The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Brad Magnarella (ink book reader txt) 📖

an intoxicated state. When you sobered, you claimed to know nothing, remember nothing. And yet the victim’s blood was on your hands and clothes. The NYPD had their theories, but without a murder weapon or apparent motive, there was little they could do except charge you with obstruction. You’re currently serving a two-year probation.”

Hand to my frowning chin, I read over the police report, even though I already knew it line for line. Long story short, I had failed to get to a conjurer in time, then exhausted my powers banishing the tentacled creature he had called up—not unlike what happened last night. Only in the Hell’s Kitchen case, I failed to escape the scene before Thelonious took over and emptied the liquor cabinet.

I could feel Snodgrass’s smirking eyes on me as I flipped to the court order.

I had foolishly believed these reports would remain buried beneath a growing mountain of unprocessed paperwork. Like most city services, the criminal justice budget had been slashed to the bone. Dysfunction and backlogging, problematic even in the best of times, had rocketed to new heights. For almost a year, the reports had stayed buried.

Meaning the son of a bitch had gone digging.

Snodgrass brushed the stiff lapels of his double-breasted suit with the back of a hand. “Shouldn’t you have reported all of this to the college?” he asked.

I opened my mouth to suggest there was more to the story, but he cut me off.

“Save it for the board, Mr. Croft. I’ve proposed a hearing for Monday morning. You’ll have an opportunity to make your case then. I suspect it will take more than another grant—or even a stack of fawning reviews—to convince them of your fitness to continue teaching here.” His eyes sparkled with delight. “The board takes such matters very seriously.”

I turned to the last page of the court order, which enumerated the conditions of my probation: remain in the state, no drugs or alcohol, consent to searches… The next item hit my memory like a cattle prod. I jumped from the chair. Snodgrass flinched back, as though I intended to knock him from his perch, but that wasn’t where I was headed. Cane in hand, I spun toward the office door.

“Professor Croft,” he scolded, recovering himself. “I haven’t dismiss—”

“Save it, chief. Gotta run.”

The window glass gave a satisfying rattle as I slammed the office door behind me. But it didn’t change the fact I was late again. This time for a meeting with my probation officer.

8

At the entrance to the subway station, I drew a deep breath. It was partly in anticipation of the stale-urine odor but more so that I had, well, a phobia of going underground. A skin-prickling, airway-constricting, almost full-blown anxiety. Not something I was proud of. The origins of the phobia weren’t entirely clear. My therapist and I had been trying to get to the source before wizarding became too costly for me to afford him any longer. I still had his card somewhere.

I plunged down the stairwell and, approaching the turnstile, exhaled at the sound of a south-bound train squealing toward the station. Movement helped the condition. I swiped my transit card, hurried onto the platform, and boarded a rear car.

Edging to the back of a compartment crowded with the barely making it and the beaten down, I checked my watch. My meeting was at ten. If the track was clear, I’d be no more than fifteen minutes late. Not terrible—assuming my officer was in a good mood, which happened sometimes. If I had a cell phone, I could have called him, but wizards and technology? Yeah. Payphones were a surer bet, but I wasn’t toting any change. Plus, there was no guarantee I’d get through the warren of extensions to his office.

If nothing else, it gave me something more immediate than my demotion to the bread lines to worry about.

At Fourteenth Street, the train lurched to a crawl. The Broadway line and its east-west services had been out for more than five years, doubling traffic on the Lexington line. Promises to have the routes restored had run into budget shortfalls, not to mention the mysterious disappearance of a team of surveyors. All sorts of theories had been floated regarding their fate—they got lost, suffocated on the foul air, etc.—but the stark, bone-crunching truth was that the defunct tunnels were now infested with ghouls.

Not my beat, thankfully.

At the stop for City Hall, I burst up into the gunmetal light and dodged the traffic on Centre Street. Beyond the municipal building, the cube-shaped fortress of One Police Plaza took shape. I was joining the line at the pedestrian checkpoint when a sharp voice called from my right.

“You’re a half hour late.”

I spun and nearly fumbled my cane. The woman striding toward me was dressed in a no-nonsense suit, black blouse, midnight hair pulled from a striking Latin face, one that managed to appear youthful and veteran at the same time. That was what Homicide did to a third-year detective, I supposed.

“Technically, you’re in violation of your probation.”

She would know. She was the one who had arrested me.

“Detective Vega,” I managed. Hooking a thumb back the way I’d come, I stammered, “The subway, ah, hit a snarl.”

“Save it.” She seized my wrist with a small but manacle-tense grip. “Let’s go.”

I was resigning myself to arrest—could the day get any crappier?—when I noticed she was marching me away from the thirteen-story headquarters. I stumbled to keep pace, even though I had a good foot of height on her. My cane wasn’t doing anything for her sympathy, apparently. We arrived beside a scraped-up sedan parked over the curb. Opening the passenger side door, she all but swung me inside. I raised a finger. “Um, where exactly are—?”

She slammed the door.

The driver side door cannoned opened, and she dropped behind the wheel. “I had the pleasure of meeting your department chair last week,” she said, throwing the gearshift into drive. The car jumped from the curb and into traffic. “He