Hidden in the Wall. Valerie Hansen

had to lean further and further in to reach the scraps. She was so intent on her search she failed to hear someone approaching.

      When a deep voice behind her asked, “What are you doing?” she almost lost her balance and fell headfirst into the trash container.

      Her, “What?” came out more as a scream than a word.

      “Look out,” the man shouted as he grabbed her ankle.

      His touch panicked her. She levered herself up and whirled as she shot out of the bin, almost losing her balance and tumbling off the chair into his arms.

      Eyes wide, she shrieked, “Let me go!”

      The middle-aged man backed off, his hands raised in surrender. “I’m sorry, Stephanie. I didn’t recognize you. What in the world are you doing here at this time of night?”

      It took a few seconds for Steff to realize she knew him. Her hands flew to her throat as she fought to catch her breath. “Oh, Professor Rutherford, it’s you. You gave me an awful scare!”

      “I’ve told you to call me Cornell,” he said kindly.

      “Sorry.” She managed a smile although her heart was still threatening to pound out of her ribs. “Actually, I should I apologize for not calling you Dean Rutherford now that you’re head of the Liberal Arts department. I guess I still feel like your student. Your classes were always favorites of mine.”

      “Thank you. I enjoyed teaching you, too.” He was smiling benevolently. “Now, suppose you tell me what you’re doing.”

      “It’s a long story. I was looking for a piece of old wall from my office.”

      “Why on earth would you do that?”

      “There was an initial drawn on it and some splattered droplets that might be blood. The more I got to thinking about it, the more I wanted to see it again just to make sure. I guess my imagination was working overtime.” She paused for a sigh and a quick sneeze. “Anyway, it’s a moot point because I can’t find the piece again.”

      “It was in this Dumpster?”

      “Yes. At least, I thought it was.” Eyeing the pile of scraps on the ground, she shrugged. “I guess it’s lost forever.”

      Rutherford had shed his nylon windbreaker and laid it aside on the well-manicured lawn. “If it bothers you that much, we should search until we find it. What did it look like? How big was it?”

      She held her hands a foot apart. “About like this, although Trevor may have broken it into smaller chunks when he threw it away. The initial itself was four or five inches high. We couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a messy P or an R. Or neither.”

      Hesitating a moment, the dean took her place at the side of the Dumpster. “All right. I’ll throw out everything at least that big and you can look over each piece before we put it back in.”

      “You don’t have to do that,” Steff argued. “I feel foolish for even worrying about it.”

      “Nonsense. I won’t have you fretting.”

      “That’s really nice of you.”

      In the next breath she nearly gasped. Dean Rutherford was crawling into that filthy trash bin. In all the time she’d known him she’d never seen him even get his hands dirty, let alone risk damaging his fashionable clothing, although she supposed the more casual attire he had on tonight wasn’t as expensive as the silk suits he normally sported.

      He’s doing it because I’m a Kessler and he wants to stay on my family’s good side, Steff deduced. After all, he was also married to a Kessler cousin, so he certainly knew how influential the family was. She pulled a face. This wasn’t the first time members of the college staff had given her preferential treatment because of her prominent family and it probably wouldn’t be the last, either.

      Disgruntled, she waited until the Dumpster was empty, then began sorting through the scraps while the dean stood back and watched. To her dismay, the clue wasn’t there. The poor man had sacrificed his fine clothes for nothing.

      Maybe, in the long run, it was all for the best, she concluded with a sigh. If there had been real blood on the scrap she’d not only have had a better reason to continue to be apprehensive, she’d probably feel the need to notify the police, and her father would surely hear of it.

      Considering the way she’d been reacting to the slightest unusual occurrence lately, Steff didn’t need to add any more confusion or look for any other reasons to be afraid. She was already more jumpy and upset than she’d been since the days following her eldest brother Adam’s untimely death.

      It had been ten years since that horrible summer day, yet there were times, like now, when the sense of tragedy was so strong she felt as if she were losing dear sweet Adam all over again.

      Steff had moved herself into a coworker’s office for the time that her own work space was off-limits. She’d cleared a corner of her friend Brenda’s desk to make room for her laptop and had pulled up a side chair. That arrangement was decidedly uncomfortable.

      Stretching, she stood and rubbed the small of her back. “I need to move around before I stiffen up any more. I’m going to run down to the basement for a few minutes.”

      “What for?” Brenda’s brown eyes narrowed. “It’s dark and dingy and spooky down there. You wouldn’t get me to go alone if you paid me.”

      “We do pay you,” Steff teased. “But don’t worry. I won’t make you do anything like that. I just want to see if I can find some old blueprints and maybe some contracts for those earlier projects.”

      “Why?”

      “Curiosity,” Steff replied, thinking mainly of the intriguing initial she’d noticed then lost track of. Maybe, if she could learn more about the original construction of that wall, she’d be able to put her concerns to rest. It was worth a try. “I’ll need some of the old plans eventually anyway, when we get closer to building the library annex. And I want to see if I can figure out when some prior construction was done on my office, too.”

      “Okay. It’s your funeral.”

      Steff gave a nervous laugh and made light of the comment as she left the office. “I sure hope not!”

      However, the spring in her step diminished as she approached the doorway that led to the basement stairs. Brenda’s suggestion that the cavernous storage area was frightening was ridiculous. So why was the hair on the back of her neck prickling?

      “Because my imagination is working overtime again. I really should have been a mystery writer,” Steff said to herself wryly. Maybe someday she’d pursue that dream and give fiction writing a try. Right now, Magnolia College needed her and she was going to continue to support her alma mater for as long as that was true. And perhaps, in doing so, she could favorably impress her parents—especially her father.

      “Ha! That’ll be the day,” Steff muttered, disgusted to have even entertained the thought.

      She flipped on a light at the top of the narrow stairs and paused for a moment to gather her courage. Filled with trepidation but determined to ignore it, she started slowly down, her hand sliding along the smoothly worn handrail.

      This part of the college had been converted into offices after serving for years as a dorm, and the basement showed its age. Heavy, dark beams supported the ceiling and the rough rock of the interior walls was not plastered. Small windows at ground level didn’t let in much natural light because of the evergreen foundation planting of azaleas and stocky palmettos.

      As Steff reached the bottom of the stairs she hesitated. Something was amiss. A frown creased her brow. She hadn’t been downstairs in ages but she didn’t recall the archives being such a cluttered mess. What in the world could have happened to them? And why?

      The oblong tubes containing blueprints were easy to locate