Chapter 6

The three agents were strangely silent as the vehicle negotiated the evening traffic en route to Cal Sci.

After seven minutes, Colby cleared his throat. "Don shot Charlie?"

Megan shrugged miserably. "It was his gun. Only his prints were on it. When he was hit, it must have effected the trajectory, or something."

David took the reasonable route. "Okay," he started. "Let's go with the assumption that final DNA analysis will prove that Charlie was on the roof as well. We know that two men took him. How big a leap is it to say they were holding him on the roof when Don got there? Don took out his weapon. The assailants didn't bother to go get it after he dropped it, so they must not have needed it; must have had their own. So, Don gets his weapon, the guys holding Charlie have weapons, Charlie sees all the weapons…"

Colby finished for him. "He got in the way. Tried to stop the perp from hitting Don."

"I don't know…" Megan mused, thinking aloud. "That's a lot of assuming…but it would explain how a shotgun fired at that close a range wasn't a dead-on hit. Michaelson said there were as many pellets in the roof as there were in Don's vest."

Colby negotiated another turn. "So they found the bullet. Blood evidence on the bullet…how much more blood?"

Megan brightened a little. "Trace amounts. Maybe it wasn't a solid hit."

Colby sighed and changed the subject. "So why are we going to Cal Sci?"

"Michaelson wants us to check out Charlie's office, since we're familiar with it, and we also know what we gave him to work with." Megan considered. "Do you think I should call Larry? We may need his help to figure out whatever Charlie found — see what's on his laptop."

As Colby eased the vehicle into position behind a line of LAPD cars on campus, David started to open his door. "Let's see if we even find it, first," he suggested, and Megan nodded, and opened her own door.

When the three agents entered the building, it turned out that calling Larry was a moot point. He stood chewing on his fingernails, with a small group of faculty and students in the lobby.

He saw them enter and pushed against the crime scene tape. "Oh dear," he said, trying ineffectively to get past a uniformed officer. "Agents! Megan!"

The three quickly spotted him and headed over, motioned to the officer to let Larry under the tape. They met halfway across the lobby.

"Megan, Colby, David…it's such a relief to see you," Larry began before they could say anything. "Where's Don? I don't know what's going on, here. I was in the library, and I heard the commotion. One of my students — Raven — is insisting that she witnessed Charles being abducted…and someone came off the roof…"

Megan placed a gentle hand on his arm. "Larry…Larry…just calm down, a little. That's why we're here." She looked beyond him at the small crowd behind the tape. "Which one is Raven?"

Larry glanced behind him and then at a group of suited detectives who were set up in another corner. "There. She's giving another statement, I gather."

Megan nodded at David and he took off to join the group. She turned her attention back to Larry. "You didn't…see who came off the roof?"

He shook his head. "By the time I arrived, the gentleman was surrounded by medical personnel, and I was escorted away from the scene." He saw the look on Megan's face and began to chew his fingernails again. "Why?"

She sighed. "It was Don."

Larry paled. "Oh, my heavens. That's quite disturbing…a fall from such a height…"

She interrupted. "He was shot, he didn't just fall."

"Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Is…Is he…"

"He's in surgery," Megan assured him. "The doctor said he's actually very lucky. He was wearing his vest, and his head hit in the mud, which was softened after two days of rain…he has a badly broken leg, though, some glass damage from a window he hit on the way down…"

"Dr. Kincaid," Larry breathed. "No one can persuade her to keep her window closed."

"It's a good thing," Colby said fervently. "I think it may have helped save Don's life."

"Oh, dear," Larry said again, and his hand crept from his mouth to his head, and planted itself in his hair. "Perhaps Charles simply went to the hospital…"

Megan touched his arm again. "I don't think so, Larry. We're here to look around his office. He was working on a case for us, and he called Don away from a crime scene. He must have found something."

"Anything I can do to help…", Larry began, and Colby took him up on it.

"Why don't you come up with us? You might notice something we don't."

Larry nodded silently while Megan caught David's attention and pointed up. David nodded, and the two agents escorted the professor to the stairwell. They trudged up the stairs without further conversation, and soon were headed down the corridor leading to Charlie's office. The door stood open, and they stood in a semi-circle outside and peered at the books on the floor, the papers strewn across the desk, the equation-filled white boards.

Colby looked at Megan. "How are we supposed to know whether or not the place has been ransacked? It looks like this every time I come here."

Megan shrugged and Larry brought his fingers back down to tap his chin. "Well, now wait, Agent Granger. I'll admit, Charles is not the neatest person…but the semester is only a month old. His office shouldn't look like this until at least mid-terms."

Colby waded inside, and saw that several desk drawers were open, and the phone was on the floor behind the desk. "Okay," he said, "I'm calling it. Let's get the techs in here for prints." He looked at Larry, paused just inside the doorway, looking intently around the room. "You see something else, Larry?"

The professor sighed. "It could be nothing. I left this building rather early today, to conduct some research in the library. I stopped by to see if Charles wanted to join me for lunch first, but he claimed to be in the middle of a project. He was working on his laptop, and seemed a little distracted." The two agents kept looking at him, and it made him a little nervous. His fingernails got dangerously close to his mouth again. "You see," he said, gesturing toward the desk. "There's no laptop. However, that was several hours ago, he may have placed it in…" he looked around the office again. "I don't see his backpack. Is it behind the desk?"

Colby looked and shook his head. "Both missing. Correction. Three things missing. Laptop, backpack, Charlie."

Megan, still in the hallway, looked towards Larry's office. It was on the same side of the corridor as Charlie's, and she could she from where she stood that its door was also open. "Larry…" She waited until he turned to look at her. "Do you lock your office when you leave the building?"

He nodded. "Of course. Whenever I remember."

Colby groaned and Larry glanced at him. "As I was saying. I know that I did today. I remember remembering."

Megan started walking down the hall and the two men followed. "Well, it's open now," she said. Soon, the semi-circle re-formed outside Larry's office. If anything, it looked worse than Charlie's — which, unfortunately, it usually did.

Colby looked at Megan again. "How are we supposed to know…" he started, but stopped when she indicated the face plate in the door frame.

"Jimmied," she said. She looked at Larry. "Anything obvious missing here? Your laptop?"

His hand was on his head again as he surveyed his office. "Oh, dear. Dear." He pulled himself together with a breath, dropped his hand. "No, no, I had mine with me, in the library."

Megan nodded, thinking. "All right. We'll check for prints in here, too. We should go to the Eppes house, and check Charlie's garage."

Colby agreed. "Right. We can swing back by Huntington and ask Mr. Eppes for a key."

Larry put up his hand, as if he were a student waiting to be called upon, so Megan did. "Larry?"

"I'm sure Alan would want you to do whatever is necessary to find Charles," he started. "I have an extra key to the garage in the glove compartment of my car."

Megan smiled grimly and grabbed Larry's arm, and started dragging him back toward the stairwell.