“I’m not asking you to. Not yet anyway.” Peter leaned forward and propped his elbows on denim-clad knees. He wished there were another way to handle the situation, but he’d wrestled with possibilities since he got the report. They had no choice. “I’ve pulled up everything I could find on Analise Glover, Nathan Rhodes, and Callenwolde University.”

“I don’t need to hear it. She told me everything yesterday.”

Peter frowned. “Everything? You sure?”

Experimentally Gabriel’s fingers creased the article into folds. He parried Peter’s question with one of his own. “What did you find out about him?”

“Rhodes was a jerk. Misogynist and egomaniac. Colleagues hated him. Girls loved him. Especially the barely postpubescent. Erin must have been fresh meat to him when her parents sent her to him.”

“She was fifteen.” The folded page crumpled into a fisted ball.

“I know. They’d whisked her away from London after she managed to wig out even the avant-garde of the BBC.” He flipped through several pages. “I couldn’t find any record of reports mentioning him. Except two, from a few years ago. A student’s father filed charges against Rhodes. She refused to testify at trial. In the end, she transferred to another school with a perfect transcript. A Terry Watson.”

“And the other?”

“A graduate student in linguistics. She vanished. Less than a week later, so did Analise Glover and Nathan Rhodes.”

Chapter 27

“It’s time to go.” Erin spared Gabriel a glance as she buttoned up the shirt she’d borrowed from his closet. “Sylvie called. They just released Kenneth.”

“Are you sure you’re ready?” he asked as she calmly passed him to go into the bathroom. Too calmly, he thought, for his taste. As she combed her hair, he watched her in the mirror. What he saw clutched at him, squeezing his throat. In the next hours, she would confront a madman and her past. Where was the fear? The apprehension? He couldn’t find either in her eyes. “The police could still send in a decoy. Erin, you don’t have to do this.”

“Ten people are dead,” she replied evenly as she bundled her hair into a band. “I have to account for taking one of them myself. And the others won’t have justice without me.” In the mirror, she could see the gray eyes grow stormy, and she braced for it.

He didn’t disappoint. “You’ve given the police all the information you have. They can do their job without you.” His voice rose, ringing with the impotence he felt. “This is not your responsibility. Dammit, Erin, don’t go!”

“He’ll be watching the apartment. If it isn’t Kenneth, he’ll know I’m not there. That I didn’t go home last night.” That I spent it here with you. And he’ll come after you next.