Freak (20 page)

“Shit, man.” Jerry shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”

“Me, too.” Morris stabbed at another
siu mai
and chewed without enthusiasm. “Her career’s everything to her. If she loses her job, I don’t know what she’ll do.”

“She’ll land on her feet. She’s strong.”

“Tell
her
that. I’ve never seen her so down.” Morris leaned back in his chair. “You know, what I don’t get is why Maddox would blab it to the world. Sheila said she didn’t even think Maddox knew about her sex addiction.”

“Because she’s a game-player, Morris.” Jerry met his friend’s distraught gaze with a steady one of his own. “She likes to play games. You remember the postcards she sent Sheila.”

Morris nodded. The year before, when Maddox was on the run, Sheila had received four postcards in a two-week span, all of them from Maddox, all of them taunting her and threatening her safety.

“She likes to mess with Sheila, but I don’t think she’ll ever hurt her,” Jerry said. “Maddox is a lot of things, but the one thing she isn’t is stupid. She knows if anything ever happens to Sheila, she’d be the prime suspect. Besides, she has eight years more on her sentence.”

“She could be out in three with good behavior.”

“Yeah, but still, three years can change a person.” Jerry didn’t really believe this last part, but he knew it was what his friend needed to hear. In his experience, once a psycho, always
a psycho. But telling Morris what he really thought—especially since there was nothing he could do to change it—would not be helpful at all.

The big guy finally nodded. Jerry nodded back. Both men reached for the last
char siu bao
, a white, doughy dumpling filled with steamed pork.

“You take it.” Jerry pushed the bamboo container toward his friend.

“Damned right, I will,” Morris said, but he split it in half, making a point to place the slightly smaller bit on Jerry’s plate. The dough had cooled a little, but the sweet-and-sour barbecued meat inside was still warm and gooey.

A moment later, Morris cleared his throat. “So have you talked to Marianne lately?” His deep voice was carefully nonchalant.

“You know I haven’t.”

“You should call her.”

“Annie’s the one who left.” Jerry stiffened. “She’s made her decision.”

“Yeah, but you’re still married,” Morris said.

“A technicality I’m sure she’ll remedy soon.” Jerry knew he sounded bitter and hated himself for it. “I’m expecting the divorce papers any day now.”

“That’s what you want?”

“No,” Jerry said tightly. “Of course not. If I thought I could fix it somehow, if I thought I could apologize enough, I would. But we’ve been separated for six months. And now she’s moved on.”

Morris stopped eating. “What do you mean?”

“Annie’s seeing someone. It looks serious.”

“Who?”

“George Jackson,” Jerry said.

Morris’s face was blank.

“You know the basketball coach of the PSSU Steelheads?”

“
That
guy?” Morris almost choked. His eyes were as round as dinner plates. “You’re kidding me. That guy’s the losingest coach in the Pacific Northwest! He’s an embarrassment! That’s . . . oh wow, man. That’s awful.”

Despite his misery, Jerry chuckled. He should have known that Morris, of all people, would understand. It was bad enough his ex-wife was dating someone. But
that
guy? It was nice that someone else got just how humiliating it really was. “Unfortunately I don’t think the Steelheads’ win-loss record matters to Annie.”

“I’m sure it’s not serious. He’s way too young for her.”

Jerry winced.

“Sorry.” Morris grimaced, looking like he wanted to kick himself. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

Jerry didn’t respond. He’d said all he wanted to say about the matter.

His cell phone rang as he was chomping down the last bit of
char siu bao
. Pulling the phone out of his breast pocket, Jerry checked the screen and saw that it was Torrance. “Sorry, man, I gotta take this.” He turned away from the table and answered.

“Where are you?” The detective’s voice was gruff in Jerry’s ear. “I can barely hear you.”

Jerry glanced at Morris, who was checking out the next dim sum cart and pointing at the things he recognized. “Having lunch. What’s up?”

“We found a hair, and it’s not the vic’s. Want to meet me at the morgue?”

And just like that, Jerry’s appetite was gone. “Sure. I’m on my way.”

“You’re bailing on me?” Morris said when Jerry disconnected
the call. “But I just got a bunch more stuff. You have to tell me what’s edible and what’s not.”

“It’s all edible,” Jerry said. “Everything you picked is good.” He reached for his wallet.

“Nah, I got this.” Morris waved him off. “Go on. Save the world.”

Sticking his wallet back in his pocket, Jerry clapped Morris on the back. He was relieved that he and the big guy were okay. Their friendship was important to him, even more so since Annie had left.

“Man, I’d be satisfied with just saving a life,” Jerry said. “Thanks for lunch.”

IF THE EXECUTIVE
vice president’s boardroom was designed to be intimidating, it was working. Sheila had never felt so small.

She’d had to cancel her late afternoon class to be at this meeting, and the three faces seated across from her now at the long mahogany table were infinitely scarier than the three hundred faces that would have attended her lecture.

There was the vice provost of undergraduate education (who, though married, had drunkenly hit on Sheila at a Christmas party three years earlier), the young director of human resources, whom Sheila had met with twice after she’d returned to the university following her stay in rehab the year before, and an older woman Sheila knew was high up in the chain of command, but whose specific title she couldn’t remember.

Sheila’s immediate supervisor, Dean Simmons, was seated quietly beside her, and this made her even more nervous. Normally a smiling, cheerful man, the dean hadn’t said anything to anyone once he’d entered the boardroom. He’d brought with him a thick red folder, which he’d placed on the table between them. Sheila had no idea what could be inside, and she was afraid to find out.

The preliminary discussions were over, and all she could do now was sit and listen to what they had to say. Her back ached from the tension, which was so thick in the room it was hard to breathe.

“In light of everything that happened last year with you and Ethan Wolfe, we think it’s best if you leave the university.” Louise Jardin, the woman whose job title Sheila couldn’t remember, was speaking, her thin red lips pursed in disapproval. “PSSU never really recovered from your incident last year, and now, with news of your . . . sex addiction . . .” She said the words with such distaste, Sheila wondered if the old lady would choke on them. Jardin didn’t finish her sentence.

“My incident?” Sheila repeated. “Recovered?” She sat up straighter, trying hard to keep her tone professional and even. “I’m sorry, but what kind of recovery was needed for the
university
? I was the one who was kidnapped, if you recall. I was held captive for three weeks by a man who turned out to be a serial killer.”

“Yes, but he was your student,” James Schneider, the vice provost, said. His raspy voice reminded Sheila of Jerry, though that was the only similarity. His steely eyes were fixed on her face. “You had an affair with your student, Dr. Tao. That’s not something the board can overlook.”

“With all due respect, sir, you overlook it all the time.” Sheila gripped the arms of her chair, needing the support, though she continued to speak politely and firmly. “I can think of four professors who’ve been involved with their students, and they’ve all received nothing more than slaps on the wrists. I think it’s wholly unfair that you would single me out for making what I fully admit was an error in judgment, and there’s no precedent for firing a professor because of a romantic involvement with a student.”

The board members exchanged looks. “Dr. Tao—” Jardin began.

“Please allow me to finish,” Sheila said. “Ethan Wolfe was my student at one point, yes. He took two classes with me as an undergrad. But at the time we got involved, he was no longer being taught by me. I was his thesis adviser, but he was not technically my student. He was a teaching assistant in my class, whom I supervised. He was twenty-three years old—of legal age—and a fellow employee of the university.”

“Dr. Tao is right,” Lara Duncan, the woman from human resources, said. “What they did, however inappropriate, isn’t technically against university regulations.”

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret the relationship I had with Ethan Wolfe.” Sheila softened her tone, though it remained professional. “It was a mistake. But you must know I paid for it. I almost died because of it. I don’t believe I deserve to lose my job over it.”

Louise Jardin leaned over, whispering something in James Schneider’s ear. Schneider nodded, then whispered something to Lara Duncan. The exchange went on for a few minutes as Sheila waited in agony. Finally, Jardin straightened up and faced forward.

“Dr. Tao, we don’t disagree that there isn’t a precedent for firing a tenured professor due to inappropriate conduct with a student,” Jardin said. “You’re right, it’s never been done before. But the issue here today is that your face and name are all over the media. It was one thing last year when you were a victim of a serial killer, but now you’re being perceived very negatively by the public. Your affair with Ethan Wolfe made headlines today, and your sex addiction makes it even worse. I’m told that the psychology department has received several calls from concerned parents this morning threatening to withdraw
their kids because they don’t feel comfortable with a sex addict teaching them. Isn’t that right, Dean Simmons?”

Sheila looked over at her supervisor, who sat with a stoic face and nodded. The dean would not meet her gaze.

Sheila didn’t have to look in a mirror to know her cheeks were bright red. Reaching into her briefcase, she pulled out two envelopes and placed them on the table. “I have a letter here from my meeting leader at Sex Addicts Anonymous that describes the efforts I’ve made over the past year toward my recovery. I also have a letter from my personal therapist that confirms I’ve been in therapy for sex addiction for the last twelve months, and that I finished an eight-week program at the New Trails Treatment Center in Oregon after I was released from the hospital last year.”

“We weren’t aware you were at a treatment facility last year,” Schneider said.

“That was my call.” Dean Simmons finally spoke up, his voice heavy. “Dr. Tao asked for a leave of absence for medical reasons, and I signed off on that. I saw no need last year to inform anybody as to the exact reason she needed time away.”

“And you’re not obligated to inform anyone,” Lara Duncan said to the dean, her voice reassuring. “Dr. Tao had a note from her doctor, and that’s all you’d need as far as HR is concerned.”

Sheila’s eyes were moist and she willed herself not to cry. “Ladies and gentlemen, please. I’ve built my career here. I want to stay here. I love my job.”

“I believe that,” Jardin said, frowning. “But Puget Sound State enrollment numbers have dropped ten percent this past year. Now while we can’t say it has anything directly to do with last year’s fiasco—”

“If they’ve dropped, they’ve dropped because we had a serial killer prowling the campus,” Sheila said. “Not because I had an affair with said serial killer.”

“The board disagrees,” Schneider said, his face like stone. “In my opinion, you are an embarrassment, Dr. Tao.”

“James, that’s unfair,” Dean Simmons said, and Sheila turned to him in surprise. The dean pushed the thick red folder forward. “I have here Dr. Tao’s student reviews for the past three terms. There are more than three hundred here, and they’re all positive. Every single one. And I spoke to the Student Union this morning. Dr. Tao has received fourteen nominations so far for Professor of the Year. Which, as you may recall, she has won not once, but twice before. I believe strongly that Dr. Tao is an asset to my department, and to this university, and I would hate to lose her.” He fixed his gaze on Schneider. “We all have demons, James. We all have personal problems. We all make mistakes. Dr. Tao’s have unfortunately been made public, and she will be dealing with that embarrassment for quite a while. Rather than punishing her, we should be throwing the prestige of the university behind her. She deserves our full support. She certainly has mine.”

Sheila almost wilted in relief. Underneath the table, Dean Simmons placed his hand over hers and gave it a quick, hard squeeze.

“You should know that I won’t leave willingly,” Sheila said when she found her voice. “I won’t apologize for loving my job, and this university. If you fire me, I will have no choice but to sue.” The words were ugly, and she hated to say them, but at this point, there was nothing left to lose.

“But we would allow you to leave on your terms,” Louise Jardin said, in an attempt to sound reasonable. “You would, of course, finish out the remainder of this term, at which point we would announce that you’ve left the university to pursue other endeavors. We are prepared to offer you
a year’s salary as compensation for a quiet departure.”

A year’s salary. Wow. They really wanted her gone. Sheila fought the tears that were threatening to spill over. “I’m sorry, Ms. Jardin, but if you want me gone, you will have to fire me. In which case, I hope you’re prepared for a long and lengthy legal battle.” She made a point to look at James Schneider. “Which, I can assure you, would probably embarrass everyone. My attorney is waiting for my call.”

Schneider’s face reddened. The room went silent. Lara Duncan from HR looked down to hide a smile.

“We’ll need a moment to confer,” Schneider finally said, his voice stiff. “If you could please wait outside, Dr. Tao.”

Sheila stood up, feeling all eyes upon her as she walked around the table and out into the hallway. The door shut firmly behind her, and she leaned against the wall, breathing hard.