Seth unlocked the door, pushed it open, and turned on the light switch in the outer reception area. The fluorescent lights flickered for a moment before casting their bluish illumination over Karen Bradford’s battered wooden desk and the scarred wooden chairs that lined the wall opposite it.

He turned quickly to the right and made his way down a short dark hallway to his office. He unlocked the door and made his way into the standard closet-sized quarters allotted to faculty members. The administrative bureaucracy in Murphy Hall comforted themselves with thick carpeting and executive trappings, but those who did the actual business of the university settled for war surplus furnishings wedged into claustrophobic corners. His eyes fell on a sampler behind his gray metal desk. Zoe had made it for him.

Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, teach.
And those who can’t teach become administrators.

The words were an expression of his own thoughts, and as such, had made him very unpopular with the UCLA administration. Truth was always painful.

Seth settled himself behind his desk and picked up the telephone to call the police, when an envelope with his name on it caught his attention. It bore Karen Bradford’s handwriting and had been taped to the shade of his desk lamp to catch his eye.

He replaced the phone on its cradle and peeled the envelope from the lamp shade.

“Tony has been quite angry with you,” the note began. “I realize how shocked you’ve been with Zoe’s disappearance. And I know you’ve really not been yourself. Neither has Tony. I was afraid he might do something precipitous with your mail, so this morning after we talked I went down to the storeroom and sorted out any letters or parcels that seemed important. I’ve stored them in my filing cabinet, in the bottom drawer, at the very back. The key to the cabinet is enclosed.”

The note was signed “K.”

Ridgeway eagerly grabbed the key from the envelope. He got up so quickly that his chair tumbled over backward and clattered to the floor. With thoughts of Tony Bradford momentarily forgotten, Seth rushed to Karen Bradford’s desk. The two-drawer metal filing cabinet rested behind it.

The screams began as he sat down in Karen’s chair and boat over to insert the key in the filing cabinet lock.

First a female voice. It began as a high scream of surprise and quickly deepened to thick shrieks of terror. Thai the male voice. More a shout than a scream. And then the female voice again, quivering now, climbing higher, each note a step closer to hysteria.

Ridgeway recognized the voices from minutes before. The couple had returned, desperate, he assumed, for a place to consummate their bargain. He had not relocked the door, and they had quickly found Tony Bradford’s body.

The girl continued to scream. The volume seemed to be growing louder, either through sheer lung power, or because they were coming up the stairs.

Seth jammed the key into the lock. He had to hurry. The philosophy department office was the first one at the top of the stairs. They’d see the light and want to use the telephone to call the police; he’d never get back to the library in time. Everything still hinged on Stratton’s tail suspecting nothing.