Marlena moved with threatening purpose toward the campus security guard, a mountain lion about to pounce on an unwary fawn. She could almost not blame Frederick for racing a few steps ahead to intercede before she could wreak preemptive vengeance on the student aide.
He stopped before Marlena, laying his hand on her hip like that would hold her in place. It was presumptuous and possessive but also effective. She halted at once, pressing against his hand but not breaking from it. Her subconscious reminded her of the familiarity of this gesture, and then her cheeks scalded when her mind put context to why.
She could absolve herself from inclining her hip an inch further into his hand. If he were halting her this way, she did not, as it were, wish to stop her momentum.
He leaned against the wall, equal parts a charm offensive and blocking Marlena from engaging.
The guard was a five-foot nineteen-year-old in a gray button-down shirt with navy blue pants and the word Security over her breast pocket. She had been on an idle patrol of the hallways, checking for strange noises and smoke, the former undoubtedly impeded by the white wireless bud in her left ear. The student guards were not empowered to do much, though they each had a small canister of pepper spray in case of dire circumstances, which this woman touched as though it were a talisman against anxiety. The guards even had to clear actual emergencies through the supervisor before calling the police, so they were at least once removed from functional authority.
Or, Marlena thought, the guard was playing dumb about her role in the heist, trusting most people would be gullible enough to find the guards toothless. Oh, how petite the young woman was. How she opened her wide brown eyes, the very picture of a veal calf. Who would suspect her perfidy?
Before Marlena could build her exact plan of attack -- she had a vague one, but that one was primarily using impressive words and literary references to embarrass her enemy intellectually -- Frederick had already gained all useable information and let the guard retreat to patrol a less hostile corridor.
Yes, the guard had access to keys, but she did not keep them on her -- consider the bother if someone stole them! -- and needed to sign them out from the office. She called over her radio and confirmed no one had checked out the keys to this dorm in two weeks, since a hot plate incident, and so it was likely nothing to do with security. She offered to take a report but seemed more interested in the damage to Frederick's room ("the damage not caused by my good friend here") than the kidnapping of Marlena's book.
Marlena assumed this was evidence of a conspiracy that went all the way to the administration, if not higher. Frederick pointed out that it owed more to the severity of the breaking and entering (emphasizing breaking) and less to that particular theft.
"Why not?"
He measured his words. Marlena saw him doing it, biting off what he saw as truth to say instead what he believed she could process. "Your book is of inestimable value, my dearest, so how could we expect other people to conceive of its price?"
"You are placating me."
"Very much so, yes."
She would argue, say something snide, but he had been honest about it, and she did feel placated. She would allow it.
He realized the position of his hand, perhaps three inches closer to her middle than when first applied, and removed it.
She felt less placated.
"What's our next move?" she asked.
He went next to the RA, an excitable grad student ameliorating mounting student loans with this job. Some day, Marlena thought, this woman would make an acceptable preschool teacher but gave off a manic cheerfulness that repelled Marlena's overwhelming sophistication.
Twirling her chemical blonde hair without a precious thought in her little head, the RA told Frederick (Frederick and conspicuously not Marlena) nothing of value. Of course, she had nothing to do with this and had heard of no such disruption ("Beyond what my dear friend here did," he added) but was deeply concerned. How her plump lips shaped the deep at Frederick bore into Marlena like termites. She thought a few unkind words informed by growing up in a patriarchal society where such epithets came quickly, substituting these for more clever and gender-inclusive invectives, though only in her mind. Spoken acerbic wit would be wasted on this woman.
They had been gone half an hour while Marlena suspected everyone of crimes before Frederick suggested it was time to regroup in his room -- or at least have a snack.
Lying in the middle of his floor was a photo of her book, pages fanned out but unclear, a silver watch in the foreground. She could not express the feeling of violation to know the kidnapper had opened the cover and traced his fingers over the pages.
It must be a man. No woman would dare to do something this morally bankrupt. Still, Marlena had a reputation and habit to keep up, so she blamed the security guard in the hall and the RA again, though she knew they could not have done this. After all, she'd had eyes on them.
In pen -- in her purple pen! -- were the scribbled words I told u not to go to the cops!
It was all splotchy and uneven. Had this person never touched a fountain pen before? They'd better not have bent the gold nib, or she would have to commit murder, sure that no court would convict her.
She would not bother to point out that one campus security guard and one RA did not equal "the police," no matter how generously one stretched the definition.
To his credit, Frederick seemed more horrified than during the previous infiltration. He searched the room, again scrutinizing the corners she had cleaned of dust and debris, though she didn't know what he expected to find here. Hidden cameras, maybe, as though this were a prank show or he was being spied upon.
That wouldn't be the case. This was about her. If Marlena had slept somewhere else last night -- and it was not as though she didn't have standing offers -- would this same thing have occurred? That didn't seem likely. This was a crime of planning, but her one-night stand with Frederick ostensibly gave them an opportunity. Why him? Why not steal it from her room when she was sleeping there? She couldn't believe that would be any more difficult -- in fact, it had to be much easier.
She looked over at him, brushing his fingers over the close dark waves of his hair, his brown eyes a becoming shade of wet with panic. Assuming he was innocent and, though not a victim of her magnitude, still a victim, she had to admit that most guys would have been happy enough to let her storm off in a huff. Frederick had not considered this for a moment, and his reward for this faith was her occasional irrationality and someone leaving threatening notes in his room when he turned his back.
"What do we do now?" he asked, though she could not tell if he were asking her or himself to devise a plan. "What's our play?"
Marlena had not been considering anything more than the immediacy of vengeance, but his questions did give her a longer view. She accepted the kidnapper's time limit (or were there multiple kidnappers? Could she be right about a conspiracy of them? Was "conspiracy" the correct collective noun for kidnappers?); she would not get her book back sooner than they wanted to give it. At least Marlena could pretend she believed she would have it tonight. She knew this was not definite. They might not show up. They might leave her a bag of shredded pulp -- which would not be the worst outcome but would be far from ideal; it was a nice notebook, and the pen was all but irreplaceable -- but at least they would not have the book to show around.
Or the kidnappers would be there at the appointed hour. It was their game, and she had been playing by their rules -- more or less, because campus security is not a police presence -- so why wouldn't they keep up their end of the bargain? Simply because they were soulless monsters for whom a keelhauling would be too good?
Even now, more than likely, the kidnappers had ample time to move her book anywhere they wanted on campus. It could be at least twenty miles away if they had a car, but she didn't think this would be the case. The kidnappers -- or their confederates -- were still close enough to have left this note.
Marlena scrutinized the picture, hoping to spy some detail in its background that would guide her, but it was the same tile of every dorm floor.
She doubted she could convince the security guard to lock the building down.
"They can get into your room," Marlena said.
"I am waiting for you to provide new information." His reply was curt, but she was willing only to take one point away, as she had been worse to him, and he had been somewhat helpful. Also, he was not close to the worst sex she'd had recently, so she was willing to grant him leniency, as he suffered too, which would sour most moods.
"We have no idea what they are doing to my room."
"Why would they--"
"I don't know. That's what I'm saying. This is targeted at me, but they broke into your room. Why?"
"That is where you and the book were last night."
"And now you are giving established information," she said tartly. "And who knew that? Respectfully, it was late, and I doubt either of us advertised that we were about to commit sordid acts of wantonness."
He exaggeratedly bit his lip. "I do love it when you talk so sexily."
"Stop it!" she said, but she didn't fully want that imperative. She might better have said, Let's revisit that when I have my book in hand.
"So, to your way of thinking, they wanted you, and I am collateral damage."
"And they knew enough about me to strike at what would be most important to me," she said. "I mean, I am not subtle about these things as a novelist, but it is precise."
"Okay, let me catch up. It isn't like this person had been waiting for us to meet and have sex."
"Right, I barely know you."
He gave a too-sly smile. It looked almost embarrassed. "I think you know me okay now."
"Fine, yes, we licked each other a fair bit and dirtied a few condoms, okay? We are bosom buddies because you nuzzled my breasts. Can we keep on task?"
"Do you have any stalkers?"
She huffed. "I would have mentioned."
"Just covering all the bases. Indulging this train of thought momentarily: someone saw us together last night and decided to enact a plan they'd had for a while. We are presuming they did not do this sooner -- when you are alone -- because they couldn't get in your room."
"Which might be naive of us," she admitted, wanting to be nothing of the sort. "I am not thrilled with the idea of going to my room alone--"
"Did you think I would let you do that? I very much will not. We are accomplices in this kidnapping."
"Not accomplices," she said, "but thank you."
"Should we have weapons?"
"Do you have weapons?" she asked, knowing full well that unwashed clothing was the only thing offensive in his room. "Then we presume we can get there without weapons."
Her bed was made -- or as made as it had been when she left. She read once that having one's bed too tightly made was unhealthy. It had something to do with keeping bodily heat and sweat locked in. She didn't like to think too much of that. Instead, she considered it good for her reputation to have a bit of messiness about her edges. A real writer is never too neat since that would imply they were more interested in presentation than practice; a person with a spotless floor had wasted precious writing hours making and keeping it so.
She rarely brought people here. She exiled conquests because they had no right to this sanctum, and she preferred to explore their books and possessions when they were asleep, and she woke to pee. It gave her fodder for eventual stories.
Her books -- carefully curated -- were in place. She had organized them by era, cycling through one of each century to keep her mind nimble.
None of these were her notebook. Frederick poked at them as he might in some mystery potboiler, where he expected one or other to trigger a trap or false wall.
A pair of her panties -- unsexy ones -- peeked from beneath her bed. She kicked them further under so that Frederick might not notice, but he did and made no remark. As she had touched every clean pair of his underwear and several dirty ones -- plus the ones he had worn when they were warming up to sex -- this was wise of him, though she granted he might be due some lowbrow joke.
"So, they were not here," he said, which was unnecessary. Marlena knew they weren't and that saying this was trite of him.
She still opened and closed drawers, glanced behind the dresser, and otherwise made a show of looking before she would concede to his obviousness.
He flounced onto her bed too familiarly, as though he had some right, and listed aloud what they knew for a fact and what they could speculate.
"They knew you would be with me and knew they could get in there. They likewise knew that you would not be here or had no way in."
"If they had a way in," Marlena said, "they could have seized my book any time."
"And it wasn't as though our passionate evening was something inevitable like we were some will they, won't they."
This remark offended her sensibilities as though she were just some strumpet. She didn't care for the cliche of it, but it seemed better than potential slutty. "The evening might have been, in a broader sense."
"What's my last name?" Frederick asked.
Her mouth turned down, a mixed frown and confusion. "How am I supposed to know something like that?"
"If we were destined to be lovers, you would know my last name."
This, too, offended her sensibilities. It reduced her story, the potential romance of it, to coincidence and made her seem cheap. But this wasn't a romance. It was a mystery, and she was not awash with clues, saying as much.
"Until that changes," he said, "we should go to class."
"Why? Isn't sleuthing until we have a direction more important?"
"Point me in a direction that isn't Renaissance history?"
Her eyes brightened. "You are taking Renaissance history?"
His shoulders slumped as his eyes rolled. He had kissed Marlena's forehead before they could think better of it. "Oh, my sweet, oblivious Marlena. We've been in the same class all semester."
Thomm Quackenbush is an author and teacher in the Hudson Valley. He has published four novels in his Night's Dream series (We Shadows, Danse Macabre, Artificial Gods, and Flies to Wanton Boys). He has sold jewelry in Victorian England, confused children as a mad scientist, filed away more books than anyone has ever read, and tried to inspire the learning disabled, gifted, and adjudicated. He can cross one eye, raise one eyebrow, and once accidentally groped a ghost. When not writing, he can be found biking, hiking the Adirondacks, grazing on snacks at art openings, and keeping a straight face when listening to people tell him they are in touch with 164 species of interstellar beings.