“Sorry I didn’t make it in today, Professor. How’d the test go?”

“It went fine. Are you okay?”

Kyle nodded very seriously and kept nodding. Clearly he was feeling the effects of a nice chemical cocktail. Elliot relaxed a fraction. He’d already heard the medical report via Detectives Anderson and Pine—Kyle had been very lucky. But Elliot had still needed to see for himself. He couldn’t help feeling that if he’d minded his own business this might not have happened. No way had his TA been randomly targeted.

“How long are they going to keep you for?”

“They’re supposed to let me out this afternoon.”

Elliot took the hard plastic chair next to the bed and gave Kyle’s hand a light squeeze. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Kyle blinked up at the ceiling. “I think…” He tilted his head and squinted at the light panels from another angle.

“You were jogging this morning before class?” Elliot prodded.

Kyle seemed to remember Elliot was there. He nodded. “Five-thirty every morning I do my laps around the track. It was just after. I was done with my run and I was walking back to my dorm when he came out of nowhere and grabbed me. I thought…”

“Go on.”

“I thought he tried to stab me, but the knife got hooked in the folds of my hoodie and he dropped it. I remember I looked down and I saw it was a hypodermic needle.” He gave Elliot a wondering look. “Then he punched me.” Kyle touched delicate fingers to his cheekbone.

“That’s one beaut of a shiner. What did you do? Do you remember?”

Kyle seemed to brighten. “Yeah. When I was a kid I used to take martial arts and some of it came back to me. Eeeeeyah!” He waved vaguely with his good arm. “I managed to get in a couple of serious kicks.”

“Is that how you got away?”

“Mmm.” Kyle seemed to consider this dreamily. “No. Truth? I think he was going to beat the shit out of me…Yeah, some girls were jogging our way, and I think they scared him off. Anyways, next thing I knew I was lying on the ground and this girl was tucking her sweatshirt around me and another girl was calling 911.”

“Can you describe your assailant?”

Elliot had already heard everything Anderson and Pine could—or would—tell him on this score, but he wanted to hear it from Kyle.

“Male. Big. He wore a black ski mask like on TV.”

“What about his hands? Did he wear gloves?”

“I think so. Yeah.”

That explained how he’d dropped the hypo so easily. He’d also managed to retrieve it. According to the cops the hypo was not at the crime scene. “Did he speak? Did he say anything to you?”

“No. Not a word. It happened so fast.”

It always did. “Was he taller than me?”

Kyle’s good eye considered Elliot dispassionately. “Maybe.”

“Broader?”

“Yeah.” He added seriously, “I like that jacket. I like tweed. Brown looks good on you.”

“Thanks. How did he move?”

Kyle seemed to wake up. “Like he knew what he was doing.”

Yeah, well he’d had some practice. “Did he move like a young man? Do you think he was a student? Maybe someone you know?”

Kyle chewed his lip. “Maybe,” he said uncertainly.

“Did anything about him strike you as odd?”

“You mean besides trying to grab me?”

Elliot grinned. The kid still had his sense of humor, and that was a good sign. “Aside from that, yes. Did he…I don’t know, smell a particular way? Like cigarettes maybe? Aftershave?”

Kyle turned a startled eye his way. “He smelled like chemicals.”

“What kind of chemicals?”

“Harsh.” Kyle closed his eyes.

“Harsh?” Elliot thought that over. “Kyle, I want to ask you something.”

Kyle’s heavy lids rose.

“You haven’t seemed like yourself the past week or so. Is it possible that something going on in your life could be connected to this?”

Kyle scrunched his face. “No.” He smiled tiredly. “That’s…boyfriend trouble.”

“Boyfriend?” Now here was something in common with Terry. Except…Kyle had been targeted because of his relationship to Elliot, right?

Anything else was too big a coincidence. Or was it?

Elliot tried to think of a more subtle approach, but failed. He simply asked, “Who’s your boyfriend?”

“Oh.” There was a hint of color in Kyle’s drawn face. “You don’t know him. He’s pre-law. His name is Jimmy. Jimmy Feder.”

Chapter Seventeen

A hard knocking on the office doorframe jolted Elliot out of his absorption. He was on the phone filling Tucker in on the latest development regarding Jim Feder. He looked up, frowning.

Ray stood in the doorway frowning right back at him. “You forgot to put your trash out again.”

Sorry, Elliot mouthed to him.

Ray’s frown deepened.

“Jim Feder comes up clean,” Tucker’s faraway voice said. “He’s Joe Average. Well, make that Joe B-plus Average. No wants, warrants or arrests. If he was any cleaner he’d be bathing in Clorox. About the most I can say against the guy is he appears to have a fear of commitment.” From the blurred reception, Tucker was on the road again, and Elliot couldn’t help wondering what the case was.

“Can you hang on a second?” Elliot felt under his desk for the wastepaper basket. He rose, easing around the desk, handing the trashcan off to Ray who took it without a change of his surly expression.

Not for the first time, Elliot wondered what his story was. At a guess it didn’t include a stint in charm school. Ray reappeared with the empty trash basket and returned it to Elliot, who contemplated him curiously.

Ray wasn’t handsome by anyone’s standards. His was big and bulky with small, pale eyes and blunt, peculiarly unmemorable features. Elliot saw him nearly every day and would have had trouble describing him in detail.

Tucker’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Look, we need to talk. Where are you now?”

“Back at my office.”

“Let’s meet for dinner.”

Elliot’s pulse jumped. Did he want to do that? Yes. Should he do that? Doubtful. He glanced at his watch. Four o’clock. What he should do was phone his dad and apologize, maybe bring over some Indian takeout as a peace offering.

“You still there?”

“Yeah. All right,” Elliot answered.

“When and where?”

“I’m going to drive over to the lake behind the school. I want to take a look at the crime scene.”

“Elliot, for God’s sake.”

“Look, I know what you’re going to say. I even agree. But it’s not going to hurt to have an extra pair of trained eyes take a look, right?”

“Why?” Tucker’s exasperation seemed to be mounting with his mileage.

“Because I want to. Is that all right with you? I’ve got permission from Tacoma PD.”

“Yeah, I bet. They have my sympathy.”

Elliot enlightened Tucker as to what he could do with his sympathy, and annoyingly there was a grin in Tucker’s voice when he replied, “Okay, okay. I’ll see you at five at the Black Bull pub. Try not to get yourself arrested in the meantime.”

“They were not planning to arrest me, Lance.”

“That’s their story now.”

“I’ll see you at five.”

“Wear something sexy.”

“Asshole.”

“That will certainly work.”

Against his will, Elliot was laughing when he disconnected.

He sobered quickly when he realized how much he was looking forward to seeing Tucker. It’s not a date, he told himself. I’m just trying to persuade him to reinvolve the Bureau in this investigation.

They had always laughed a lot. He had nearly forgotten that, forgotten that they shared the same peculiar sense of humor.

The problem was his own increasing difficulty in remembering why he must not get involved with Tucker again. In his heart he knew it was a really bad idea. Intellectually, he was starting to question why. That was probably more about Elliot’s current need to get laid than having turned any philosophical corner. He hadn’t forgiven Tucker for not being there for him, for turning on him when he needed Tucker the most. But the pain felt old now, distant. Like the hurt had happened to someone else.