Chapter 5 - MICK AVERY
Michael “Mick” Avery did not look mysterious in fluorescent light.
He looked tired.
Gray work beard.
Heavy hands.
Old campus facilities jacket his attorney made him leave in the car.
Rachel was not allowed inside his police interview.
She received the relevant portions later.
Mick admitted everything about the current grate incident.
Vanessa texted him:
Carter is back. West Walk. Noon.
He thought she meant Emma.
Why?
Because six days after Emma disappeared, Mick had received a call from a prepaid number.
Emma.
He recognized her voice.
She said:
“I’m safe.”
Then:
“If I come back, I need the original log.”
Mick told her police wanted to speak with her.
Emma said:
“I know.”
He asked where she was.
She refused.
Then she said something odd.
“If Vanessa tells you Carter is back, don’t come aboveground. Use West Walk.”
That was why Mick had entered the utility passage.
He believed Emma had finally returned.
“What about the bracelet?”
Lieutenant Brooks asked.
Mick looked down.
“I found it the night she left.”
“Why keep it?”
“I was going to give it back.”
“You had eighteen days.”
“I didn’t know where she was.”
“Police?”
Mick hesitated.
There.
He had known the bracelet could matter.
He kept it anyway.
Why?
Because turning it over meant admitting he had been inside the tunnel with Emma.
That meant explaining why.
That meant the Leah Porter incident.
That meant his job.
Another adult protecting himself.
Mick said that morning he wedged the bracelet into the grate.
A signal.
If Emma approached West Walk, she would recognize it.
Then he heard Vanessa fighting with somebody above.
He climbed toward the grate.
Could see almost nothing.
He heard Rachel say:
“That’s Emma’s.”
That was when he realized.
Wrong Carter.
Wrong sister.
He knocked.
Then spoke.
Why run?
“I heard campus police radios.”
Brooks stared at him.
Mick corrected:
“I left.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m already suspended and apparently have terrible judgment.”
That was accurate.
Then the old tunnel incident.
Mick had known students sometimes used West Utility Passage.
Not officially.
For almost twenty years, student event committees had treated the tunnel as part of an unofficial Founders Week challenge.
Administration banned it twice.
Students returned anyway.
Mick had caught them.
Warned them.
Sometimes let them finish.
Why?
“It was stupid tradition.”
“Did you give Vanessa access?”
“Not exactly.”
Bad phrase.
He explained.
Vanessa once asked how students used to get through the old maintenance gate.
Mick said:
“Same mechanical override facilities uses.”
He even pointed at it.
He did not hand her a key.
He did tell her too much.
Months later she got hold of an old event-services master key that could trip the first gate.
Then Leah Porter fell.
Mick received Vanessa’s call from inside the tunnel.
He opened the south service gate remotely.
Told them:
“Get her outside and call an ambulance.”
He should have said:
Call 911 now.
He did not.
Vanessa and the others carried Leah for twelve minutes.
Then called.
Location given:
West Walk stairs.
Not tunnel.
Mick later changed his maintenance log from:
student access / emergency exit
to:
door fault inspection.
Why?
He knew he had enabled the tradition.
He feared termination.
The university discovered the mismatch anyway.
He was suspended.
Then Emma found him.
“She wanted the original handwritten shift book.”
“Why?”
“Because I was stupid enough to write the truth before changing the digital log.”
Mick looked exhausted.
Then Brooks asked about the south door the night Emma disappeared.
“You said you didn’t open it.”
“I didn’t.”
“Who could?”
“Facilities control.”
“Anyone else?”
“Event Operations has emergency override during large campus programs.”
Brooks stopped.
The same office whose terminal accessed Emma’s account after she left.
May you like
Mick nodded.
“Somebody upstairs knew we were down there.”
