HDA - Walking Into Darkness by WintersRose Chapter 5

September 5, 2000

It was Laura who forced Joe to leave awhile later to attend his football practice with Connor and both boys drove with Chet, Samantha and Mandy back to the BU campus to allow Mandy and Samantha to go find Vanessa and for Joe and Connor to go to football practice. Practice didn't go well for Joe. The whole time he tried to work out or run plays, he heard his own words in his hears, saw his brother not looking at him, but right past him. He heard his own promise and saw Professor Tylange, his anger-ridden face looking a lot angrier than it needed to be.

"All right," Joe said to Connor as they walked back to Tauhausen Hall after football practice, neither of them in a hurry to get to Connor's room and start pouring over the case. "Why is someone threatening and/or trying to kill Frank? And who has access to an unknown powder that is poison to anyone who breathes it?"

Connor shrugged as he thought about the events of the day, starting with registration. Had that really been today? It seemed like an eternity and a half ago, if not longer.

"First, there was the Professor from this morning," Joe continued his out loud line of thought. "And the suspicion that he may have information that he's not supposed to have. Do you have last year's yearbook?"

Connor nodded.

"All right, then we'll look at the faculty pages and see if he's in there. If he's not, tomorrow morning we go by the SU student offices and see if the faculty books are out yet."

Connor nodded in agreement and, by the fact that Connor still looked shell-shocked, Joe suspected that Connor's practice session hadn't gone any better than Joe's.

"What else?" Connor managed to choke out.

"I'm going to talk to 'Nessa about doing some computer work for us," Joe said. "I want to track down that powder bomb. If she can't find the computer records for it, then there aren't computer records for it. And I want her to see if she can find out anything on a computer component that might have been developed in the area."

Connor nodded again, and looked happier that they seemed to have a plan of action.

"Last," Joe said as they opened the doors into the dorm. "Check out the fake blood. It can't all be made the same way, at least I hope it isn't. If you can get an exact chemical make-up of the stuff the note was made from, we might be able to track things that way. Of course, we are only two months away from Halloween, you can probably buy that stuff anywhere, but I'd still like to check out that angle."

"All right," Connor said. "I'll do that as soon as I have lab duty. I think that's tomorrow afternoon, but I'll have to check my schedule."

The boys went up the stairs to their floor and down the hallway to Connor's room. The door was partly open and, when he pushed it open, he could tell that it had been gone over with a fine-toothed comb. Michael jogged down the hallway toward them.

"How's Frank?" he asked.

Joe sighed and turned away to go into Frank and Connor's room. He couldn't talk about it anymore. He was going to snap if he even tried. Connor and Frank's room had been gone over with a fine-toothed comb. Several of Connor's carefully unpacked items of clothing were now laying helter-skelter in the drawers and the bags had been emptied.

"What the...?" Connor muttered as he came into the room behind his friend and stood, open-mouthed at the mess. "What happened?"

"The police," Michael said. "They said they wanted to make sure that there were no other traps in the room. By the way, they want you to stay somewhere else tonight; they said they want to get more evidence later. You can get clothes but you're supposed to leave everything else alone."

Joe was already holding Frank's laptop like it had a permanent connection to his arm and he was grateful, suddenly, to Chet's packing it up. Then he wondered, somewhat sadly, if Frank would ever be able to use it again. It wasn't like Frank would be able to see the screen.

"How's Frank?" Michael asked again, persistently.

"Not good," Connor said, shortly. "Look, can we talk about this later? I need to pack some clothes and my books."

Michael shrugged and turned to go back to his room. Joe sat down on Frank's bed and took a deep breath, trying to reconcile himself with what had happened. He saw puffs of the white powder spread over the thin carpeting on the floor and he reached into his pocket to pull out a tool he carried there to pick some of it up. He pulled out a small plastic bag from another pocket and put the powder into it. He saw Connor throwing some items into an overnight bag; he shoved the powder into that bag and then took out another one to scrap off some of the blood from the message on the mirror. He handed that over to Connor as well who solemnly put it in his bag.

"Let me pack some clothes for Frank," Joe said. "He'll need something to wear home besides a hospital gown."

Connor nodded again. Frank had not unpacked much, not yet. Most of what he brought to the dorms with him still rested inside the suitcases and boxes he brought from his home. Joe opened one of the suitcases and then selected a pair of pants and a shirt, some underclothes and socks and then he carefully packed everything else back into the suitcase and locked it before setting it back down on the floor beside Frank's bed.

An hour later, both boys were sitting in Joe's room, Joe in front of Frank's laptop at Joe's desk and Connor sprawled out on Joe's bed, writing down everything he remembered from the day. He had the white powder in his backpack, as well as the sample from the note on the mirror, ready to run through a variety of machines in the lab the next day. Joe was on-line, searching through computer lists, trying to find out everything he could on computer components. He finally leaned back in his seat and rubbed at his eyes. He shook his head in exasperation.

"I should have paid more attention to Frank and 'Nessa when they were doing this," he commented with a frustrated sigh. "I have no idea what I'm doing. I hope Vanessa has better luck because I have no idea where to look or even what I'm looking for."

Connor looked up at him and sat up on the bed, crossing his legs in front of him. He looked up as the door opened and Joe's roommate walked into the room, stopped as he saw Joe and Connor both present, then shrugged and threw his bag onto his bed. He disappeared into their bathroom and nothing was heard from him for a few minutes. Joe shrugged and turned back to the computer to give it another try and Connor went back to his writing.

"Are you two doing homework already?" Eric asked when he came back into the room. "You haven't had classes yet, have you?"

"Not in the way you think, no," Joe said with a shrug. "But we are working on something."

Eric looked down his nose at them both. Joe ignored him to continue his search of computer components, noting that there were only about forty million or so of them, or so it seemed. He became lost in thought, though he was aware that Connor and Eric were talking in a low drone behind his back. He looked up when he heard his name again.

"C'mon, Joe, what do you think?"

Joe looked up in surprise, suddenly aware that Connor was speaking to him.

"Think about what?" he asked, confused.

"Redskins, Cowboys next Monday night. The pleeb here thinks the Redskins have it sown up. I think the Cowboys may not win any games but the ones with the Redskins. Who do you think is going to win?"

Joe shook his head. "Man, nobody even cares about the Redskins and Cowboys game. We all know the Redskins are going to make mashed potatoes of the Cowboys, though. The Cowboys lost Sanders last year, Aikman has another concussion and the Redskins, if they ever get past the ego-syndrome, have the team to beat this year."

Eric looked dubious. "You know an awful lot about them for teams nobody cares about, Joe."

"You'd have to be dead not to know that," Joe said in return. "Now give me a real football team, like the NY Giants or the Jets or even the Bills and I'll talk football with you."

Eric made a sour face at that.

"The Giants? Man, what planet are you living on, anyway?" Eric, sitting up on his bed, asked. He was not a tall man, only about 5'11", but he looked strong and sturdy. Both Joe and Connor knew that, besides that strength, the freshman running back was also fast! "Nobody roots for the Giants. Their even winning any games this year is all a matter of luck. Have you seen the Jaguars? Now there's a team that has it all together."

"The Jaguars?" Connor protested. "Roberts, what planet are you living on? The Jaguars winning is total luck. If they went up against the Rams, they'd be crying in their soup. I doubt they can even handle Cleveland. "

"Maybe, then again, maybe not," Eric retorted in return. "But, anyway, why did you say you were staying in our room tonight, Connor?" Eric asked, curiously.

Connor and Joe merely looked at each other for a moment, their expressions even. Joe gave Connor a barely imperceptible shake of his head.

"Someone broke the window in my room," Connor said, finally. "Nothing major, they just don't want us to stay there until they get it fixed."

"Where's your brother staying, Joe?" Eric asked. "He's not staying here too, is he?"

Joe shook his head. "No, he's... staying elsewhere. Connor has an early appointment tomorrow. Easier for him to stay here. He'll sleep on the floor."

Joe amazed himself that he was actually able to say all of that with a relatively neutral face when the rest of him wanted to scream in frustration and rant and rave in anger. But Joe barely knew Eric and Joe wasn't about to give away any details for any case to someone he didn't know, not even the fact that Joe's brother was in the hospital.

Eric shrugged at that bit of information and turned back to Connor to continue his conversation. Joe wondered, briefly, if his roommate ever talked about anything other than Football. Eric's half of the room was decorated mostly with posters of various football players, most of them running backs from most of the pro teams, as well as banners from the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Miami Dolphins, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers & the Atlanta Falcons. No wonder the kid was so hung up on the Jaguars, Joe reflected. Joe was living with a Floridian.

Eventually, all three boys began to get ready for bed, though Joe was positive he wouldn't sleep. He still, if he closed his eyes at all, saw Frank getting hit in the face with the powder and he saw Frank looking, not at him, but past him. The whole thing made Joe positively rage inside and woke him up several times before he was finally able to get comfortable.

Finally, however, sleep won out, at least for a few minutes. He woke with a start a few minutes later when he heard something moving near his bed. Joe opened his eyes and saw a shadow over his bed, a shadow that was fully dressed in black from head-to-toe. He sat up just as the man in black flashed a knife and swung it right at his chest!