“I know, I know, but that was because I couldn’t offer you a tenure-track job here. Or thought I couldn’t. But turns out I can!” She continued to frown. “Miranda, it’s okay—the FBI’ll understand. Sure, they’ll be disappointed, but they’ll get over it. Hell, there must be a dozen other people who could do that job—not as well as you, of course, but very capably. I can call the Bureau for you, if you want.”
“No!” The speed and the force of it surprised me, and it seemed to have surprised her, too. “I mean, thank you, but . . . please don’t.” Now she looked on the verge of tears. “Here’s the thing, Dr. B. I appreciate your faith in me. And I appreciate how you went to bat for me, because I know it couldn’t have been easy to get an exception to the hiring policy. But you’re not just my mentor. You’re my hero. My role model. I want to be like you. And I can’t be like you if I stay here. Don’t you see? I’ve got to leave the nest and spread my wings—branch out on my own—if I want to do it right. If I want to do it the way you did it.”
When I had first broached the idea of her staying on here—it seemed a lifetime ago, but in reality it had been only a few weeks—Miranda had compared me to a plantation owner at the end of the Civil War, offering to pay a former slave for labor that had previously been free. That comment, half joking, had wounded me, but only superficially: a paper cut, nothing more. But this—this talk of heroes and role models: this was a blade slicing straight into my heart—slicing all the more keenly because of the kindness and generosity behind the pointed words.
And couch it however she might, the bottom-line fact remained unchanged: I still could not bear the idea of her not being here. “I’m late for a meeting,” I lied, my voice suddenly thick and unfamiliar. “I think you’re doing the right thing,” I lied again. “The FBI is so lucky to get you.” I ended, at least, by speaking a truth.
I gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, then turned and hurried out of the bone lab. “Dr. B? Hey, Dr. B,” she called after me.
I held up a hand—my fist closed, my thumb raised in a gesture of false jauntiness—and turned the corner into the safe, obscuring shadow of the stairwell, the steel door closing between us as I trudged up the steps.
CHAPTER 36
EIGHT DAYS HAD PASSED SINCE WAYLON HAD DIED; six days since Jeff’s family had flown off to exile in Canada and since I had agreed to accept my Professor of the Year award during halftime of the Homecoming game. The ceremony had been announced with full-page ads in the News-Sentinel and on billboards flanking every highway into town. I’d spent a half hour on camera at WBIR, waxing rhapsodic to Beth Haynes about how the ceremony would be the high point of my life.
And now it was time.
Overhead and all around us, Neyland Stadium rumbled and shook with the stamping of multitudinous feet. “Sounds like the Vols just put some more points on the board,” Decker said. We were in my administrative office, awaiting the buzzer that signaled halftime.
“I’m glad the Vols are moving the ball well,” I grumbled. “Me, I can barely move at all.” Two of Decker’s SWAT guys hoisted my academic robes over my head, then clumsily threaded my arms through the sleeves. The gown was a strangely snug fit, and I felt like the Michelin man, or a kid in a snowsuit.
Except it wasn’t a snowsuit I was wearing under the gown; it was a bomb suit. I wasn’t wearing the high collar or the helmet, but I was wearing a bulletproof vest under the bomb suit, just in case. “You’re trading mobility for survivability,” Decker said. “Not a bad trade-off, I’d say. In this rig, only thing you need to worry about is a rocket-propelled grenade. That, or a tactical nuke.”
“I worry about a head shot,” I said. “What if he shoots me in the head?”
“Oh, that.” He gave a philosophical-looking shrug. “He shoots you in the head, we shoot him. Then we clean up the mess and feel really bad.” He frowned. “Seriously, Doc, you don’t have to do this. I know you want to draw him out, but you really don’t have to take this risk.”
“Deck, there are ninety thousand people out there expecting to see me get a medal draped around my neck. I can’t back out.”
He smiled. “No offense, Doc, but eighty-nine point nine thousand of ’em came to see the game, not you. As long as the Vols come back out and play the second half, nobody’s gonna be heartbroken. We make a PA announcement that you’ve been called out on a forensic case, and everybody’ll say, ‘Good ol’ Dr. Brockton—there he goes again!’ No shame in choosing to be safe.”
I shook my head. “If I chicken out now, it just means I have to keep looking over my shoulder, jumping every time a car backfires or a kid lights a firecracker. I’m sick of that, Deck. Let’s get this over with.”
He frowned. “He might not try anything today, Doc. He’s gotta know we’re on high alert.”
“He might know, but he won’t care. Look at it from his point of view: If he shoots me out there on that field, not only does he win, he wins in front of ninety thousand people. Plus a TV audience of millions. How could he resist?”