The Black Hour by Lori Rader-Day

Author:Lori Rader-Day
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781616148867
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2014-05-29T07:00:00+00:00

By the time Nath had walked me to my office and then out to my car, the campus parking lot was almost empty. “The Mill’s the other way, young scholar,” I called as he walked away. He shrugged, claimed to be OK. Something nagged at him. Me, I figured. The kid hadn’t planned on becoming my valet, had he? Hadn’t plunked down the next few years of his life at Rothbert only to play my Boy Friday every day of the week. He acted like someone who wanted to be anywhere else but here.

I felt the same way.

Although, really, I didn’t mind being here, standing in a gentle breeze coming off the lake. At another time of my life I might have walked down to the shore before heading home or convinced Doyle to take the boat for an evening sail. Or, at another other time of my life, I might have gone to the Mill myself and waited for Joe to close up and walk me home.

I let myself imagine that all these lives still carried on. All these Amelia Emmets, walking to the lake without assistance, resting her hand on Doyle’s leg on the drive to the marina, playing with the paper coasters on the Mill’s bar and watching TV to pass the time. And don’t forget the Amelia who focused on her research, who spent hours poring over her notes and tapping at her laptop. Don’t forget the Amelia Emmets I had killed myself.

Or the Amelia Emmets that I’d never let see the light of day. The one who might have practiced clarinet harder and might still know how to play. The one who could have gotten pregnant that first relationship and be divorced with a twenty-plus-year-old kid by now. The one who stayed near home and took watch over her parents until they died. The one who had no regrets about how she was raised: how little money, how little opportunity. That Amelia might be in her bed now, doing a crossword, listening to Letterman on TV and the dog snore. That Amelia might be wondering what could have happened if only she’d gone to college.

I caught the tiniest movement in my peripheral vision. A car, one of the few vehicles left, was parked across two spots, askew. Someone sat inside, watching.

I hurried toward my car, fumbled with the keys, located the blue light of the emergency phone at the edge of the parking lot, calculated my odds, took another look—

A Jeep. A yellow one.

Inside sat Peter Pan himself.

“Are you kidding?”

McDaniel leaned out his window as I approached. “Nice night, isn’t it, Professor?”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing at all. Enjoying the splendors of a fall evening.”

“Stalking, you mean, or do you hang out on campus hoping for gunfire?” I stood back from the Jeep and took a look. I’d seen a similar vehicle the day before, parked across the street from my apartment. “Have you been following me?”

“I drive around quite a lot for the job, you know.

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