Dead Waters - Anton Strout [59]
I followed the two students into one of the film studies buildings, thankful that my Department of Extraordinary Affairs ID was enough to get me in during normal school hours, unlike sneaking around the other night. I never knew when it would or wouldn’t work. It never quite held the weight that an actual police shield did around Manhattan. The two freshmen headed deep into the building’s twist of corridors. I kept losing them in my efforts to shadow them as discreetly as I could, and I had to use my psychometry a few times to flash on which way they had gone, but they were quick hits that didn’t flare up any residual anger issues. Before long, I came to a dead-end corridor with only one door marked with a sign that read EDITING SUITE—FILM & SOUND. I paused outside it to collect myself, trying to decide the best approach once I stepped through it. Last night’s conversation at Eccentric Circles had gone fairly well before they had brushed me off. Maybe the role of one of Mason Redfield’s old students would still hold up.
As I opened the door, I hoped it would, anyway. The students seemed nice enough and I wasn’t in the mood to threaten people with my bat, not unless they were something that went bump in the night, anyway.
The editing studio beyond the door was a large, dark, open space lit only by banks of computers along with various decks, boom mikes, speakers, and film equipment. Along the far side of the room was a glass-encased recording booth with a blank movie screen inside it. I thought I might be interrupting a class in session, but then I realized that the only students in the room were the group I had met the other night at the bar. At one of the computer consoles, cameraman Heavy Mike was working on film footage along side Darryl, who, even sitting, was taller than him. All I could see of Elyse was a shock of her blond hair poking above a cushion-covered acoustics screen that had a microphone hanging down into it. George had already set to work even though he had just entered and was sitting at a computer console near me. Trent had his back to me and was in the process of lugging a stack of books and binders across the floor, heading toward George.
“Hey, there,” I said to no one in particular.
Trent spun around, dropping the stack. George gave me a sleepy look from the computer at which he was working. He scratched his bleached shag of punk hair, and then waved. “Hey,” he said, and went back to watching whatever he was working on.
Trent swore under his breath.
“Nervous much?” I asked.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” Trent said. He kneeled down and started gathering up the books and binders.
“Sorry,” I said, crossing to help him.
Elyse came into view from behind the acoustics screen in formfitting jeans and a Les Miserables T-shirt, her eyes intent on Trent and his cleanup efforts.
“Would you watch it, Trent?” she said, storming over, not even noticing me. “Some of that is all we have of the professor’s notes.”
Trent looked up at her. The young freshman looked worried. “Company,” he said, and then nodded his head toward me.
Elyse looked up, surprised to see me there, but her face shifted in an instant to something more collegial. “Oh, hello,” she said, giving me a smile. She snapped her fingers. “Simon, right?”
“Yes,” I said, squatting down to help with the books on the floor.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, quick and abrupt.
“I’m the reason he dropped them,” I said. I didn’t bother to tell her that just hearing they were some of the professor’s personal notes was enough to have me wanting to get my hands on them. His office had been empty of anything personal, after all.
Elyse, however, moved faster than me, dropping down with the agility of a gymnast and scooping up the few books and notebooks Trent hadn’t already reclaimed. I did get a chance to brush my hand against