brows, nose, and lips, that Somers prayed they never got too close to a microwave—or anything with a magnet, for that matter. He traded glances with a huge guy wearing a muumuu, and the guy, who was probably twenty, eyeballed Somers’s shirt briefly and gave him double thumbs up. Somers passed a gaggle of girls in what he guessed was an anime-influenced take on Victorian apparel, complete with parasols. A guy with a bad dye job and a panda shirt? Hell, he was probably dressed more conservatively than the dean.
The main doors to the Chem building were unlocked, and Somers made his way through the halls without seeing anyone. It was easy enough to get to the building’s basement; the door at the top of the stairs wasn’t locked either, and he headed down before his luck ran out.
Fluorescent tubes were mounted on the walls, and they gave the basement hallway a flickering yellow glow. The linoleum was off-white and covered in skid marks left by cheap casters; one of the carts with the offending wheels was pushed up against the wall, loaded with tools, small pieces of drywall, spackle, and mesh screens—somebody had been repairing drywall. Behind one of the locked doors, some piece of machinery chugged to life with a lot of shrieking and thumping. Whatever it was, Somers figured somebody should probably take a look at it soon.
He made his way down the hallway, passing locked doors that led to supply rooms and storage spaces, each assigned to various departments that used the Chem building. As he left the machine behind, the quiet grew until it seemed to devour each footstep. His blood buzzed in his ears. The last time he had come here, he had been with Hazard. He remembered, when they got to the sub-basement, Hazard stopping him, saying something bullshit and macho about not ever letting Somers get hurt. Today, though, Hazard wasn’t here. Today, Hazard was, Christ, hopefully somewhere safe.
Today, Somers was going to have to face the Keeper himself. He still couldn’t wrap his head around Dulac being the killer, although so many things that had seemed strange over the last year now made sense: his obsession with Somers, the collection of photographs, the strangely aggressive sexual commentary. When Somers tried to think about it, the pain was too intense. He had liked Dulac, in spite of all his faults. He had trusted him. And worst of all, he had been a fool. Now it was time to make things right.
Somers could hear, in his mind, what Hazard would say about that: he’d talk about Die Hard. He’d talk about the toxic mythology of the lone hero, the over-developed masculine ego, hell, he’d probably slip something in there about penis envy, although Somers had a penis, so he wasn’t really sure how Hazard would connect the dots. He knew, at a gut level, that Hazard would tell him he was doing something stupid. The lone hero, that was fine for books and movies, it was fine when it was just a story. Hazard would tell him to be smart, place an anonymous call, let the police check out the sub-basement.
But Dulac—the Keeper—had fucked with Somers’s life. Somers couldn’t turn to the police because he was now a wanted fugitive. Sure, an anonymous tip might work. But it might not. The Keeper had slipped away from the last murders; Somers didn’t want to leave any opportunity for the Keeper to slip away again. And this asshole, no matter how tricky he was, wouldn’t expect Somers. Right now, this asshole was probably patting himself on the back, pleased that he had Somers on the run, so proud of himself for framing Somers and disrupting the investigation. So Somers was going to handle this himself, while he still had the advantage of surprise. And the rest of it, the drugs, they’d figure out once the Keeper was in custody.
He had reached the door to the sub-basement, secured by a heavy padlock. This was the part where things got tricky. If Somers had been Hazard, he would have had a plan—for that matter, if Somers were Hazard, he would have just used a bump key or picked the lock or known how to jimmy the door off its hinges. Somers wasn’t Hazard, though. He’d come this far, and now he just had to figure out how to get the rest of the way.
If worse came to worst, Somers thought, he could always try to break the