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Stockholm University
Stockholm, Sweden
One day from now

 

Elsa Andersson scratched the back of her neck, all four fingers raking against the skin as she wondered what was going on. The text message she received had been from Professor Karlsson’s phone. She had double-checked the number, something that had proven entirely unnecessary as he was in her contacts list, with more messages exchanged than with anyone else including her boyfriend.

She frowned at the thought of him.

There’s no future there.

She was tired of wasting her time with boys. She wanted a man. Professor Karlsson was definitely a man, and if he wasn’t married, and perhaps twenty years younger, she’d consider making a play for him.

She loved brilliant minds.

Though sleeping with a man old enough to be her grandfather wasn’t exactly appealing to her.

And neither was the infantile moron she now bedded.

She sighed as the elevators opened, her scratch turning into a massage, though a rather ineffectual one. She was worried about the professor. She hadn’t reached him all day, thus his message had been a tremendous relief. He had somehow guessed where she was, which now that she thought of it, was a bit of a leap.

Why would he think I’d be at the university at this hour?

The only reason she was here was that he hadn’t shown up all day, and the remains delivered earlier had to be processed. Normally, they would have worked on it together at a more reasonable hour, but with his lack of communication all day, she had decided action had to be taken, regardless of the consequences.

Yet he had known she was here. That much was certain from his message.

Meet me in the lobby right away.

But he wasn’t there. A quick check with security confirmed he hadn’t been and left. He had never been.

Could he have been referring to a different lobby?

Her eyebrows rose at the thought as she slowly made her way to the lab at the end of the hallway. It was a possibility, though she couldn’t fathom what lobby he might have been referring to, nor why he would think she was somewhere that had one.

None of it made sense, and it had her even more concerned than she already had been. Calls and messages had gone unanswered all day, even to his home, though if he wasn’t there, that wasn’t unusual. Mrs. Karlsson never answered when she called for some reason. He was to have met with an old friend of his, Professor James Acton, an archaeology professor from the United States, along with the man’s wife, Laura Palmer, also a professor of archaeology.

If that’s not a recipe for boredom, I don’t know what is.

The two professors were to meet with Karlsson this morning then tour the dig site, but they never showed. None of them did, and all day she had worked under the hypothesis they had found something better to do. After all, they were all academics, and that type was notorious for losing track of time when a good discussion was underway.

She frowned at the thought.

You’re an academic.

She paused, staring into nothing.

Am I going to become like them?

She shuddered at the thought, resuming her tired trek to the lab. She hoped she would remain the vital, vivacious, exciting person she now was, then again, at this moment, she could think of nothing more exciting than the remains she was now about to process.

She reached the door and fished under her hoodie for her pass, her mind returning to the task at hand, Professor Karlsson’s idiosyncrasies put on hold.

He can text me again if he actually shows up.

She swiped her pass then entered her personal code for the lab, something she still remembered to this day being issued. It had been one of the prouder moments of her life. The trust the professor had shown in her had been an emotional revelation. She was one of the few he allowed into his lab unaccompanied. In fact, there were less than a handful of students with the access she had.

The door clicked, the sound always sending goosebumps through her body, and she pushed against the door, a slight hiss sounding, the room pressurized to keep foreign contaminants out should there be something truly delicate inside. The door swung open and she gasped at the sight that greeted her.

“What’s going on here?”

A man was standing over the body of another, staring at her, shocked at having been caught. She froze, the door swinging shut behind her as her jaw dropped with the recognition of who the murderer standing before her was.

It was the same man whom she had Googled just yesterday.

“Professor Acton?” She stared at the body, recognizing one of the security guards. “Oh my God! Is he dead?”

Something behind her caused her to flinch and as she turned, she caught a glimpse of a woman she recognized as Professor Acton’s wife. She pressed something into her back.

“Move and you die.”