“Something like that. Good morning, Dean.”
Diane looked at the wall clock. “Good lord, Dean. I didn’t think you ever woke up before ten.”
“Aaah, I had some work to take care of here in my office.” He spread his arms wide in a flamboyant gesture. “I guess it was fate, huh?”
Kendra smiled. “I’m not a big believer in fate.”
“Okay, then. I’ll settle for a happy accident. In any case, it’s nice to see you.” He looked from her to Diane. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Just my mother’s stubbornness.”
“Nothing will ever get in the way of that.”
Kendra flipped back the cover of Lynch’s tablet computer and raised it to chest level.
“Are you trying to take my picture?” Diane asked.
“No, I have some photos to show you.”
“Please, no more Maui vacation photos.”
“This isn’t Maui.” A dismembered corpse appeared on the screen.
“Whoa!” Her mother recoiled and raised her hands. “You could have warned me.”
“No one warned this woman before she was hacked to death two weeks ago.” Kendra swiped her finger across the tablet, and the screen lit up with another bloody corpse, this one almost decapitated by a long strand of piano wire.
“Kendra!”
Dean looked as if he were going to be sick.
Another finger swipe, and they were looking at the corpse with a Latin phrase carved on his chest.
Her mother frowned. “Kendra, please.”
Dean finally turned away. “More dead bodies … Is this becoming our thing? Because if you think I’m into that, you’ve been seriously misinformed.”
Kendra moved the tablet closer to her mother’s face. “Look. This is the kind of diseased mind I’m dealing with. And just a few hours ago, he killed the mother of one of my clients. That’s why I’ve arranged a security detail for you and Olivia.” She said urgently, “Olivia is blind. She’s smart and strong, but she needs you to care for her. The way you cared for me all those years. Help me, Mom.”
Her mother was silent for a long moment. “When would you want me to leave?”
“Now. Olivia is waiting in Lynch’s car outside.”
“Impossible. I have a class in twenty minutes.”
“I can stick around, answer any questions and give them their reading assignments for next time,” Dean said.
“I couldn’t ask you to—”
“You didn’t ask.” Dean shrugged. “I offered.”
Kendra nodded. “See? And I know for a fact your teaching assistants are chomping at the bit for some lecture experience.”
“Of course they are. That doesn’t mean they can do it. I’m too exceptional to replace.”
“You wouldn’t tolerate a T.A. who was anything less than brilliant. You know they can do it. Perhaps not as well, but adequately.”
“Where do you propose we go?”
“Nowhere you’ll be expected. I prefer it would be someplace you’ve never been. Where do you suggest?”
Diane thought about it. “Maybe Mount Laguna. Remember I told you about another professor who offered me her weekend house in Mount Laguna anytime I wanted to use it?”
“Vaguely. There’s no guarantee it’s free right now, though.”
“On a Tuesday? Odds are pretty good. I’ll call and ask her.” She frowned. “But I don’t have her number with me.”
“I do,” Dean said. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contact list. “You’re talking about Dr. Richmond, right? I spent a weekend down at her place when I first came here. It was a sort of welcome to the academy family.”
Diane nodded.
After a few seconds, Dean looked up. “I just e-mailed you her home, office, and mobile numbers.” He grinned. “Now get out of here. I have to have a little time to recover my composure after that deluge of sickening photos Kendra threw at us. I have a class coming here in twenty minutes.”
Mount Laguna, California
11:37 A.M.
“BEAUTIFUL PLACE,” Lynch said as he pulled in behind Diane’s and Agent Nelson’s cars in front of the rustic two-story house on a hill overlooking the Cleveland National Forest. “I wouldn’t mind spending a few days here.”
“Neither would I. It’s supposed to be a vacation house deluxe, with balconies and an entire finished rec room in the basement.” Kendra got out of the Ferrari. “But I guarantee Mom and Olivia aren’t going to feel that way. I’m glad that Agent Nelson is here to report back if there’s an insurrection, and one of them takes off.”