"Miss Baldwin, over here please," urged the man standing in the center of her disheveled office. "Detective Chip Johnson with the Metropolitan Police Department, Robbery Homicide division."
Taking a few steps forward, Reine shook his outstretched hand.
Gabe was no more than two paces behind her the entire time, and he addressed the detective first. "Gabriel Moran. What happened here?"
"That's what I'm here to find out. Now if you'd excuse us, Mr. Moran. I have a few questions that I'd like to ask Miss Baldwin." The detective glared authoritatively.
With a small nod, Gabe moved back into the hallway to join the campus security officer already standing there. He stayed close enough to still see – and hear – everything that was happening inside.
"Now, Miss Baldwin, if I may," the detective began, redirecting her focus to the task at hand. "When did you leave your office today?"
"A couple of minutes before six," she answered.
His eyes widened. "That's very specific."
"Yes, well I teach a class upstairs starting at six, and I usually get there fifteen minutes early to set up." She tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. "But today I was running late."
He jotted her answer down in a small notebook. "Was anyone else still around the department at that time?"
"I'm not sure. I was in such a rush to get out," she said, rubbing her temple while trying to recall the events of that evening. "I don't think so."
"And what time did you leave the building?" he asked.
"Nine sharp."
Her response was so quick that the detective glanced up from the notebook and met her eyes. As if putting two and two together, he turned his head slightly to look at Gabe.
Still in the hallway, he seemed preoccupied with his cell phone.
Detective Johnson scribbled something in his notebook again before continuing. "Officer Holmes found the door ajar on his usual rounds about an hour ago. Can you please take a look around, and let me know if you think something is missing?" Johnson stepped aside to let her move freely.
She didn't need to walk around to tell if anything had been taken. The office was small enough for Reine to scan its entire contents easily from a single point. Even in its current, disheveled state.
One wall was lined with bookshelves; however, most of the volumes were strewn onto the floor. Her desk still contained a monitor and laptop docking station, but because the actual computer was always in her possession, that was luckily not available to the burglar.
"While you're looking around," Detective Johnson interrupted. "Could you tell me if anything unusual has happened to you lately? Any suspicious people or activities that have caught your eye? Any friends acting strangely? Or perhaps someone new has come into your life recently that we should check out?"
Reine glanced into the hallway again. Gabe now looked back at her.
She didn't want to tell the detective she had only met him three days earlier. She wanted to find the connection, if there was any at all, on her own. Involving the police at this point would just lead to more unnecessary intrusions into her life. However, her actions had given her away to the keen-eyed detective.
"How long have you known Mr. . . . uhm, Moran?" He checked his notebook to make sure he had gotten the name right.
"We met on Friday," she said.
"This past Friday?" he repeated, writing the information down. "But he was with you this evening?"
She cleared her throat. "Yes, since about 9:40."
As soon as she said it, Reine realized his lateness could have given Gabe just enough time to ransack her office before driving out to Montgomery Prep. Although she didn't want to entertain any such speculation at the moment, she had to consider it was possible. She pretended to look around while she recalled what happened a previous time she got too comfortable in her environment.
Even when she first lost her memories, Reine instinctively knew she couldn't go home. There was something different about her. A strict religious upbringing had instilled a fear of witchcraft that hung over her, and she needed to find out what happened to her before trying to locate her family.
Either she was local to Venice, or she was there with a chaperone. Surely someone must have been looking for her. Either way, she had to run, and for five days, that's exactly what she did, slowly making her way north toward the mountains.
The secluded convent nestled in a quiet valley was the perfect place to find refuge. The sisters allowed her to stay out of the charity stemming from their vows, but she wasn't welcomed with open arms. She had come to them sick and weak, without an endowment or the usual dowry brought by a new resident. She also made it clear from the start she meant to remain indefinitely, but only as a lay member of the community. This didn't help to endear her to the others.
Nevertheless, after eventually regaining her strength she managed to find an inner peace there. She would have stayed much longer than two years, had it not been for another terrible accident.
It was an unusually cold autumn. One evening, it was her turn to load the stoves that provided what little warmth they could to make the drafty nunnery bearable. She made her rounds, putting the logs she collected earlier in the day on the burning embers before retiring to her small windowless room for the night.
She must have knocked one of the stovepipes loose. By morning, the whole residential wing of the building was filled with an acrid, black smoke. Running from room to room, all Reine found was death.
Every one of the sisters had slowly suffocated in her sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning. She was the only one who survived as her body continuously healed itself while she slept, sparing her from the others' fate.
While all she wanted to do was weep, she had to leave before anyone discovered the gruesome scene. The adjacent chapel had its own priest, and deliverymen, as well as pious visitors would soon start knocking on the doors.
She gathered her few earthly belongings and left, not shedding a tear until she was miles away from the first home she could remember.
"So, is anything missing?" The detective's question brought her back from reminiscing.
She shook her head. "No. Everything's here."
"All right then. Thank you, Miss Baldwin. If you do think of anything else later, here's my number. Please call me, no matter how trivial you think some additional detail may be. Mr. Moran, you can have your turn now."
"Thank you, detective." She wasn't planning on using it, but she took the business card anyway. The situation was mostly likely much bigger than a random break-in, and she doubted she'd share information with the police.
Reine stepped into the narrow hallway to rejoin Gabe. In the unlikely chance he would try to pursue her further, she would refuse.
In this situation, it was a no-brainer.
Besides being suspicious about his intentions, she couldn't break the most important rule she had set for herself regarding men: no third dates. The others – never taking anyone to her own home and not spending the entire night at the guy's place – didn't come in to play as often because of this crucial two-date maximum. Since instituting these limits, her life in the past few years had finally been simple and predictable.
All of that was turned upside down the moment she first saw her current companion in the hotel lobby. While technically she still didn't consider them dates, they had already seen each other twice. What she had to now do should have been easy. After everything that had happened in the last two hours, no guy in their right mind would want another chance anyway.
"Hey, listen." He briefly touched her arm. "Could I see you again? Tonight didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped."
Reine wrinkled her brows. Apparently Gabe wasn't like other guys.
Looking straight into his eyes, she tried to sound as resolute as possible. "I don't think that would be a good idea."
"Oh. All right then." He scratched his nose. "Uhm, that's cool. It was great meeting you and all the best in the future." He moved aside, and she had no choice but to pass.
"Good-bye, Gabe," Reine replied before heading for the stairs. It had been a long and exhausting day, and she wanted to be done with it as soon as possible.