Braxton Campus Mysteries Collection - Books 1-4

Chapter 4-1

While I reached for Lorraine"s left arm, Maggie propped her against a table. “What"s wrong? Are you ill?” I worried she was having a stroke or heart attack. She looked practically catatonic.

“I"m afraid your father… have you seennn hhhim?” Her breathing labored, and a look of terror possessed her face. Though her skin was usually quite pale, she looked nearly translucent.

What did she mean by a dead body? She"d aged ten years in those moments. I pulled out my phone and pressed the button to dial his cell. “What"s going on, Lorraine?” Maggie briefly slipped away and returned with a glass of water. People had begun to leave the party. My phone verified it was exactly nine o"clock. The call went to voicemail. I didn"t leave a message, as I had no idea what to say.

a dead body“I saw… ummm… someone needs to… check on… now!” She pointed out the window and covered her mouth. Exaggerated expressions produced unfortunate wrinkles on her forehead. “I"m sorry… such a shock.”

“What?” I grew fearful over what she might have seen. “Did something happen to my father?”

Maggie rubbed Lorraine"s back to comfort the panicked woman. “Talk to us.”

Lorraine finished drinking her water. “I went back to the office to get your Christmas present. It was so lovely, and… but then I….”

I nodded. “That was thoughtful, thank you. But surely that"s not what has you so upset.” I had no clue what caused her to approach hyperventilation mode. “What about my father?”

“I couldn"t find him, that"s why I came to you. Went to the back door… closer to my desk… working there temporarily… finish all the construction.” Lorraine paused and let out a deep breath. Her hazel eyes shifted and filled with wild anxiety. “I got the key to unlock it… saw it was partially open.”

I wasn"t sure what she"d meant by temporarily working elsewhere, but I didn"t want to interrupt her baffling train of thought. “Okay. Did you go inside?”

“No, I couldn"t. I tried to push the door open… wouldn"t budge. It only moved an inch… c***k wasn"t wide enough to stick my head through. That"s when I ran around to the front of the building… used the main entrance.”

“Keep talking, tell us everything.” Maggie"s gaze went broad with confusion.

Lorraine composed herself. “I walked through the hallway to the back of the building. I thought I could open the other door leading into the stairwell from the inside, but it wouldn"t move either. Something was sitting on the platform, preventing both doors from opening.”

“Right. It"s such a tight space. Two people can"t open the doors at the same time since they both open inward,” Maggie responded. “Then what?”

Lorraine explained she"d gone up to the second floor to look down the stairwell and see what was on the other side of the doors. While she painfully told us everything—probably suffering from shock over what she"d seen—I wondered why my father had left the party. Had he gone to meet someone? Why wasn"t he picking up my calls? Was there really a dead body?

“Somebody fell down the stairs. I could see blood. I thinkkk they hit their head. Might be deaddd,” Lorraine stuttered with a wicked shiver.

Maggie stifled a scream. Her body twitched from the tension. She"d been leaning against me as we comforted Lorraine. “Who was it?”

Lorraine"s eyes opened wider. “I was too afraid to go down. Will you checkkk the building next door?”

Maggie offered to stay and take care of Lorraine while I went to the other building. My stomach sank in fear something horrific had happened to my father.

“No, I have to come with you,” Lorraine murmured. “I locked the front door after I left. I… I… didn"t know what to do and just came running over here.”

Lorraine had either drank too many fizzy blue concoctions or was imagining things in the dark, but intuition told me something real had genuinely frightened her. The three of us left the retirement party and scrambled toward the temporary office space. Meeting Abby would have to wait. I encouraged the ladies to run faster, eager to see what had happened to my father or someone else.

“I"m going as fast as I can,” Lorraine noted.

Heaviness settled in my chest, and a sharp pain jabbed my gut. Please don"t be my father. I wasn"t ready for him to get sick or die. When Maggie, Lorraine, and I arrived at the building, it became clear she"d been referring to Diamond Hall, where I"d spent many hours attending literature, art, and media lectures. It hadn"t occurred to me when Lorraine said the building next door she"d meant literally next door to Stanton Concert Hall. My father"s normal executive office building was farther away near the cable car station. Was the threatening call I"d overheard the previous night that serious?

literally next doorDiamond Hall, an old colonial-style mansion, had been converted into a series of classrooms and departmental offices a few decades earlier. A limestone facade mined from local Betscha quarries in the 1870s covered all three stories of the impressive building. The well-manicured primary entrance contained a winding slate path, burgundy shutters adorning large, crisscross lattice windows, and giant rhododendron bushes growing in the front gardens. On the first floor were four large classrooms, each capable of seating at least thirty students, two single bathrooms, and a small supply closet. In the front entrance was a staircase set between two center walls taking visitors to the upper floors, and in the back was another small staircase—previously a servant"s access passage—allowing professors direct access to their offices without having to go through the main classroom area.

“Show me exactly where you saw a body, Lorraine,” I directed with increasing trepidation in my voice. “We should call 9-1-1, but I"d like to verify what you saw before we—”

“It"s a body. I know what I saw, Kellan,” Lorraine interjected with a much calmer voice than when she"d first informed us. “Follow me.”

We ran up to the second floor where ten or twelve oddly shaped offices—typically the center of many vocal professors arguing about who deserved the biggest space—resided. While there was no staircase accessing the third floor from the back side of the building, a narrow one in the front led to a cozy library and common area for students working on a group project or a professor holding a special lecture session. Based on what Lorraine had told me on the walk over, my father recently commandeered the third floor during the renovations on his office. Since the top floor was only large enough for his furniture, given the peaks of the slanted roof and the built-in library shelves, Lorraine sat in a central open section on the second floor between the two staircases.

My stomach twisted in agony. There was a good chance my father could be at the bottom of the stairwell. All three of us crossed through the second floor past Lorraine"s desk and looked at the swinging door to the back stairwell. “Did you leave it open?”

She shook her head. “I thought I"d closed it. Maybe I ran out and didn"t pay attention. The body is inside. Step into the vestibule and look down to the right.”

I"d seen a few dead bodies in the past. It had never bothered me until they called me to the morgue to verify Francesca"s identity on Thanksgiving. I still remember the fear moments before they lifted the sheet. I ultimately couldn"t do it and stepped out of the silent and frigid room, grateful to my father-in-law for taking on the responsibility. I had to be brave and determine if Lorraine were losing her mind or if there was any truth to what she"d seen. I tiptoed into the vestibule with my eyes closed, turned to the right, and felt my composure fade. I slanted my head at the angle I thought would align with the bottom platform and opened my eyes.

The way the body laid on the floor all tangled up was the most horrid part. Two legs were folded under the person"s upper half, and his or her head was trapped between twisted hands and arms. That"s when I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn"t my father. It was the woman I"d seen outside the library on the phone while waiting for my sister.

I"d been quiet for too long, prompting Maggie to screech, “What"s going on, Kellan?”

I peeked my head around the corner of the wall and observed a shaky Maggie and Lorraine holding hands. “Yes, someone"s down there. I can"t tell if she"s breathing.”

“Please go check, Kellan. She could be hurt,” begged Lorraine while puttering with several pieces of costume jewelry on her wrist.

I shuffled down the steps. Something told me the victim was a goner. When I reached the platform, there wasn"t a lot of room to move around, but I stretched my nervous hand to the woman"s neck.

“Is she alive? Should I call 9-1-1?” Maggie asked.

“No, she"s dead. There"s no pulse, but we need to call them, anyway.”

Lorraine yelled back at me. “I"m on my way down. I"m well enough to assist.”

Maggie dialed the emergency line and explained the situation on speakerphone. When Lorraine reached the last step and stood a few inches from me, she grabbed my elbow. “Can you turn her head? I think I recognize her.”

“Not a good idea. If she"s just unconscious, we could cause spinal damage.” This wasn"t the night I"d expected. I wanted something livelier than a boring retirement party where I listened to dull speeches and met my father"s insipid friends and colleagues—not dealing with a dead body.

Lorraine leaned forward over my shoulders. I cautioned her to avoid the patch of blood on the stairs. The woman must have smacked her skull hard when she fell, to cause it to bleed like that. Just as I thought Lorraine was going to back away, she gasped. “Oh, my word! I know her.”

I wasn"t in the mood to comfort someone else over death right now, especially if they were friendly with the person. I merely wanted to give a statement and locate Eleanor. “Ummm… who is she, Lorraine?”

“Abby Monroe,” squealed Lorraine with a series of “It can"t be, it can"t be” wails.

Maggie bellowed to us from the top of the stairwell. “The ambulance is on its way. The cops are coming too. I should call Connor.”

When I first heard the name, my immediate thought shifted to my other former best friend and fraternity brother, Connor Hawkins. He and I had stopped chatting around the time we"d all graduated ten years ago too. “Hold up, Maggie. Lorraine thinks she knows who this is.” Tonight was becoming way too creepy.

“I couldn"t tell from way up top, but I saw her at the party earlier wearing this same outfit. Dean Terry remarked how well that sapphire blue empire-cut blouse matched her eyes. And that skirt… Abby always wears pencil skirts.” Lorraine nervously pulled at her blond curls.

“Are you sure? I"ve been looking for Abby Monroe all evening,” I said.

Lorraine wobbled her head. Based on the peculiar expression on her pale face, my news had confused her. “Why were you meeting her? Maybe we should wait for the cops upstairs. I feel a little weird standing so close to… you know… ummm—”