Chapter 37 - the dark campus
I didn't call the police. Not yet.
In seven years, I had learned that institutional bureaucracy moved at the speed of molasses while predators moved in seconds. If I called campus safety, Henderson would file a preliminary inquiry, forward it to the dean's office, and Evelyn Cross would be notified before a single officer knocked on her door.
"Stay here with our son," I told Claire, grabbing my coat. "Lock the deadbolt. Put the chain across. Do not open that door for anyone except Officer Davis."
"David, don't go alone," she pleaded, grabbing my wrist. "Take Davis with you."
"Davis is two counties away. I’m already ninety minutes out if I push eighty on the interstate. Call him. Tell him what we found on Exhibit 44. Have him send state troopers to Brewster Hall."
I sprinted to my truck.
The highway was empty, bathed in the sickly yellow glow of overhead sodium lamps. My headlights cut through patches of thick ground fog rising from the drainage ditches. Every mile felt like an eternity.
I called Lily's cell. It rang four times, then went straight to voicemail.
*Hi, you’ve reached Lily. Leave a message!*
I called again. Straight to voicemail.
I dialed her roommate’s number, which Lily had scribbled on a piece of cardboard on the fridge before leaving home.
It rang six times. Finally, a groggy voice answered. "Hello?"
"Chloe? This is David, Lily’s dad. Is Lily in the room?"
"Um... no, Mr. Vance," the girl murmured, the rustle of bedsheets audible over the line. "Dean Cross came up about twenty minutes ago. She said Lily needed to sign the final paperwork for the fourth-floor transfer down at the housing annex."
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"At one in the morning?" I yelled, my tires screeching as I swerved around a semi-truck.
"She said... she said the system resets at midnight and if they didn't log it now, Lily would lose the room."
