“I wanted to apologize for scaring you last night.”
She paused and looked up at him. Her forest-green eyes seemed to be holding back a monsoon’s worth of tears. If he ever wanted to slay dragons, it was hers. Jesus, he wanted to fucking shred them.
“I think you should go.”
Greer lifted the corner of her desk and used his booted foot to push some papers out of the way. “I can help clean up—” His eyes begged her to let him.
She shook her head. “I’m in enough trouble. I’ve been summoned to the provost’s office. I don’t know why all of this is happening, but it won’t be good for me if the university finds Homeland has an interest in it, too.”
She got to her feet and set the stack of papers she’d made on top of her desk. She wiped the back of her hand against her eyes. He pulled her into his arms. It was the only thing he knew to do.
She leaned into him. “It’s never good when the provost calls you in.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll go.” Her arms went around him. His hold tightened on her. “Can I call you later?”
She looked up and met his eyes. Something in him snapped—into place or broke, he wasn’t sure which. “Please do.”
Greer gave her a soft smile, willing her to be strong. Briefly, the tension in her face eased, which further twisted his gut.
A sound behind him startled them. Remi pulled away. A suit stood at the door, giving him a dark look. His gaze shifted over to Remi. “Ready?”
Remi squared her shoulders and drew a breath. “I am.” She grabbed a pad of paper and a pen, then shot him a look.
The suit was looking at him again. “You’re the one Dr. Chase was with when she was attacked by the bikers.”
Greer nodded. “Yeah. I was.”
Remi gave him a strange glance. “Dr. Zimmers, my friend Greer Dawson.” The two men nodded at each other. Greer felt the muscles at the corners of his jaw tighten. He looked at Remi, whose face was a mask of resolve. “I’ll call you later—unless you want me to wait?”
She shook her head. “We’ll talk later.”
He went into the hall and phoned Max. “What do you have?”
“Cameras showed a medium-height man in a black hoodie and cap come down the hallway from the elevators. He had a crowbar. He was in the professor’s office about five minutes. That’s it.”
“Did he have anything with him when he left?”
“Not that the cameras showed.”
“First her laptop, then her office. What are they looking for?”
The air-conditioning system kicked on. Geez, the university had to have it set to freezer. He blew air to see if his breath showed.
“See if you can get her to let you have a look at her data. If the WKB wants it, we do, too.”
Greer caught a flash of something from the corner of his eye. He looked down the hall in time to see a young woman’s blond head and shoulder slip between two groups of students in the hallway.
“Roger that. I gotta go,” Greer said, dropping the connection.
People were moving about the hall, checking bulletin boards, standing at office doors. He moved around them, trying to see the girl. His height was an ally, for he looked the long way down the hall and saw her just as she turned the corner.
He jogged after her and spun around the corner to an empty hall. It was by the bank of elevators. One of boxes was descending. He watched it land on the ground floor, then ran down the stairs. He came out onto the lobby area as the elevator was heading back upstairs.
He looked around the small area, down both hallways. No blond in sight. He walked outside. People were moving around. The campus wasn’t in session yet, so it wasn’t terribly crowded. The girl was nowhere to be found.
He shoved his hands into his hair and squeezed his eyes shut. Lifting his face, all he saw against the red wash of his eyelids were the dead eyes from his dream, judging him. He felt cold in the hot summer sun. He opened his eyes and stared up at the blue, blue sky.
He was either losing his mind or—yeah, he was losing his mind. No fucking way around it.
Chapter Eight
Remi took her plate of scrambled eggs and fruit out to the sofa in her living room. She ate a few bites before setting it down. She wasn’t hungry. Couldn’t focus. She was numb—gratefully so, too.
She’d worked hard to be where she was. And now she had nothing. Well, not true. She had a mortgage, a car payment, a mountain of student debt, and no income if she decided she couldn’t comply with the provost’s ultimatum.
She paced. Her townhouse wasn’t huge. Just the living room, dining room, and kitchen on the main floor. Only took a minute to make the circuit. She did it again. A third time made her a little dizzy, so she sat on the stairs and looked at her place.
What the hell was she going to do? Sociology professorships weren’t easy to come by. And she’d wanted this one in particular so that she could complete her study of the Friendship Community.
She leaned forward and rested her forehead on her knees. The university had been excited about her career when she interviewed two years ago. They looked forward to her research projects. They knew when they hired her that she was researching the Friends.
She thought back to when she started to have problems with her department. It wasn’t until earlier this summer that her department chair had begun sending a strange vibe her way. The facade he’d presented to the campus police when she was being questioned about the graffiti was his posturing at its best.
She braced her elbows on her knees, then propped her chin up. The Friendship Community wasn’t the first group she studied that did some pushback. Most of them did. That which lived in cults liked ignorance and darkness. Anything that shined a light on it was a threat.