Timepiece (Hourglass 2)

“Em, don’t.” I needed to get her back to the hotel. “There’s nothing we can do.”

Dr. Turner had hung up his phone, and he stood staring at the Gothic arches in front of the science building, frowning at them.

“Please, we have to at least take him to his office. He has grandkids, a family.” She pushed away from me. “We want to take you to your office, okay, Dr. Turner? We’ll explain once we get up there.”

“I’m afraid you can’t. I have to get to a meeting shortly.” He tucked his phone into the pocket beside the buttonhole that held the carnation. The bright pink, perfectly fresh carnation.

“Don’t worry,” Emerson said. “We’ll be speedy. Just come with us.”

She reached out to take his hand.

He dissolved.

Denial came first. A white-hot burst of adrenaline in our chests that flooded out to our arms and legs, making us weak and dizzy.

Reality kicked in, the image outside reconciling with our brain. Panic sped up our breathing, broke us out in a sweat, made us shake.

I’d never felt another person’s emotion so strongly in my life.

“Dr. Turner?” Em turned to me. “Kaleb? Was he …”

“No,” I said, reaching out for her before she turned around. I knew where she was going.

“Rip.” Her breath heaved in her chest. “Dr. Turner was a rip. He was a rip, and he didn’t recognize us.”

“It could have been a future rip,” I said, trying to stall her, calm her down. Work out a way to stop what I knew was about to happen.

She shook her head in protest. “No. Michael and your dad said they haven’t seen any future rips since all this started.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“Kaleb, he was wearing the exact same thing he had on yesterday. He had the pink carnation in his buttonhole. It was fresh. He should have recognized us. Oh no.”

“Emerson, don’t.”

“Oh please, God, no.”

She didn’t wait for me, just took off running at top speed. My legs were longer, but she ran distance and had fear as a chaser. “Stop! You don’t know what happened up there—stop—Em!” She skidded through the entrance to the science building. I was two seconds behind because of the time it took to open the door she let slam behind her.

Her footsteps echoed up the stairwell. I heard her wrench open the door to the second floor. I caught it right before it closed.

The receptionist from yesterday sat at her desk, her mouth opening to ask us where we were going. We were too fast for her.

Em opened the door to Dr. Turner’s office and stood, frozen, just outside. I stopped in time to keep from running into her.

The fedora he’d worn to meet Teague was on the floor.

The pink carnation was wilted in the pencil holder.

The pipe was cold.

Dr. Turner lay facedown on his desk in a pool of blood, his throat slit from ear to ear.

Chapter 27

After we’d found Dr. Turner, I’d called campus security, and then Michael and Lily. We split the day between the college and the police station, watching the coroner’s office employees enter and leave the building as they did their investigation, and then as the police brought in possible witnesses for questioning.

The wound had been inflicted fourteen hours earlier, with a six-inch blade, from behind. The killer had slashed from left to right. The same way Poe cut Emerson.