The Professor's Captive Wife novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Her Laugh

It took me one day to find her.

Tori Ingram worked nights at a gas station on North Main, and she studied in the library basement in the afternoons, at a long table by the vending machines.

Everybody on the confessions page knew that too.

Somebody had posted it under the clip, along with a photo of her.

She was there on Thursday at three, with two friends and a bag of pretzels.

Red ponytail, freckles, a denim jacket three sizes too big.

She was twenty-one, a senior in his Austen seminar.

She looked like she hadn't slept since Tuesday.

I pulled out the chair across from her and sat down.

Her friends looked at me.

Then they recognized me, and one of them actually put her hand over her mouth.

"You're his wife," the other one said.

"I am." I looked at Tori. "Can I talk to you?"

Tori's face had gone the color of skim milk.

"I'm not supposed to talk to anybody. The dean's office said."

"Then just listen."

I took out my phone and set it on the table between us.

I didn't play the clip.

I didn't have to.

"Four thousand people have heard that laugh at the end," I said. "Most of them think it's you, or the radiator."

Tori stared at me.

"It's mine," I said. "I was under his desk."

The girl with her hand over her mouth made a small noise.

Tori didn't make any noise at all.

Her eyes filled up, and her chin started to go.

"He didn't say that to you," I said. "He said it to me, before you ever knocked. You were standing in the hall with your phone in your bag, recording through the door."

"I wasn't supposed to get you on it." Her voice cracked. "Nobody said anything about a wife."

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