What Harms You by Lisa Black

Author:Lisa Black [Black, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Rachael, meanwhile, head aflutter with confusing and dark thoughts, checked in with the director. She’d known him for several years and knew he would be nearing the point of apoplexy. Maybe he’d ask his wife to come out and help; she hoped so—Rachael believed that if Anita Coleman could get opposing leaders from any conflict in the world to sit down in a room with her, then that war would be over within fifteen minutes or less.

Instead, Carrie had done what she could, and the FBI had brought both an interpreter and someone from the State Department to deal with the Saudis, so Gerald only had to pace the length of his office and think up dire predictions for the future of the Locard.

“What are they doing? Are they done out there? Is she gone?” he demanded as soon as she appeared in his doorway. His medium-dark skin had the flush of elevated blood pressure—he should leave off caffeine for the remainder of the day.

“Working on it, no, and yes.” Rachael had no idea how to tell him there might be some connection between the deaths of Barbara Wright and Farida Al Talel. “How are you doing?”

“Trying to think of ways to brush up my résumé. Which is pointless, since no one would look at it, anyway. No one is going to consider hiring the forensic director who had a foreign national mysteriously murdered on his own damn doorstep!”

“Gerald,” Rachael said in the most soothing tone she could muster. “The situation isn’t as bad as all that.”

“It’s exactly as bad as all that.” He stopped pacing, but only to rest his hips against his desk and rub his face with one hand. “Who’s going to come here after . . . this?”

“Are you kidding? These are crime scene people. They’ll be flocking here just to—”

“Not the students! I don’t care about . . . This place doesn’t exist on the students. We subsidize the training. The Locard truly functions on the private clients and the research grants—and you know how fickle they can be.”

Rachael agreed, with reluctance. All the events of the day caught up with her in one moment, and she sat on the counter along the windows—a cozy spot during cold weeks, with the radiator humming below it. Today it didn’t warm her. The private clients, the ones with deep pockets and delicate problems and an abhorrence of publicity in all forms, would not find a campus murder titillating. She tried to think of something comforting to say and came up short. Gerald was right. They could all be out of their jobs soon, and the Locard—this amazing, beautiful experiment—could be abandoned to decay alone in the forest.

She refused to voice these thoughts. “What should we do about the current classes? Should we cancel tomorrow, mail them their certificates? It’s only one day of instruction—well, day and a half, since this afternoon was lost as well . . . I don’t think anyone will ask for a refund.

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