CHAPTER 11
THE HUNT FOR THE KILLER
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She appeared later than expected when Nicholas accosted her near the stairs where the John Harvard statue was situated. She didn't know he was waiting for her and brushed him off as a forbidding stranger with sunglasses on, but when she heard his voice called out her nom de guerre, she had no choice but to acknowledge it in the most incriminating way for her identity's sake. She froze.
Fortunately, her instinct reigned with some sense of control. The adrenaline that burst on her vein propelled her to take action. Other thoughts that weren't quintessential for her survival at the moment flew out of mind as she sprinted away through the path, but a flash of black almost collided with her if she didn't recoil fast enough. Another stranger of a man in a suit with no tie appeared from a hidden enclave somewhere and purposefully impeded her escape.
Her hand caught the pepper spray that she kept in her person at all times, but when she pulled it out and aimed it at the second man, the masculine voice that had called her name from before intercepted her.
"Ms. Caine, please, keep the violence at bay, I just want to talk."
Nicholas didn't need to make an overture for himself when he saw the sense of familiarity to his voice altered her panicked state. She turned to face him fully but retreated a few steps back when he approached her, mindful of her entrapped situation.
"If you just want to talk, Mr. Crane, you wouldn't need to corner a girl like this," she remarked with a reproving tone, narrowing her dark brown eyes that were plagued with distrust at him.
He stood tall with circumspect movement, deliberate and measured in the way he carried himself. He emanated a sense of esoteric grace in his poise for a man so daunting, and he wasn't even the one gifted with prodigious artistic talent among them. Even when she saw him in his most disoriented state a couple days ago in Las Vegas, he still retained his magnetism somehow, an ensnaring hawk that liked to play with its prey and got disenchanted when it died or surrendered their life too soon.
"My apologies, but it's a necessary means because I know you will run," he excused himself even though there was a lack of repentance in his voice. "But don't worry, my man is only a shadow, there's only the two of us here."
She glanced back and forth between the two ominous men, but clearly the biggest threat came from Nicholas who owned the hand that controlled the course of action. "What do you want? I have a class. I need to go."
"I suggest finding a better lie next time, Ms. Caine. I know your last class for the week ended twenty minutes ago and I figured if you've taken the time to pick up some Bourdieu from the library you must have a slow day without a client, so will you care to accompany me for a walk?"
She knew it wasn't much of an option, even if he worded it as though she could exercise her free will. "You've been spying on me."
He shook his head. "Only for this one occasion. I need to know if you have some time to spare. I'm a very considerate person when it comes to people's time and I will appreciate it a lot if they reciprocate the act."
He beckoned with his hand for her to move forward. "After you."
She had no choice but to comply, pulling the gray coat that she had donned herself in closer to her body. She eyed him through her peripheral vision warily. There was a familiar quality of concealed feebleness often found in men like him who tried to hide it with their muscle-bound figure and some piece of unequivocal power that they attained at one corner of earth or two. He had put his hair into a bun and the stray strands of wavy hair that fell on the side of his face seemed to amplify the sense of vulnerability, yet with the austerity of his countenance and expression, no one would dare to mention it.
They threaded through the path where snow had covered the ground lightly. It was frigid but it was nothing she couldn't handle, except for the coldness of the man that walked alongside her.
"I know you've seen a lot of my brother, perhaps even more than me. So what do you know about his presence in South Dakota?" he asked.
She shook her head, if that was what he wanted to hear then she didn't have to lie. "I don't know anything."
"Where does he live there?" he asked again, his eyes didn't meet her, only scanning the surroundings of the desolate campus with a vigilant stare.
"I–I can't say."
He audibly inhaled a deep breath. The crisp air nipped at the nose, threatening to bleed it out. "Nova, we might not know each other very well, but we have one thing in common, that is we'll do anything for our family, even if it's something frowned upon, right? Did your grandparents in Seoul know you've been working as an escort to support them?"
She immediately tensed and almost froze on her tracks. "Fuck you!"
She was about to march away in fury, but a hand sneaked in on her wrist and pulled her back. "I'll scream!"
"I only meant well," he responded as he turned her around to face him. "Tell me where my brother lives in South Dakota and what he is doing there, and I can give you something in return."
She brought her hands up against the sturdy plane of his chest and pushed him away as hard as he could until he removed his hold on her. "Fuck off! I might be an escort but I can't be bought like that!"
He shook his head as if he felt pitiful at the turn of the event. "Then I have no choice but to call up the campus."
"What?"
"I'll be considerate and spare your conservative grandparents the heartbreak. So I'll call the campus administrators and tell them to drop you instead."
Her eyes widened and her index finger pointed menacingly at him. "You can't do that!"
He shrugged almost nonchalantly. "I'm one of the biggest donors of this university. I most likely can."
Her mouth went dry just as any words of retaliation were lost to her. She stood there in shock, her brain scampering to process the dire turn of events.
"Ms. Caine?" he called out her name. There was actually an authentic concern laced on his tone and it was such an oxymoron to the threat he aimed at her welfare that it immediately snapped her up.
"You asshole!" she cussed him, but the inherent disposition made her defeatedly realize that there really was nothing more she could do. "You think you are so tough just because you own some fucking money, huh?"
"Sure, whatever you want to think of me, but I prefer to call myself a businessman." He stepped forward. The height difference between them became even more prominent and it raised up her arms. "You just need to tell me what I want to hear, Nova."
She whipped away from the intensity of his eyes and bit her lips in frustration. "I can't, okay? We have a contract to adhere to. I have to protect his identity. I don't want to get sued."
He contemplated it for a second before shaking his head. "Too bad that I don't care."
"If you are such a resourceful man, why don't you just track him down on your own or something!" she shouted in desperation, unable to reign in her composure.
"I'm a law-abiding citizen. I prefer to exhaust all my lawful means first," he responded matter-of-fact.
She snorted scornfully. "Right, of course you are. Threatening my welfare is lawful now, huh?"
Nicholas sighed, visibly cracking under the stony surface. "Look, Nova, it's so simple. I know you're the only one who can get close to him, so tell me what you know about him."
"I told you I can't tell you where he is! I also don't know what he's doing there, okay?"
He studied her face for a split second. "Then you'll figure it out for me. You have two weeks."
"W–wait! I can't just come to him anytime! He will suspect it!"
"Then you'll find a way. Good luck." He turned around and looked over his shoulder when she tried to reach out to stop him, but she didn't make it as he walked away briskly.
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"Does anyone of your family members have anemia?" Dr. Singh asked, her voice came a little muffled, interspersed in between the unstable signal. The video of her through the screen of the laptop halted multiple times and he glanced out of the window to his office to find the wind grew even more vicious. A storm was coming and he needed to get ready.
"No, pretty sure Nico and Vic don't," he said until he remembered a detail. "But Nicholas has this migraine attack sometimes when he's stressed out."
"I think it's plain, doc, that she's singing about the murder," he resigned to his assumption. "Victor said when he found her she was... bathed in blood and she was drinking those... blood while eating the pizza that the boy Carson brought."
"Is that what really happened?"
Cameron shook his head as a bad taste surfaced on his tongue. "Obviously she was drenched from head to toe with blood, and reports said she actually finished that pizza, but not the drinking part. It was just a distorted imagination of a seven year old who was severely traumatized."
"You refused to have her framed as some sort of a cold-blooded monster?" the question came out clear and jarring.
He inhaled a deep breath. "No, she still killed two innocent people in the most horrific way. Some people have the right to call her that, but the facts must be set straight. Whatever she didn't do, she didn't do."
Dr. Singh contemplated his words for a quiet second before nodding off after finding some kind of clarity. "Alright, we can arrange for you to meet again on Thursday when I return from DC. I have some business to attend here. My apologies that we can't meet directly today."
He wanted to ask her just when would it be clear that Clementine could come home with him, but he didn't want to sound impatient, even though his frustration had climbed up now that it seemed he had done everything that was demanded off him yet he still didn't receive the feedback that he desired from it.
"So what's the meaning of that lyrics?" he inquired instead.
"Like you say, something that just came to her about the murder. A lamentation, if you must. Sometimes it doesn't always have to mean something more, but we have to be grateful that it brought the two of you together somehow." Dr. Singh concluded with a positive note that drew Cameron to concede in agreement.
They bid their farewell after a little while and he turned off his laptop with a sigh as he reclined on his seat. He glanced down at Clementine's hospital document where he had added blank pages to write down his dissection of the song and the curious case of the lyrics that haunted him. He could only rely on his perspective as a musician so the papers were littered with musical notes but it, too, went to no avail. He turned the pages and found the small picture of her at the front and his chest grew heavy.
He couldn't do this right now. He needed some distraction, perhaps a bourbon with a cigarette or two.
He closed the document and put it on the drawer of his desk. He got up to the sound of his phone chiming with a text message. It was from the one number that he didn't save, but often correspond with when he required something that only a select few of people he would trust to give him.
NC
When will I see you again?
It wasn't often that Nova would initiate to reach out to him first. It was all a strict business of pleasure anyway so him as the customer would aptly be the one to ring in.
They had been seeing each other for nearly two years now whenever he wasn't with other women. He found her perfect for him in the department not only because of a superficial factor like her beauty, but also because he liked her clever eyes and incisive wits. Most importantly though, he liked her ability to grasp things without having to inquire or speak about it. She just understood how he was, never a desire to settle down, bare of commitment, preferred a flippant and meaningless form of sexual love.
He wondered if she would laugh on his face if he knew about his ordeal regarding his sister. A complete turnabout of everything she ever knew of him now that he actually cared for someone.
Right, he could use her distraction.
On Friday.
I'll send you a ticket.
A reply immediately ensued after he sent the message.
NC
Can't wait ♡
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"The misery and greatness of this world: it offers truths, but only objects for love.
Absurdity is king, but love saves us from it."
- Albert Camus