Free Shadows of Fire by Nina Pierce

point of obsessive order or systematic clutter. It
appeared Professor Morgan fit the latter category. Files, periodicals and books
were strewn about on the floor, chairs, and shelves. The desk in front of him
was cluttered as well with a mess of notebooks and papers surrounding a
computer monitor. The only organization seemed to be on the bookcases standing
on either side of the window on the opposite wall. Textbooks and, he assumed, research
materials, marched neatly across the shelves. His cheeks puffed as he exhaled
in frustration. The proverbial needle lay somewhere among these stacks.
    The
answer had to be here. Glenn only wished he knew the question.
    What
he did know, aside from the fact the professor was one of a handful of humans
who knew of the existence of vampires, was that he’d found no evidence of
wrongdoing by Alex in the charred remains of the professor’s mansion. Glenn had
snuck in after everyone had left, sifting through the debris throughout the
morning.
    Passionate
people like the professor didn’t go through life without a mission. And though
Glenn didn’t know the man well enough to know what pushed him out of bed
every morning, he had no doubt proof of the professor’s life work existed .
He also suspected the man wouldn’t chance leaving the only copy of that passion
to be destroyed. Somewhere, there was more evidence and he would find it
himself and obliterate everything that might indict Alex. Then Glenn would help
her fix whatever damage she’d done and restart her life.
    He’d
done it once before—he’d do it again.
    Glenn
stared at the computer. Over the years he’d become a master hacker. It was a
time-consuming venture at best and not something he wanted to deal with at the
moment. He’d taken the burnt hard drive from the professor’s computer at the
mansion. Even though he didn’t have the expertise to deal with that, Glenn had
simply not wanted to make it available to anyone else. If he couldn’t find
anything in this mess, he’d take this computer with him and hope the answers
revealed themselves in Morgan’s computer files.
    Removing
his sunglasses, Glenn stared at the office, trying to think like a professor.
Of all the professions he’d had over his five centuries, teaching had not been
one of them. But scientists were linear thinking creatures, surely he could
manage logic. Surveying the cramped quarters, Glenn tried to see consistency in
the randomness. The books on the shelves were the only ordered part of the
room. He’d start there.
    Leaping
over four stacks of magazines and the desk, Glenn wondered how the professor
had navigated the crowded space. With a careful eye he read the bindings of the
books. An hour later, as the afternoon shadows lengthened, Glenn found what
he’d been searching for. Three quarters of the way through the fourth set of
shelves, a couple of feet above the floor, it glared at him like a neon beer sign
in the forest. It was so cleverly hidden in the open, if he hadn’t been
searching with an eye to inconsistencies, he wouldn’t have tripped upon it.
    Pulling
out the new copy of the John Grisham novel, tucked neatly among well-worn
chemistry tomes, Glenn ran his fingers reverently over the embossed title— The
Innocent Man . He had no doubt the title held not only irony, but some dark
secret. He inhaled, praying whatever he found wouldn’t lead to Alex, but knowing
deep in his gut that it would.
    Glenn
opened the cover, finding nothing but a generic inscription from the author
himself. But several pages in, right at the end of Chapter Two, the story stopped
and so did his heart. Lying neatly in a ragged hole sawed through the pages
were a key and a Greyhound bus schedule.
    He
shoved both into his pocket and replaced the book on the shelf, careful not to
make it stand out. Glenn had no delusions he was the only one searching for the
professor’s secrets.
    Obviously
the man had been killed trying to keep them hidden.
    * * * *
    “So if