Character Sketch

Chapter 10 - Bodyguard

Chapter 10


Bodyguard





The morning sunlight warmed the lobby of Healy Hall. The television droned in the lounge area, playing to empty couches and chairs. The attendant sat behind her desk the reflected light of her computer screen washing out the color of her face. Officer Allen stood beside Kaitlin as she looked out the window at the cool crisp January day.


Breakfast shift had sent Elizabeth off in the early morning hours accompanied by their mother who, after dropping Elizabeth at the student union building, would make the four hour drive to be at work back in their home town.


The radio crackled on Officer Allen’s belt.


“Pete, where are you?”


The policeman turned his head toward his left shoulder and brought his right hand up to press the speak button on the microphone attached to his epaulet.


“I’m in the lobby of Healy Hall with Miss Moore waiting for her brother.”


“You have Miss Moore in sight?”


“Yes, she’s standing right beside me.”


“They found another girl this morning,” the voice on the radio said.


“Elizabeth!” Kaitlin shouted.


“No, we have verified the location of both the mother and sister. We have an officer on the way to the student union building to stay with the sister, Elizabeth and an officer from Chambers County is waiting at Mrs. Moore’s place of employment for when she arrives.”


“Do you want me to keep Miss Moore at this location?” Officer Allen asked.


“As long as someone will be with her at all times and we can reach her, she can go on to class.”


“The girl?” Kaitlin asked.


She’s at the hospital, battered but still conscious. Apparently the attacker tried to hide her down a drainage ditch. This girl had a lot of pluck and dragged herself out where someone spotted her this morning.” The radio crackled.


Jake’s jeep pulled up in front of the lobby doors.


“The boys are here I’ll fill them in,” said Officer Allen.


“You be very careful today, Miss Moore,” the voice on the radio admonished.





The jeep smelled of sausage biscuits and warm chocolate. Kaitlin’s stomach growled as Officer Allen leaned in through the window on the passenger side taking down Kaitlin’s schedule and the cell phone numbers of both boys. Jake insisted on driving them to the Douglas building where her English Lit. Class met. Kaitlin argued that it would only take ten minutes to walk to the class from the dorms and it would take at least fifteen minutes to drive with all the traffic. Jake told her to shut up, buckle up and eat up. Michael laughed.


The rich hot coca sent a shiver through her as it warmed her inside. The sausage biscuit was just fast food but tasted delicious.


“This seems pretty soon for another attack. Do you think it’s the same guy or a copycat?” Kaitlin asked.


The picture of some poor girl crawling her way out of the drainage ditch swam through Kaitlin’s mind.


“With the threats he’s made to you, I would guess it’s the same guy. It seems like he’s working up to something or he’s feeling cornered because we are getting too close,” Jake answered.


“I wish I had time to visit Melissa in the hospital today. Any news about her condition?” Kaitlin asked.


“Nothing since last night,” Jake replied.


As they pulled up in front of the Douglas building Kaitlin looked down at her watch. She tapped the face and looked at Jake. His eyebrows raised and eyes wide, the look of complete innocence.


“If we run I may only be ten minutes late.”


“Bye beautiful see you at eleven o’clock sharp.”





The news of the morning swirled around in Kaitlin’s head as she tried to listen to the professor’s discussion on Jane Eyre’s first encounter with Mr. Rochester on Hay Lane. The campus attacker had a busy night, the baseball through her bedroom window and then mugging another coed. The interval since the last attack was less than a week. He was trying to scare her; it had become personal for him. His activities were escalating and she seemed to be the catalyst. Kaitlin turned her head to look back at Michael who had his head in a book. Some bodyguard, she thought.


Jake was another issue. She could confront him about his flirtatious behavior or just enjoy the attention but keep her barriers up. She was a non-entity in most of her classes just another body but if he started attending class with her that would change. She like her anonymity.


Kaitlin was almost certain her mother would now insist she come home until the attacker was apprehended. This semester would be a wash and she may loose her scholarship. If this lunatic was bent on hurting Kaitlin what was to say she would be any safer at home.


The professor asked a question Kaitlin had not heard. She looked down at her battered copy of Jane Eyre. The pages in some sections had come loose and would flutter to the floor if she did not keep a respectful hold on the tome. She had read this novel for the first time her junior year of high school at her mother’s recommendation. The story had enthralled and captivated her motivating her to watch the various movie versions. She had fallen in love with Timothy Dalton as Mr. Rochester.


The great romance novel of its day became tainted for Kaitlin the summer after graduation. Leah, a classmate, lived on the same street as the Moore’s. Leah’s mother had remarried the summer before and had quickly become pregnant. After the baby was born rumors began to surface and within a few months Leah now eighteen had moved out of the house and into a trailer with her stepfather.


Suddenly all the machinations of Edward Rochester took on a sinister tone because Kaitlin could not help thinking of them in terms of her friend Leah.


Class ended and Kaitlin realized she missed the whole lecture.





Biology was interminable and was followed by the call she had been dreading from her mother who had insisted she and Elizabeth come home tonight. The conversation had not gone well and had ended in a standoff. When Kaitlin walked toward her Biology lab the crowd around the classroom door testified of Jake’s presence.


“I’ll meet you back here at one o’clock.” Kaitlin told Michael.


“Call me if your plans change.” Michael gave her a reassuring pat on the back.


Katie made it through the door and into the classroom past the ‘Jake Perry fan club’. She noted it was the usual sort, other athletes and beautiful girls. She scooted up on her stool by her lab table and took out the notebook she used to take notes for this lab.


Her mood was dark and she forced herself not to turn around and look for Jake. Her skin prickled as she felt him come up behind her.


“Weren’t you even going to say hello?” He asked.


“I haven’t received my membership card yet.” She wished she could pull the words back as soon as she said them.


“What are talking about?”


“Sorry it was a bad joke, you know the Jake Perry Fan Club, well anyway. . .” She trailed off.


“Well that was painful.”


“Sorry, I . . . no excuses.”


“You have plenty of excuses. Hey what do you say we ditch this lab and go see how my research team is doing? They were coming in as Michael and I left the apartment this morning.”


“Okay you convinced me to ditch but could we stop by the hospital and check in on Melissa instead? I saw her the day I left the hospital and I just wanted to see if there is any change.”


“Sure, I’ll grab your back pack.”








Katie reached up and touched the stitches on the back of her head as they walked through the doors of the hospital. Her head was still a little tender but she could tell it was healing well. She had faired much better than Melissa whose head was bandaged and eyes blacked. After Kaitlin had been released from the Emergency Room they had let her see Melissa on Thursday. The oxygen, IV’s and heart monitor surrounded the unconscious girl. Melissa’s mother had held her daughter’s hand and whispered to her. Kaitlin had looked on as she stood in the doorway of the room.


Now as she and Jake rode the elevator up to the floor she hoped there was some improvement to give this poor family some hope.


She felt the world around her suddenly become surreal. Each step in slow motion as she heard the sobs come from down the hall. Her head turned to see an office door with a long window; inside she could see Melissa’s parents clinging to each other as the doctor hovered beside them. A few steps further and a gurney emerged from the room that had been her target. A few words brushed her consciousness; hemorrhaging, embolism, organ donor.





The stinging in her nostrils brought her back from the abyss.


“Hey beautiful,” Jake whispered. “You got a little pale there.”


Kaitlin was stretched out on an examining table. A nurse stood on one side and Jake on the other.


“I fainted?” she asked.


“It was a rotten way to learn about Melissa.” Jake brushed her hair back; she felt the whisper of his fingers across her forehead. The tears welled in her eyes.


“Don’t you know what this means?” she asked him.


“What, sweetheart?”


“Jake,” she reprimanded.


“Sorry, the terms of endearment just seem to come of their own volition.”


“Stop it, you promised.”


“Did I?”


“Now you’ve lost the point.”


The nurse chuckled in the background.


“It’s murder, Jake. It’s gone from being assault to murder.”