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"I'm Agent Young with the FBI; this is Agent Phelps. We need to talk to you, Professor. Would you come with us, please?"
Amber gestured to the door, hoping that the professor would comply with the request without any difficulties. She and Simon started to make their way down the stairs towards the front through the thronging students.
"What is this about?" Professor Samuels asked suspicion in his voice. No, not just suspicion, outright hostility. "I have a class to teach."
Amber would much rather have left him to finish teaching the class before she approached him. Around her, Amber saw what must have been fifty phones pointing at her and the professor, every student in the place trying to get a picture or a video. This was the last thing that she wanted to happen.
"Perhaps you could come with us," Simon suggested as phone flashes continued to go off.
Even as Amber looked around at the watching raft of phones, the professor turned to run, heading for a side door to the lecture theater. Amber cursed as she realized that the professor was trying to get away. She set off after him, hurrying down the steps that led to the front of the lecture theater. The packed theater made it slow going as Amber and Simon ran after him.
It meant that they were too late as they reached the side door. The door had already slammed shut. They tried the handle, but it had been bolted from the other side.
"Damn it," Amber muttered. "It’s locked. We have to find another way around."
“Back that way,” Simon said, pointing back up the stairs leading from the lecture theater. The students kept out of their way, but they continued to film the two of them as they tried to pursue the professor.
They quickly hurried out of the lecture hall, heading out of the building and then running around it, trying to catch sight of the professor. If he’d gone out of a side exit, he had to be out here somewhere. It was just a question of finding him in time.
The fact that he was running made Amber even more suspicious than she had been when she’d found out that he had a link to both of the women who had died so far. Why run if he had nothing to hide? Had he realized that he was about to be found out and decided to flee before they could bring him in? Was this to buy him time to escape the city, or was he planning to keep killing? Amber couldn't allow that. She and Simon had to bring him down.
There was a grassy central quad ahead. Amber spotted the professor in the distance, making a beeline across the quad. His head start with the door had let him put a lot of distance between himself and Amber. She and Simon increased their pace, trying to catch up to him.
He was moving quickly, too, though, keeping ahead of the two of them, and Amber started to worry that she and Simon might not be able to catch up to him before he made it out of sight or got to a vehicle that he could use to escape.
There were several groups of students out on the quad, most of them staring at the sight of one of their professors running away from Amber and Simon. Simon seemed to get an idea from that because he called ahead.
"FBI! Stop that man!"
Amber wasn't sure if it would do anything, but she guessed that it was worth a try. A little to her surprise, one of the students in the group, Professor Samuels, was passing stuck out a foot, catching the professor just above the ankle as he ran. He went tumbling on the grass, rolling and trying to get up again.
It only bought Amber and Simon a second or two, but Amber was determined to make the most of that opportunity. She increased her speed again in a last burst of effort. She hurried forward, grabbing for Professor Samuels before he could get back to his feet. He struggled, but she and Simon pinned him to the ground, their combined weight holding him in place.
Professor Samuels tried to lash out, but it was clear that he was no match for the two of them working together. Simon dragged his hands behind his back.
Amber handcuffed him. "Professor Samuels, we could have just talked this through in your office, but now, you're under arrest for the murders of Mia Wilson and Kelly Wasner."
Now that he'd run, Amber wasn't going to take any chances. They had plenty to link him to the two victims; now, they just needed to get some answers out of him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“They’re deliberately making us wait.”
Amber paced outside the interrogation room. She watched in frustration while Professor Samuels sat in the interrogation room with his lawyer, both of them talking together. Amber wanted nothing more than to get in there. She wanted to know why the professor had done this. She wanted a confession.
“We have to be patient,” Simon said. “He isn’t going anywhere.”
The lawyer’s suit was dark blue with pinstripes, and he wore a matching blue tie. His skin was dark, and his hair was black and neatly combed. He looked much calmer than the professor did as if he were completely in control of the situation. Professor Samuels looked as if he would have done anything to get out of the interrogation room.
It was time for Amber and Simon to head in. They stepped inside together, taking up position on one side of a central metal table while Professor Samuels and his lawyer sat on the other.
The lawyer's voice was low and smooth, the kind of voice that a car salesmen might use to calm a nervous buyer.
"My client tells me that you interrupted his lecture, chased him across the university, and instructed students to assault him. He will be making a complaint to the FBI about all of this unless he is released immediately."
He was obviously trying to put Amber and Simon on the back foot, trying to get them caught up in dealing with threats of complaints and legal issues rather than conducting the interrogation. At the very least, it was an attempt to take the initiative away from them and distract them. Amber knew that she and Simon couldn't allow that.
"Professor Samuels," she said, focusing on the professor rather than the lawyer. "Is it true that you were having a relationship with Mia Wilson?"
