“Who the hell are you?” Bentz demanded, ready for a fight.

“Mai Kwan, FBI. And you?”

Jay wasn’t interested in pleasantries. While Bentz, Montoya, and Kwan straightened out jurisdiction, levels of authority, and fucking protocol, he walked into the night.

If he ran, and cut across campus, he could reach Wagner House in less than five minutes.

Portia Laurent had spent all day going over information from the school concerning their employees. She’d found several who owned dark vans and, of course, she’d immediately thought of Dr. Grotto, Professor Vampire himself, as the primary suspect. But it just didn’t make any sense. Why would he be so blatant? He’d never struck her as an idiot. An egomaniac, yes, certainly, but not a cretin.

So she’d dug deeper, finding nothing, hoping for another shred of evidence that hadn’t come through. She’d placed calls and e-mails, searched the Internet along with criminal and banking records, DMV, anything she could think of.

“Strike three hundred and three and you’re out,” she told herself, and placed a call to Jay McKnight. He didn’t pick up. “Story of my damned life,” she thought. Then she glanced up and saw an e-mail that had been written earlier in the day but, probably because of all the spam filters, had taken hours to get to her.

She read the damned thing three times before she realized what it was saying. It was from a private college in California and said simply:

You must have made some mistake; the person you’re asking about is deceased. We’re sorry to inform you that Dr. Charles Preston passed away on December 15, 1994.

Portia immediately checked the Internet, finding the obit and confirming the story. Preston had died in a surfing accident. The photograph was clear and there was no way that he was the same man who taught writing at All Saints.

On her way to the car, she called Del Vernon and left him a message. No way was she waiting for him. She and Charles Preston—or whoever he was—were about to have a heart-to-heart.

The door to Kristi’s prison opened silently. She didn’t move. Her heart was slamming into her ribs and she had to force her muscles to go slack. Her eyes remained closed except for the tiniest crack that she allowed herself, just a glimpse of her surroundings.

Until a flashlight was trained on her face.

“Hey!” A man’s voice echoed through the chamber. “Wake up!”

Dr. Preston?

The surfer-dude writing teacher?

Not Grotto?

Her head still pounded, but her mind was beginning to clear. She knew her arms and legs worked, but not completely. She’d never be able to overpower her captor. But Dr. Preston?

“Kristi! Wake up!” he yelled at her as he approached. He bent down, grabbed both her arms and gave her a little shake. “Wake up. Come on.”