more than the concern of an advisor for one of her students.
“I’m fine,” Jack said with a shrug. “He didn’t get in. I have… I have good security in my apartment. But I mentioned it to Sierra.” He glanced at her, then looked back at Chang. “She and her… her friend came from Wisconsin because she was worried.”
Cody touched Jack’s shoulder. “Thanks for not breaking my cover, Jack, but Dr. Chang should know the truth.”
He turned to the professor. “I’m Sierra’s bodyguard, Charlotte, for reasons I’m not at liberty to disclose. Sierra was afraid Jack’s visitor was tied into the reason she needs a bodyguard. So we came back to Evanston.” He opened his email on his phone and scrolled to the photos of Aaron Kavanaugh. “My company was able to pull up some images from Evanston’s CCTV system. This is the person who tried to break into Jack’s apartment.”
Cody handed his phone to Chang, and Sierra watched as she scrolled through the photos. When she got to the third one, the photo that showed Kavanaugh most clearly, she gasped.
She stared at the photo for a long moment, then handed Cody his phone. “Why was Aaron trying to break into your apartment?” she asked Jack.
He shrugged. “I’ve got no fu… frickin’ idea. We’ve never had any problems. No fights. Not even stupid disagreements. He’s come drinking with me and my buddies. I don’t have a clue what he wanted.”
Chang studied Jack for a moment. Then she looked at Cody. “Could you email me those photos and any others you have? In case Aaron denies he’s involved?”
