Chapter 1
The basement office was starting to get to him. He looked around and wondered if this was his life now as he could smell the dankness with the musty scent that was in the hallways as well. He was one of the best the newspapers had called him. They had said he was the one to get the case closed. That was how his supervisors had put out the call to every station in the country. He was an asset to be used. He felt like a used tissue or one of the handkerchiefs that the older generation used over and over.
He felt like he was used. There was no getting around that fact. He was burning out quickly between the two things he was currently doing. Things were getting rough. Things were getting lonely as well. He knew what he wanted out of life, but a detective who could hunt any clue and find the most hidden facts couldn't figure out how to get a girlfriend. He knew he had problems. He just didn’t know how to work around those problems. It was the same day every day, no matter what.
Max Anderson rested his head on his arm as he leaned into the desk. He knew he had made some sacrifices for his jobs. He hoped he hadn't ruined all of his life in choosing this pathway. As he looked around the office, he knew he wanted to go out and work in the field this weekend. He honestly needed to get out of the office and outside doing something other than grading papers. Some fresh air to stimulate his blood was needed. He needed to use his skills other than going over files for others.
All the students were the same. He had been doing this for four years now. He was working the two different things in being a professor and super detective, according to everyone who talked about him. He certainly didn't feel that way. Max knew that he wasn't all that much older than most of the students when he started this new journey. He had started when he was twenty-four. No one had really thought he would go as far as he had. Most of all him. Max had shocked himself more than anyone he had met along the way. They all assumed that he would do great things.
He was surprised from the moment he came back from overseas. He had lost part of the use in his arm. Therefore, he wasn't useful to the army any longer. However, as he worked to build up the muscles in his arm again, he was able to get the use back. He had already been discharged, so while in college, he applied for the police academy. He went through the schools and then worked his way through the ranks rather quickly. It was a small district. So as people retired from it, he could move up. Then at Twenty-five, he was in charge of the entire department. He was known as the one who could get things done. People knew despite his age, he would be the future of the force.
His supervisors all saw that he was good. He was even more than he thought he was. It was time to use that to the benefit of everyone in the area. When they brought up the idea of using him as the newest professor, he jumped at it. He had a lot of input in the program from basically rewriting it from the other manuals he had seen that didn't really ever get used. He wrote his own instead starting from scratch.
As the professor, the first year he had made up his mind, there had to be a few lines he couldn't cross. He would never date a student though he had seen a few of the professors do just that for a few favors in changing the grades. The professors, when they met, would often talk about the young female students. It almost turned his stomach. To regard these young women as nothing more than pieces of meat who could get the older men off was disgusting. He would never say he didn’t look at the women. He was male, after all. He could admire the female form without being a perv about it.
He needed a break. He got up and stretched his long legs and stretched. He decided to go get a breath of fresh air. He walked up the back stairs that were down the long dark hallway that nearly half of the lights never had worked in the time he had been there. He continued up the stairs and out the door that was there in front of them. He propped open the door so he didn't have to fish out his keys.
That was when he spotted the lone female in the field looking up to the sky. He knew who she was without thought. She was the one student he had ever thought of as something more than just a student. Though he knew that could never really happen. He had tried to push her out of his thoughts but even when he had tried to move on, and he had run into her over and over again.
Now was no different, he thought. She was like a small little fairy that was always around when he needed to steady himself and think about the next move he was going to make, either for work or his life. He decided to just watch her off to the side of the building. He would be concealed for the most part. That way, whatever she was doing, she wouldn't be embarrassed if he saw her.
She had an issue talking to him. When she was his student, there had been an incident early on in the year. She had wanted to say something to him, but she froze. That was when another person came into the room, and he looked away, and she bolted out of the room. He had watched her ever since. She was nearly perfect even though she was young.
She was stunningly beautiful, but he thought she had no idea. He had watched her over the years as she grew as a person. The school had not broken her in any way, and she had instead stayed busy and kept to herself. She was the smartest of the that year as well. He knew he could watch her for years and never get tired of it. She was the one woman who had gotten under his skin and stayed there.
The fact she had helped him with one of the hardest cases he had that year, as well as something he couldn't get over. He knew he was stunted when it came to dating. He didn't trust women. Most women, that was. All stemming from his first real date. That had gone horrible. He knew he had to get over it. He didn't know how, though.
She was staring at something in the sky. Max watched the tiny elfin woman in the field. She didn't seem to notice that someone was there watching her. He could feel the cool air fill his lungs, and it felt so much better than being in the office. However, now that he saw her again, he knew he would be full of images of her over the past few years for the next few weeks.
He knew he was never going to be able to fight himself on the idea of her being perfect, though. She was simply that. She had grown over the past few years. He closed his eyes and wished for her to be happy one day. That was all he could really do. He did hope one day she could find someone who would keep her on that pedestal he had placed her on. She deserved that much in life.
He watched her from his spot against the building until she walked away from the field. He sighed with the loss of her being close but not that close. He had to wonder what she was actually doing there at night. He turned his wrist to look at the time. It wasn't that late, but it was dark. He wanted to go after her though he knew he couldn't. Instead, he turned and went back inside. He let the door close behind him. Max hated the idea of this one person so close but not close enough.She was so much more than he deserved in life. Though she seemed to be there and trying to do big things as well. He sighed as he thought of her finding any other person but him. He could only have her in daydreams. Though he would never, not even to himself, admit how much he really wanted her.Deanna Watson was everything he wanted in life. He would try to forget her. Though as he made the way to his office, he could only see her in his mind.
Gigi flew out of her seat and after him. She was through the doors and almost to his car before he was. She leveled a stare at him that made him want to laugh. "Where the hell do you think you are going?" she demanded as she nearly wobbled from the high heels, she was wearing and stomping her foot so hard. Max had to believe no one had ever turned her down for a night of fun. He could see why but that wasn't what he wanted. He didn't want the shiny showpiece that everyone around him might have wanted. He knew her type. The bunnies, as they had been nicknamed, only wanted to be with a cop or someone in law enforcement. He wanted someone who wanted to be with him. It didn't seem like that would be all that hard to find, but someone it was."I told you that I don't think this is working out. I was rather nice in the restaurant, and I think pretty clear. I don't like wasting time, though." Max said."How do you know what I can do for you?" she a
As he got to his office at the university, he was really feeling it everywhere on how he was exhausted. He didn't want to do anything as he sat in the teacher's parking lot near the building he worked at. That was one of the only perks of the job. The other was he was getting really good at finding the right combo of pain relievers to get rid of headaches. The younger people seemed to bring them on in droves. He enjoyed working on a mostly unsolvable case much more, and the headaches often were fixed the minute he put the puzzle together. He had never thought he was good at puzzles either, but he had proven that he could see things and know things about human behavior that helped in his line of work.He started to get a phone call on his work cell, and he pulled it out of his jacket. "Anderson." He said into the speaker."Max." a male voice said that he knew well."What do you want, Paulin?" Max laughed.
When he looked at the file he had picked up, he didn’t recognize the name on it. He then opened it and saw the first report. A name he knew from the past was there. He shook his head and tried to clear it. He must be projecting this somehow. He had thought of her earlier in the night. That had been a first in a long time. Though he ignored the thoughts most of the time. He could find something to distract himself easily. This was the one person he never wanted to think of again. This was the one person he hated on the planet. This was the woman who had taken his life away from him.This woman was dead.The pictures were her. She hadn’t changed that much. It was easy to see her again still in his mind. He looked at the name again. She must have gotten married because the name was different on this one file. His department
He drove to his house that he had thought might be the answer for him to cure his boredom. He had thought that maybe one day it would be the best place to come back to after a long day at work. However, it was still empty. It was quiet. It had none of the things that he wanted to be there, there.He had blamed all of his issues on one thing. It was the fact he didn’t know how to trust women. He had seen the things that they had done to him and other men when they didn’t get their way. He knew all women were not like that. Reasoning with himself didn’t help. It was the same for men. Not all men were horrible and rapists, but it was far easier to believe a woman and let the damage be done to the man’s life. It was a sad fact of life.When he tossed off his jacket and then knew he had to hang it up. He had only a few good jackets to wear along
Tossing and turning all night when he woke up, he didn’t want to get out of his bed. However, he knew that he had a class in an hour. He rolled out of bed and looked down to the ground, and picked up the towel on the floor. He then moved to the bathroom to begin his morning shaving. Though he normally would get a cup of coffee first, he was already going to be dragging throughout the day. It was pointless to start off with the coffee, he thought.After he cut himself three times, he gave up. Luckily it didn’t look all that bad. He then removed a shirt from the hanger and grabbed a tee shirt and a pair of boxers. As he started to dress, he took the pair of pants that were in the front of the house, which he had not worn the day before. He then looked at his shirt and saw that he had buttoned everything wrong. He shook his head an
Max started to go over the folder point by point for the class. Though he noticed that he was having some issues speaking because of his burnt tongue. He wanted to laugh at himself. His glasses now on his face though he normally didn’t need them. His headache from not sleeping well the night before was already throbbing. His mouth hurt. His face felt like it was in ribbons. He shin was killing him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that more was headed his way.Every second was lasting forever. It was like time wasn’t moving at all. He was halfway through the folder when the fire alarm went off for the building. He looked up, and then he nodded, “Go outside and wait by the light by the field. Make sure to check in with me.”He had to check in with each of them after they went outside. Everyone didn’t listen about leavi
When the building was cleared for everyone to get their things, a campus-wide alert was sent out as to why people would be late to their classes. Max went into the building and took the stairs up to the hall and then back down to the basement. He overheard the Dean of the department talking about how some of the classes would be changing over the next year.The admin would be reaching out to all the students affected. Max knew what that meant. People would be out three years of work or so. He felt bad for the students. He was wondering what things were going to be cut. He figured it would be something like his classes. The admin had vetoed all the things that he had wanted to do. Though he tried over and over to get his new ideas passed through, nothing seemed to work. He wasn’t good at politics.As Max went to his office and opened it and saw there was no d