Grey Dawn by Clea Simon Page B

tonight.’ Unless, she wondered, the little cat was trying to tell her something. ‘What do you mean, “culpable”?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’ Chris was sounding tired, and Dulcie realized he was less interested in the details of the attack than in her own welfare. ‘Maybe she was involved with him, too. Or, hey, with her room-mate. Stranger things have happened.’
    Either way, it was important – and it echoed what Trista had said, too. ‘Well, there’s nothing like that holding me up,’ she decided. ‘I’m going to talk to Rogovoy first thing tomorrow. I’ve got to make sure he knows what’s going on.’
    Silence on the other end of the line. ‘Chris?’
    Chris’s sigh was audible. ‘Dulcie, do you have to? I mean, I think you did the right thing – urging this girl to come forward. You were right. She should have. But, well, she didn’t. And now it really is sounding like it was something personal. Not some stray madman on the streets of Cambridge. I know you want to be a responsible member of the community. But maybe, Dulce, leave this one alone?’
    â€˜Hmm.’ Dulcie took another bite of cereal. It was soggy now.
    â€˜Dulcie?’ Behind him, the voices had grown louder. Chris must really be worried if he ignored his students for this long.
    â€˜I won’t get in the middle of it.’ She gave him that. ‘I won’t go to the police.’ Dulcie meant that as a clarification, not an addition. She had plans.
    She also had a question of her own. ‘Chris, when I told you that another woman had been attacked, you said you knew it. What did you mean?’
    â€˜I didn’t – I don’t remember.’ He was stammering. ‘Hey, I should go. I’ve got students.’
    â€˜Chris Sorensen.’ Dulcie used her best teacher voice. ‘You’re hiding something, aren’t you?’
    â€˜I’m sorry, Dulcie. I didn’t mean to.’ A pause, and Dulcie knew he was considering how much to tell her.
    â€˜Chris?’
    â€˜It was Mr Grey, Dulcie.’ He was speaking softly, his voice muffled as if he had his hand over the phone. ‘At least, I’m pretty sure it was. I heard, well, I thought I heard a cry or a howl, or something, and then I heard his voice.
“Innocence is no protection,”
he said.
“This goes back too far.’’’

SIXTEEN
    â€˜I nnocence is no protection.’ Dulcie mulled that one over. It could, she thought, apply to the kitten. No matter what Raleigh – or Lloyd or Trista – believed, she was determined that the little marmalade tabby was not going to fall into the wrong hands. Maybe Thorpe was blameless – she had a hard time thinking of him as innocent – but she wasn’t going to take any chances. And as for the rest of it? That bit about ‘going back too far’? Well, that would fit if the crime was personal – a ‘domestic,’ as Rogovoy had put it. Or it could have another meaning as well.
    Sitting at the table, Dulcie stroked the closed lid of her laptop. This story, with its mysterious stranger, was drawing her in. Could it be connected, in some way. Could the stranger …?
    She laughed at her own fancy. ‘Esmé, I really shouldn’t drink sherry,’ she called. The cat had disappeared, however, leaving Dulcie to finish her cereal alone. She really should go to bed, she knew. But while she was eating …
    Only the Stranger sat unmoved by the fiendish Cries. Only he retained a preternatural calm. Outside, the horses frothed and tossed their manes, eyes wide and frantic in the night, while the Coachman – that dark figure whose Visage lay concealed – whipped and cursed his Fury into the night.
    â€˜You have far to go.’ The Voice, as soft as Velvet, reached her ear, as if by one Whisper’d by her side. ‘You bear a burden of Debt to