Chapter 3

"Look," Wendy said, linking her fingers together and twisting her hands over her head. "How I see it, you have three choices. One, you can go to the uni administration and tell them that you think Professor Jones has been nicking your stuff, and hope your word can stand up. Two, you can get Neal and his Russian roommates to do a bit of retaliatory breaking and entering – an option I would not at all advise, by the way. Or three, you can send me to go talk to him."

Emma frowned. It was pushing 2 AM, but they were both still awake, sitting on their beds and holding a council of war; after the events of the night, she had to ask someone for help. "What do you mean, talk to him? Is that code for something? He's still a professor, and – "

"Not really," Wendy reminded her. "You and Alice are both taking classes from him, but I'm not. And I don't even have ulterior motives – although you, my dear, were rather quick to suspect me. But he teaches literature as well as history, he's from Ireland, and so it's almost certain that I know some of the same crowd he does. Besides, he doesn't know I'm your roommate, so he won't be on his guard."

Emma had to admit that this made a great deal of logical sense, but something in her still niggled at the idea of sending her beautiful, glamorous, well-read, well-traveled British roommate off to dangle before Professor Jones' eyes like a fat and juicy worm on a hook. She was honest enough to admit that she knew full well why this was, and once more severely instructed her uncooperative emotional faculties to shut this shit down. She needed to maintain enough of a functional professional relationship with him to take his class, pass his class, obtain the return of her necklace, and get the hell on with her life, and that was it. The end.

"I have to admit, I don't really want to send Neal and his possibly current KGB commandos in there," she said instead, trying to change the subject. "That would definitely backfire."

"Yes." Wendy was eyeing her curiously. "Emma, darling, you know I'm not trying to judge you, but have you ever asked why he feels the need to live with three large and terrifying Russians?"

"I – no." Emma had just taken it for granted as one of Neal's eccentricities, the things they didn't talk about. All she'd cared about was that he had a place, and wasn't sleeping on the banks of the Charles River or something, and Wendy's question made her feel stupid; she knew she should have asked it long before. But she hadn't wanted to scare him off. She'd been a wallflower at Storybrooke High, the kind of girl who had to grow into her looks, awkward and self-conscious and not naturally friendly, and it wasn't until she got to college that she'd really blossomed. Among the several boys who had expressed interest, Neal had been the most persistent, and the only one who was willing to do something other than sleep with her and brag about it to his buddies. He did do that, but he also took her places and spent money on her and made her feel like a grownup with a real social life, and since she'd never had any kind of relationship before, she was totally clueless as to anything to compare it to.

Now that the subject had been opened, however, Wendy wasn't going to let her off the hook. "So why does he, do you think?"

"I don't know," Emma said, twisting her comforter between her fingers. "They're probably where he gets his weed from."

"And this means?"

"I don't know!" They'd always been cordial enough to her, whenever she was over at Neal's apartment (there was a curfew on the dorms, complicating the process of sneaking him out) and hence, you did not poke two sleeping Alexei Pavlovichs and one Ivan Medvedev in the eye. "Maybe he's scared someone will show up and try to rob him?"

Emma had said it more than somewhat flippantly, but the look on Wendy's face made her frown. "What? You mean he is scared?"

"I can't think he's living with three ruthless bodyguards because he isn't."

"But… scared of what? Something? Someone?"

Wendy looked at her seriously. "Maybe that's something you should find out."

"But… if they are in the Mafia…" Emma squirmed. She had no desire to wake up with a horse head in her bed, or to be sleeping with the fishes. "Isn't there like a don't ask, don't tell thing going on with that? And I don't even have an idea what he might be…"

She trailed off.

"Yes?" Wendy prodded.

"Okay, this is probably a reach. But – " And with that, Emma spilled the rest of the story: Professor Jones' odd reaction to hearing that Storybrooke was a real place, his (inadvertent?) revelation that he'd once been dating (engaged to?) Gold's late ex-wife, and the fact that Neal had booked it out of the café when she'd mentioned Gold's name to him. She knew the pawnbroker was mysterious and close-mouthed about anything to do with his past, and that everyone in town cultivated a healthy awe of him bordering on terror. But so far as she knew, he'd never actually hurt anybody.

"Why would Neal be scared of Mr. Gold?" she finished up, at last. "And why would Professor Jones be looking for him?"

"Quite obviously, I couldn't say." Wendy frowned. "But that's a bit much of a coincidence to swallow, especially as you said that the necklace you think Professor Jones stole came from Mr. Gold's shop. Is there any way you could ring your mum and dad and ask them if there's anything they can find out about him?"

"I – guess," Emma hedged. "But people just don't interfere in Mr. Gold's business, you know? Especially not when they owe him a favor, and everyone in Storybrooke owes him a favor. When I was a kid, something happened – I don't know what – and my family was about to lose our house, and he stepped in to stop it. My parents remember that, and I bet he does as well."

Wendy was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "I'm guessing, then, that whatever his real name is… it isn't Robert Gold."

The conversation ended after that, mainly because Emma, no matter how curious she was, couldn't keep her eyes open any longer and fell asleep in the middle of it. She woke up on Sunday morning with snow lashing against the dorm windows and the entire campus socked in; the predicted storm had rumbled in right on schedule. It was awfully early even for New England, but it was better than the slow-moving Atlantic hurricane that had sideswiped them in freshman year, resulting in the power and internet being out for a week. Bored out of her mind, Emma had gone into downtown Boston for the first time with some kids she'd known for just a few days, and they proceeded to have a midnight adventure down the Freedom Trail. It was, as a matter of fact, where she had met Neal.

Emma grabbed her coat, the long black wool one with the double buttons that her mom had bought her for her new school wardrobe (Mary Margaret had been having pangs of anxiety about sending her only daughter off alone to Boston, especially without proper apparel). With its cuffs and sharp collar, it looked very theatrical; she liked to call it her pirate jacket (appropriate in light of her project) especially when she threw on her college scarf. Thus arrayed, she headed off to Lyons to dig into a pile of waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, her Sunday ritual.

Emma was heading back to the dorms, snowflakes swirling in her hair, when it suddenly occurred to her that, it being after all a weekend, there was a fairly good chance that Professor Jones wasn't on campus. And while she should wait and at least send Wendy in first to scope things out, it was possible that she could get a jump on it first.

She paused, then swung her backpack off her shoulder, fumbled in it, and pulled out her notebook, the snow leaving wet spots on the page. She flapped it open, made a grab as a raft of fugitive handouts escaped, and scooped them off the wet walkway, muttering. Nonetheless, she ran her finger along the syllabus, looking… looking…

Yes.

Professor Killian Jones: Stokes 302.

Emma straightened up, clapped the notebook shut, and wheeled around. She set off at a casual trot, glancing from side to side in case there was anyone she knew who might spot her, but it was a snowy, sleepy Sunday and there wasn't much happening on campus. She swiped herself into Stokes without incident, and trotted up the stairs to the history department's offices, heart pounding. Now came the tricky part. He'd surely locked his office before leaving for the weekend, but her godfather, Leroy, had always done his best to equip her with a roster of what he termed "practical" skills. Changing a flat tire, patching drywall, nailing a creep in the gonads, and picking locks were just a few of them.

Emma turned into the corridor, counting off numbers until she came to a halt in front of 302. Trying the knob revealed that it was, of course, secured, which wasn't any surprise. With one more glance around for unwelcome witnesses, she swung her backpack off, pulled out her wallet, and extracted her debit card. Taking one more breath to steady herself, she went to work.

It was easier than she had dared to hope. The door opened inward into a clean, dark office, and she quickly shut it behind her, reaching down reflexively to feel for the lock; to her relief, it was a push-button, meaning she could just put it back in and shut the door behind her when she left, and no one would be any the wiser. Fortunately, Professor Jones either didn't think his office contained vital enough information to install an alarm system, or he just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Either way, it was good for her.

Holding her breath, as if that would make a difference, Emma edged across the floor, looking around. Half the place was still in boxes, though most of the books had been unearthed and neatly alphabetized on the particle-board shelves; he was definitely on the bottom of the academic totem pole around here if he didn't even get actual wood. There was an Irish flag hung up over the window, but no other apparent personal effects. No family pictures, no knick-knacks, not even an embarrassing gag gift. Whoever Killian Jones was, he traveled light.

She reached his desk, which was piled with a sheaf of departmental memos, lecture notes, a dog-eared copy of Wuthering Heights, and a few printed-out emails, which she nervously fingered through. There was nothing of immediate relevance, however, and she knelt down by the drawers. The first two pulled out easily, revealing files and papers, but the third drawer, the bottom one, was locked.

Emma rocked back on her heels, judging her prospects of gaining access. Nobody had barged in yet, threatening to expel her, so she went back to her backpack, feeling a bit like MacGyver, and pulled out her nail file.

This was quite a bit harder, and the file slipped out several times as she worked, the last time causing a screech that made her cringe and wonder if there were any hidden security cameras she should have looked out for. But then, after a few more moments of patient work, she heard a click, and the drawer rolled out on its own.

There was nothing inside but a fat manila envelope, which she reached in and picked up in suddenly trembling hands. When she turned it over, there was only one word on the front, written in his bold, black, elegant script. Crocodile.

She undid the catch and heard something rattling. When she turned it over, her swan necklace was the first thing that slid into her hand.

Emma closed her fingers around it, feeling the cold press of the metal figurine on her skin. If she took it and left the drawer unlocked, he'd know beyond any doubt that she'd been here. He could punish her for it in any number of ways: go to the dean of students, flunk her project, get security involved, you name it. But if he did, he'd also have to reveal that he'd stolen it from her in the first place, and that might not be the kind of move you wanted to make after getting your first professorial job straight out of graduate school. Not to mention, if they found a file in here about wanting to kill people (was it about wanting to kill people? Oh god, was he some kind of skirt-chasing pervert who disemboweled freshmen girls in his basement and would inspire a "Based on the Horrifying True Story" film ten years later?) they might have cause to review his vita.

Besides, she almost wanted him to come after her. See if he would.

Whatever it was, whatever this was, it had only just begun.

Emma was as jittery as a drug mule on her way back to the dorms, expecting every second to be stopped and strip-searched for contraband. She'd left the office as unsuspicious-looking as she possibly could, but as she hadn't been able to re-lock the drawer, he'd know that someone had been in there. Would he guess it was her? There wasn't really anyone else it could be. She'd see him in class tomorrow. Would he curse her out in front of everybody?

She was so distracted that she barely got back to her room, whereupon she wandered in a circle and then finally decided to place her usual Sunday-afternoon phone call to her parents, hoping she didn't sound too much like she was strung out on meth.

Her dad picked up on the second ring. He must have recognized her number on the caller ID, as his voice was warm. "Well hello there, college girl! How are you?"

"Hey, Dad." Emma sat down on her bed, letting her head drop with a thunk against the wall. She waited until her mom had gotten on the extension, as she knew they'd be waiting to hear all about her first week of classes, and did a creditable job at sounding normal as she filled them in on as many details as she thought they needed to know. For their part, they had nothing much to report, which was as she'd expected. Storybrooke, Maine wasn't exactly a party-a-minute. Or a party-an-hour or even a party-a-year.

At the end of the conversation, however, she screwed up her courage and tried to sound casual. "Hey… so. There's something I was just wondering if you could look into for me."

"Yes, hon?"

Emma couldn't think of any way to ask without this making them suspect something was up (of which, after all, they would be quite correct). "Do you happen to know if Mr. Gold was ever married?"

"Mr…" David Nolan was plainly stumped. "Not as far as I've ever heard. Why?"

"I… it came up in a conversation. Somebody thinks they knew his ex-wife, and it just took me by surprise. Small world, and all that. You, uh, don't need to mention this to him or anything. I got the feeling it was kind of a touchy subject."

"Sure, I guess," her dad said. "Is there a name?"

"I guess it would be Milah?" Emma was fairly sure that was the name Professor Jones had said. "Milah Gold? I'm going to look into it myself, actually."

"Just for the heck of it?"

"Favor. For a friend."

"All right…" It was her mother's turn to sound dubious, and Emma didn't blame her. "Well, have a good week, honey. We'll talk to you soon, okay?"

"Okay." That could have been worse, at least. She killed the call with her thumb and tossed the phone onto her pillow. Then she got up, switched on her desk lamp, and opened her laptop.

A few Google searches for "milah gold" turned up nothing: no professional references or social media, no pictures, no resume, no obituary. Emma went to the Social Security Administration website and wondered if she should file a request for information, or if they even gave out that kind of stuff to civilians. But she didn't think Professor Jones had been making it all up; the look of pain in his eyes was very real. Unless it was A Beautiful Mind situation or something, and he was a troubled academic genius who went around talking to imaginary people.

"Shit," Emma said aloud, sitting back in her chair, after half an hour of increasingly fruitless searching. "You are a mystery, aren't you?"

It was, to say the least. Out of a whim, she opened a new tab and ran a search on "Killian Jones," which turned up a page from Trinity in Dublin and an unused LinkedIn account. Clearly, the guy had to have credentials from somewhere; he had a job and a degree, after all. But maybe he was also one of those paranoid people who tried to live "off the grid."

Or maybe someone was after him. And maybe he knew it.

Someone like, say, Robert Gold.

Emma accomplished nothing useful for the remainder of the day, except fifty pages of the reading she was supposed to have done in time for class tomorrow. When Wendy returned that evening from whatever exciting way she had spent the day, she enquired if Emma still needed her to canvas Professor Jones for information, and seemed somewhat disappointed when Emma hastily informed her that she had handled it. After this, of course, she tried to press for details, but Emma made noises about rethinking the plan and waiting to see what happened and other such foofaraw. If she did get expelled tomorrow, she hoped Wendy wouldn't hate her for lying.

The swan necklace was hidden in an innermost pocket of her backpack, where nobody would find it unless they were prepared to take the thing apart. It crossed her mind to wonder just what he'd thought he was going to do with it. Or if there was more to it than it seemed. A clue, or a stolen puzzle piece. Her curiosity really was going to kill her one of these days.

It was still snowing, so rather than trek across campus for dinner, Emma raided her minifridge for crackers, cheese spread, and a few crumbled Oreos. Then she set her alarm for the next morning, crawled into bed, and lay awake long after Wendy was asleep, staring at the ceiling.

There were four unread text messages from Neal when she woke up the next morning and rolled out of bed, none of which she felt like answering; she was still somewhat upset with him for acting like such a flake, and Wendy's questions had taken root in her, making her seriously wonder just how much slack she was prepared to cut him, and what it might be dangerous to keep turning a blind eye to. Sheltered and protected, an only child raised by loving parents in a quiet, postcard-perfect New England town, Emma had never learned the need to suspect the worst of people; everyone in her world was inherently trustworthy, could probably be relied upon in a crisis, and even if they messed up, deserved the benefit of the doubt. She'd given a long leash to all of Neal's foibles for this very reason. But a new voice was in her head, asking why. Asking if she wanted to carry on like that.

Emma shut it out, decided to see if Neal was at Hillside later as he usually was, and judge for herself if they really needed to have The Talk about Their Relationship (if so, it might be better not to do it in public). In the meantime, though her entire stomach felt like ice water from nervousness, it was time to face the music.

She somehow made it to class on time, sat in the very back row, kept her head down as Professor Jones entered the room, and suffered through the lecture, scribbling desultory notes. After all this, she almost wanted him to confront her, but the rest of her hoped dearly that this was just an aberration and would be smoothed over, to go away and never be thought of again.

When class was over, she shut her notebook and stuffed it into her backpack, preparing to make a break for it. But he caught her eye over the chattering students, many of whom liked to hang around longer than they strictly needed to, and jerked his head.

Dreading it – and yet, weirdly thrilled – she edged up, and waited as unobtrusively as was possible when she felt as if a giant strobe light was shining down on her, until they were alone, and he shut the door smartly behind the last giggling freshman. She saw him reach for the lock, and she saw him turn it.

If he was into chainsaws, she had made a horrible mistake.

"Miss Nolan," he said quietly, grimly. "I see we need to talk."