Page 18 of Nora
His eyes bored into hers. “Are you in danger?”
She cocked her head at the question. “No,” she said, drawing the word out.
His eyes remained fixed on hers, then he gave a sharp nod. “If you are, despite everything, I hope you know you can count on me.”
She nodded. “Thank you. I don’t anticipate needing any, but I appreciate the offer.” In truth, she wasn’t sure he could be counted on for much of anything other than training the dogs. Not that he was flaky, but there were other things on his mind.
His eyes narrowed, but then softened. He looked as if he was going to say something more, but she cut him off. “Thank you for bringing me dinner.”
A beat passed. “You’re welcome,” he said, then abruptly, he turned and left.
Nora remained rooted to her spot until his door shut across the hallway. Then, letting out a deep breath, she picked up her plate and crossed the room to the closet—not the beautiful armoire, but one built into the wall with two sliding doors. Pushing one of the sliders to the left, she eyed the large satellite map of the area—compliments of Franklin—that she’d tacked up.
Taking a seat on her bed, she started to pick at her dinner as she familiarized herself with the region. The image showed everything within a twenty-mile radius of the training center. She’d drawn three circles on the laminated map. The first was around the training center itself, the second was a ten-mile radius from the center. And the last outlined the fifteen-mile radius.
Eight of the nine prior murders had occurred between ten and fifteen miles from the training location. Eyeing the ring, she noted there wasn’t much inside it—two very small towns on the northern side, several farms, and a state park. Roads bisected it in different locations, but it was a remarkably rural stretch of land.
Her gaze drifted to the inner ring between the ten-mile radius line and the border of the training center. It was different from the larger ring. It was still rural, but it also contained three decent-sized towns, a small university, another state park, and a monastery. Business parks and strip malls also lined a few of the state highways that transected the area.
Staring at the poster, she started to wonder about the earlier murders. All but the first had taken place more than ten but less than fifteen miles from the training grounds. But was that as the crow flies or as one might drive? If it were the latter, her area of interest might be much different from what was currently circled on the map.
Frowning, she set aside her half-eaten vegetarian cassoulet and rose. When she stood in front of the image, she pulled out her phone and mapped one of the towns in the inner circle. Her heart sank when she saw the directions pop up on her tiny screen. As the crow flies, the town of Plainfield was only three miles away. By car, it was just over ten.
Retrieving her computer, she pulled up the files from the prior murders. Analyzing the data against a map of each area, she realized that the distances Franklin had mentioned were driving distances. Not geographic distances.
She set her computer to the side and approached the map again. Measuring by driving distance changed her entire perspective. The outer line was still her border, but the line marking the ten-mile radius was no longer relevant. There were too many places between the training center and that line that met the criteria when looking at driving distances.
She winced as the impact of that realization sank in. Her search area just got a lot bigger and, given the twisty roads in this rural part of the state, a lot more complicated. On a whim, she mapped out the driving distance to the college. Eleven miles. If she could fly there, it would be seven. The monastery was similar. It was less than three miles away, but driving there was a twelve-mile trip.
The sound of Lucian’s door opening and closing again pulled her attention from the map. After his exposure to the cold the night before, she didn’t think he’d be going out. But was he actually going to the lounge to socialize? The thought piqued her curiosity, and she considered heading down herself. Then just as quickly, she quelled that impulse. It was nearly nine o’clock. She hadn’t promised Andrew anything, but she had every intention of running with him and his group in the morning. They’d been a wealth of information about the grounds. Pointing out the good, the bad, and the ugly as they’d run the perimeter. She suspected they’d be a wealth of information about local hangouts, too, and she had every intention of chatting them up about it tomorrow so that she could recon the spots over her lunch break. There was no guarantee that the participants would pick one of those locations when they did decide to go out, but being familiar with them couldn’t hurt.
Which meant she needed to get to bed early tonight. With a sigh, she slid the closet door over to cover the map, then picked up her phone and texted Willa.
“Joining the run tomorrow?”Nora asked.
“Was planning on it,”she responded.
“Great, see you downstairs at five.”
“Want me to come grab your plate and bring it down to the kitchen?”
Nora frowned, somewhat surprised at the offer.“You don’t need to do that,”she answered.
“I’m out on a short walk with Hagen. We can pop up when we get back. He’ll appreciate the new smells.”Nora smiled at that.“Besides, I get the feeling you’d rather not walk through the crowd in the lounge. They’re used to me not joining them. If I walk by without stopping, they won’t even notice.”
Lucian would notice, but Nora didn’t feel like thinking about that.“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate it. I want to get a good night’s sleep and have a feeling if I take it down myself, I might not make it back for a few hours.”
“You have no idea,”Willa said.“Be there in ten mins.”
Nora set her phone down and let her gaze drift around her room. There was nothing out of the ordinary for Willa to see.
Nothing to indicate that Nora knew there was a murderer among them.
CHAPTERNINE
“Doyou want to see the gym?” Lucian asked as they walked back from the training ground to the residence hall for lunch. Flurries swirled around them, making Nora feel as if she were inside a snow globe. It was the first snowfall of the season, but it wouldn’t be enough to stick.Thatstorm would come in a week. If the forecasters were to be believed, which in Massachusetts wasn’t always the best bet to make.
“I can find the gym later. No need to show me,” Nora replied. She wasn’t about to tell him that she didn’t have time because she was going to recon sites a murderer might find his or her victims.
