Death Before Decaf (13 page)

I knew from experience that it only took thirteen minutes to walk from Java Jive to the library at Vanderbilt, but I decided to leave a little early to make sure I didn't miss Paolina. Besides, getting a little autumn sun would probably do me some good. These days, I didn't get outside much while the sun was still out.

Taking off my apron, I said to the baristas, “Guys, I'm going to be gone for about an hour. I tracked down the owner of the credit card from yesterday, and I'm running over to Vandy to meet her. I'll be back before the dinner rush.”

“Cool. Whatever,” was Cole's answer.

Brianna looked uneasily at the line of customers waiting and bit her lip. Jamie went to the kitchen window and yelled for Shane to come out and help them. My night shift baristas couldn't have been any more different if they tried, but somehow they made a pretty good team. Working out front with them was a lot easier than working with Camille and Rhonda in the mornings.

Grabbing Paolina's credit card from the safe, I set out for the Vanderbilt campus. It was beautiful, but I always felt there was something more charming about the Belmont campus, probably because of the size. A person could easily get lost at Vandy and never find the way out, but I remembered my old route to the library like I had been there yesterday. I found a spot to sit on the short stone wall facing the library and waited for Paolina. I had my Java Jive T-shirt on, so she could easily find me.

What I didn't count on was someone else finding me first.

“Juliet! Hey, Juliet!”

I turned to see Seth waving at me from across the library lawn. Aw, hell. Really? Of all the people to run into, it had to be him? I still hadn't had time to sit down and think about whether I wanted to continue our relationship, such as it was. Not knowing what else to do, I waved back. He started walking my way. Great. Maybe we could have another awkward conversation, like last night. Or maybe, thanks to Gertie, I'd be thinking about his penis.
Why
did she have to say those things?

Smiling, he asked, “Are you following me?”

No, I thought I was doing a pretty good job of avoiding him. “No, I'm here to meet someone.”

He sat down next to me, very close. “Not another guy, I hope.” He was totally flirting with me. And I was totally thinking about his penis. Damn you, Gertie!

“No, I'm here on official Java Jive business. I'm returning a lost credit card.”

“To a college student? I'm not surprised. These kids don't take care of their stuff. They all lose their phones and their money and their backpacks on a regular basis. They aren't as responsible as we were at their age.” He winked at me.

I chuckled. “I don't know about you, but I was their age not so long ago.”

“Do I look old? I'm only thirty-four.”

“You, sir, are a dinosaur.”

Laughing, he took my hand.

It was difficult to concentrate with him smiling at me
and
touching me, but I needed to bring up my suspicions one more time. “Seth, you never got a chance to tell me what classes you—”

“Excuse me, are you Juliet from Java Jive?”

Son of a bitch. I was so close. I looked up to see a beautiful girl, who most certainly looked like a Paolina Ghirlandi. She might as well have been an Italian model.

“Yes, I am. Are you Paolina?”

“Yes.”

Turning to Seth, I said, “I'll see you later, okay?”

“You bet.” He squeezed my hand and ambled back in the direction he had come.

“He is handsome, no?”

“He is.” Aha! A Vandy student might know whether Seth was a real professor or not. Duh. I was around Vandy students all the time, and I never thought to ask one of them. “Do you know him? He's a professor here.”

“I see him around sometimes.” That was a decent confirmation, but not proof. “Did you bring my card with you?”

“Do you mind showing me your ID just so I know I have the right person?”

“Here it is,” she said. Her Vandy student ID photo matched her face, and the names were the same. Good enough for me.

“Here's your card.” I handed it to her.

She examined the card and took another one out of her purse to compare them. “They are different numbers. I know I only have the one Visa card, because I just got it when I moved here this semester. How could this be?”

I shrugged. I didn't have a clue. “I'm sorry. I can't imagine how it could have happened, and why this other card would end up in my coffeehouse.”

“I'll contact my card company and ask them. I appreciate your help, Juliet.
Grazie
.”

I stood up. “You're welcome.”

I thought I'd feel some kind of relief after I gave Paolina back her card, but nothing had actually been resolved. What was up with the extra credit card that Paolina had no knowledge of? And more importantly, who left the card in the pastry case? It couldn't have been a customer, because the area behind the counter was blocked off. It had to be one of my employees. I hated to bother Pete with the situation, but I needed someone to talk to about it. Sighing, I headed toward Java Jive.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Howdy, neighbor!”

Turning around, I found my apartment neighbor, Trevor. “Hey, Trevor. Funny meeting you here.”

“It is. Taking a break from work?”

“Oh, I had to return a lost credit card to a student.”

He nodded. “Cool. I'll let you get back to it. Gotta get to class.”

“Wait, Trevor. I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you know a professor here named Seth Davis? He's in the film studies—”

Trevor turned red and started shaking. “Oh, I know Seth Davis all right, the bastard.” That didn't sound good. “He's the one who…who…” He looked away.

“Did he do something to you?”

His eyes anguished, he said, “He stole Christina from me.”

I groaned inwardly. “Bastard!”

“I know, right?” He laughed mirthlessly. “But he got what was coming to him. I made sure of that.”

“And?”

Trevor lowered his voice. “I'm not supposed to talk about it, because the school wants to keep it quiet.”

“Keep what quiet?” I needed to know this information.

“Well, you have to promise not to tell
anyone
.”

“I promise.”

“I caught Davis and Christina together in his office. Doing it.”

“Ouch.” My gut was right. There
was
something wrong with Seth. Screwing coeds was a major personality flaw.

“Yeah. It was a week before the semester began, and Davis had just been hired. I went to the dean and threatened to go public with it, so they canned him immediately, shuffling the other professors around to cover his classes. They made it look like he was never here.” No wonder he didn't show up on Vanderbilt's website. Mystery solved. Except…

“So why is he still here?”

“What do you mean?”

“I just talked to him a few minutes ago. He's still hanging around campus.”

“No, he moved back to Washington. I watched him pack up his apartment.”

What? My mind was reeling. I looked past Trevor and saw Seth talking to a couple of students not far from where I found him on the library lawn. “Come with me.” Dragging Trevor along, I found a place behind a tree to hide while we spied on Seth.

“I'm going to be late for class.”

“This will only take a second. Look over there.” I pointed to Seth. “See that tall guy in the blue T-shirt? The one with dark hair and lots of muscles.”

“Yeah, so?”

“That's Seth Davis.”

“No, it's not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It's not the Seth Davis I know.”

My mouth dropped open in shock. “That guy told me he was Seth Davis, film studies professor at Vanderbilt University.”

“I think you got punked.”

“Why in the hell would someone impersonate a professor, especially one who had been fired?”

Trevor shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe to get some college-chick ass. Now I really have to get to class. Later.”

I stood there, stunned. How could Seth, if that was his real name, be so charming and totally dateable one moment, and then turn around and be a sleazy impostor trying to nail college girls the next? Too miffed and befuddled to come up with a good plan for busting him, I decided to observe him for a while. He was talking to a couple of girls, laughing and gesturing with his hands. They were giggling and flipping their hair, like girls do. The thought of him trolling for girls on a college campus made me ill. What if it wasn't just about hooking up with a few teenagers? What if he was a serial killer or something, and this was how he found his prey?

Uh-oh, he was on the move. I slyly tracked him across the lawn, making sure to keep a safe distance between us. The sidewalks in that part of campus were especially tree-lined, so it wasn't difficult to keep myself out of sight, even though he never looked back. He cut between a few buildings, and we ended up on Sorority Row. Shocker. What a douche. He strutted down that street like he owned the place, nodding and waving to every girl he saw.

After that, he left campus and went across West End to Office Depot. I figured he couldn't do too many dastardly things in an Office Depot, so I decided to wait a little ways down the strip mall, outside FedEx. I didn't know if I felt uneasy because I was following someone and had to be covert, or if something else was amiss. Maybe it was nothing, but I was on my guard just in case. The October sun was hot, and I was getting uncomfortably sweaty, but I soldiered on. I was determined to find out why Seth had lied to me about who he was. My previous “detective” work had been interesting, but tailing someone was majorly boring. I wished he would do something that would definitively show me that he was a villainous impostor or psychopath, mostly so that I could go the hell back to work. Seth was in Office Depot
forever,
and finally emerged with one measly bag.

Heading back the way we came, I followed him again at a distance. He still didn't ever look back, but for some odd reason I kept feeling the overwhelming urge to look over
my
shoulder. I did so a few times on our trek across campus, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Seth passed the library and headed across 21st Avenue. Why in the hell would he have wound all over campus instead of just taking West End to 21st? Oh, right. Because there were a lot fewer college girls to flirt with on that route.

For an even less interesting stop, he then went into the CVS Pharmacy. I wouldn't find out much about him if all he was going to do all afternoon was run some lame errands. Didn't impostors and serial killers have evil errands to run? I also had to use the restroom badly, so I decided to risk losing him and go at CVS. I made a beeline for the back of the store and quickly did my business, then hurried back outside. There wasn't much cover for me on this side of the street, so I cut across the traffic and hid under the service portico attached to the back of the library. He would never see me over here. I was getting good at this spying thing.

At least I thought I was, until a voice said, “Fancy meeting you here.”

I froze. Shit. I was so busted. I turned, my heart stopping when I saw Johnny Brewer walking toward me. How in the hell did he find me? And why?

Backing away from him, I said, “Do I know you?” I desperately hoped he wouldn't recognize me without my slut costume.

He grinned menacingly. “Oh, yeah, honey. You know me real good.” Johnny had crazy eyes. I hadn't noticed before. Ol' Ricky the bartender was right—I had messed with the wrong guy.

Continuing to back away, I said shakily, “You must have me confused with someone else.”

“You look different than you did last night, but I'd never forget those pretty green eyes of yours.”

I had to get away from him, so I took off at a sprint. Johnny was fast, though. Way faster than I was. He grabbed me from behind before I could step out into the street.

Whispering in my ear, he said, “You're coming with me.”

What kind of maniac would abduct a woman in broad daylight? I tried all of the tricks I could think of to get away—stomping on his feet, elbowing him in the gut, throwing my head back against him—but nothing worked. I was as vulnerable as I had been last night. He had an iron grip on my upper arms, so I couldn't wind up enough to land a solid punch. In my panic, the only other thing I could think of to defend myself was to go limp and force him to carry me. I bent my knees and let my legs go slack, but that didn't seem to faze him. He half carried, half dragged me along, toward a rusty old pickup truck. If I didn't get away before we got there…

Flashes of what he did to me last night invaded my mind again, and the grip of panic seized my chest. There would be no Pete to save me this time. I screamed. There were no pedestrians around to hear me, just people whizzing noisily by in their cars. If only I could get out into the street. I'd rather be run over than be subjected to whatever Johnny had in mind for me. I screamed again, as he continued mercilessly to pull me along with him.

Suddenly, it felt like Johnny's hands were being ripped off my arms. I spun around to find that Seth had Johnny in a headlock. I was never so happy to see Seth in my life. I'd happily trade one psycho for another.

“What the hell do you think you're doing with my lady, punk?” Seth bellowed at Johnny. Once he was done saving me, I needed to make sure he understood that I was
not
his lady. Johnny struggled against him, but Seth easily had three inches and thirty pounds of muscle on Johnny.

“Let go of me, asshole!”

“Where were you taking her, huh?”

Johnny stopped struggling for a moment to leer ominously at me. “Just someplace quiet where we could talk.” I shivered involuntarily. Both of these guys were creeping me out.