Free Double-Back (Jake Waters Book 3) by Bob Blink Page A

She'd made an absolute fool of herself at the club, and would have to stay away from that establishment for a long time, but that wasn't important.  None of it had happened.
    She stripped off her ruined clothing, tossing it into the trash, and climbed into the shower where she washed until the hot water ran out.  Climbing out, she grabbed her old, somewhat threadbare robe and wrapped it around herself sans any undergarments.  She made some hot tea, then made her way to her bed where she sat surrounded by a half dozen pillows while she drank the soothing beverage and considered her situation.
    She couldn't imagine what could have produced the horrible images that were still in the back of her brain, but happily they were only that, images.  She wished she knew when they had formed, because she didn't recall any of them before she'd fallen, and she worried that the impact on the floor might have induced them, which meant she might had some kind of head injury she needed to have checked out.  That caused her heart to clench momentarily, and she tried to recall if her head had actually struck the floor.  She simply had been too drunk to remember, but feeling around she found no tender spots.  She was aware that near the back her head throbbed unlike anything she'd ever felt before.  It wasn't the booze.  No matter how drunk she'd gotten in the past, she'd never had that kind of headache.
    The next morning was a Sunday, and she couldn't see going to ER and waiting four hours for someone to take a cursory look at her and then send her home.  Besides, while the dull ache was there, it was far better, and she still couldn't find any tender spots, and decided she hadn't struck her head.  She'd decided to take a couple of aspirin she found in her medical cabinet and delay the decision of whether she'd go in until the next day.
    Monday morning came with the ache still there, but the realization that an important meeting was scheduled that day, and she really couldn't afford to miss it.  By the end of the day the ache had receded to the point she could forget about it.
     
    Two weeks after the drunken event, she was back on campus using the library for research.  Not everything was to be found as easily online as some suspected.  She had found what she wanted in the stacks, and was about to leave when she spotted Professor Morris approaching.  Seeing him recalled the vivid memories that still persisted, and the strange offer he'd made to her in that dream, or whatever it was.  On a whim, and because she genuinely liked the older scholar, she altered her direction so as to intercept him.
    "Professor Morris," she called out as she approached. 
    He looked up as his name was called, and grinned hugely when he spotted her.
    "Natalie," he said fondly, and hurried over to her.  "I thought you were off to the world of business to make your fortune," he said.
    "It's not as great as I thought it would be," she admitted.  "I needed to look something up in the library.  How about you?  Are you still teaching?  I thought you planned on retiring last year."
    "I did.  I did," he said, his white haired head bobbing slightly as he spoke.  "Like you, I needed to look something up."
    The Professor paused, and seemed to consider something, then looked at her curiously.
    "You aren't happy with your work?" he asked.
    "It is far less challenging than I expected," Natalie admitted.  "I had hoped to have more responsibility and more control over the kinds of things I investigated."
    "It'll take a couple of years to prove yourself," the Professor warned.  "Eventually, with your intelligence and ability, they'll see it is best to give you more latitude."
    "Maybe so," she agreed.  "I'm just impatient I guess."
    The Professor was scribbling something on a scrap of paper, which he handed to her when he was finished.
    "That's my address and phone number," he said.  "I have something that I could really use some help with.  You might be just