Page 21 of Dragon Charmed

“Professor Brown?”

The woman nodded. “Yes. Can I help you?”

Tessa took a step into the office with Ben standing behind her. “Sorry to bother you, Professor Brown, but I was wondering if you have a couple minutes to talk to us?”

Alisha glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to proctor an exam at eleven, so I only have a few minutes.”

Tessa and Ben took seats in front of her desk.

“I don’t recognize either of you as students. So this isn’t going to be a last-minute plea not to fail you, correct?”

Tessa smiled. “No. My college years are well past me. We were wondering if you worked with Mia White when she was here.”

Alisha’s smile dropped away. “I did. I was Professor White’s teaching assistant for two years. Why do you ask?”

Ben leaned forward. “We’ve been hired to find her by a friend who is worried about her.”

Alisha closed her laptop. “Her friend isn’t the only one who is worried.”

“So you haven’t heard from her either?” Tessa asked.

“No. No one in the department has heard from her since she resigned and moved away. I tried to call her after she left, and her cell number had been disconnected.”

Ben pulled a small notebook from his pocket and opened it. “She didn’t tell you where she was moving?”

“No. She was very quiet at the end. Didn’t say much to anyone. She resigned with the dean, and since it was right around this time four years ago, she finished out her classes for the semester and then left. I ended up grading the finals for her. That in itself was strange since she was a stickler about grading finals herself. But she wasn’t the same person.”

The more they talked to Alisha, the more Tessa’s spidey senses kicked in. “Can you tell me why you think she left?”

Alisha hesitated for a moment as if gathering her thoughts. “Mia was an amazing, dynamic, and brilliant academic. Being one of her TAs was a highly sought-after position, and I was so happy to be chosen. Her white papers and other research are used in both the Americas and Europe as well. But as much as her job meant to her, her husband, Paul, was her world.”

“He was a professor here as well?”

“Yes. Sociology. The two of them together were a force.”

“And he was killed,” Ben prompted. “Do you know what happened?”

“Mia and Paul were remodeling an old house.” Alisha grinned. “Mia said an art history professor could not live in a new-build house. It went against her training.” The smile faded. “They had been working on the house together to repair it. Paul was electrocuted.”

Tessa’s stomach dropped. “How terrible.”

Alisha nodded. “Mia was devastated. She blamed herself. She swore that they had shut off the electricity. They were having electricians come to rewire the house. Paul was working on stripping wallpaper, and the metal tool he was using hit a live wire. Mia found him. Paramedics tried to revive him, but there was nothing they could do. What made it worse was that Mia was supposed to be the one working on the wallpaper that day, but she got called into a meeting and so Paul did it instead.”

“God. No wonder she was destroyed.”

Alisha’s eyes glistened, and she blinked several times. “She folded in on herself. And left shortly after that.”

“Did she sell the house?” Ben asked.

Alisha nodded. “I drove by it a couple months after she left to see if I could talk to her, and there was a sold sign in the yard.”

Tessa rested her hands on the desk. “Did she ever talk to you about someone that she was close to, maybe a friend or relative? Maybe she went to stay with them?”

Alisha frowned. “Mia was in foster care most of her childhood. I don’t think she knows any biological relatives. Her friends were her colleagues here at the university.”

Ben clicked his pen. “Did she mention anyone else she might have been close to? Someone she may go to for help?”

Alisha started to shake her head but then stopped. “Wait…she did tell me about one of her foster parents. She moved around to several homes until she settled down with her.”