Read Online The Immortals by Jordanna Max Brodsky - Free Book Online

proof of their hobby. But so far, Schultz seemed more eccentric than truly crazed. Photos hung on most of the walls and stood propped on the mantle of his small fireplace. She recognized the professor’s teenage self in many—gangly, acne plagued, but grinning hugely—always surrounded by people. The same faces showed up in later photos, when Schultz’s skin had cleared and his frame filled out—even once his temples had gone gray. This was a man with strong personal bonds: not exactly the profile of a serial killer. Women featured prominently in many of the photos.
A player?
wondered Selene. But something about the laughter in their faces made her think not. The backgrounds—the Coliseum, the Louvre, the Palace at Knossos, and a series of archeological digs on dusty hillsides—indicated they might be fellow academics.
    She picked up a beach photo of Schultz and a short, curly-haired Latina woman who appeared in multiple photos. The woman filled out her red bikini in a way Selene’s boyish figure never would, all breasts and hips, with a slightly rounded stomach. Schultz, wearing shorts and a T-shirt reading
Vivant Linguae Mortuae!
(“Long Live Dead Languages!”), stood with his arm around her, his lean frame bent nearly horizontal so he could rest his fair head against her dark one.
    Selene put down the photo and walked to the coffee table in front of the couch, curious about the mess of cardboard scraps littering its surface. Only when she got close did she realize they were jigsaw pieces, all turned upside down. The puzzle was half-done, a beige expanse fitted together with a watchmaker’s skill.
    Behind the folded screen stood a rumpled queen-sized bed.Beside it teetered three piles of well-thumbed books—everything from
Star Trek
novels to presidential biographies to the works of Cicero and Ovid. She crouched to peer beneath the metal bedframe. If you really wanted to find a man’s secret vices, this was the place to look. Sure enough, she spotted a battered shoebox. As she lifted the lid, she winced in preparation for the inevitable trove of porn. Instead, she found a pile of letters and a few photographs.
    She wasn’t just your colleague after all, Professor Schultz,
she thought, pulling out a picture of a short, pretty woman with a fall of long blond hair and a guileless grin—a woman who had appeared nowhere in the other photos littering the room. Helen Emerson wore a strapless blue sundress and held a plastic cup of wine, toasting the camera. The Hudson River glinted in the background, with New Jersey apartment complexes visible beyond its shores.
The Boat Basin Café in Riverside Park,
Selene realized. Less than a mile downriver from the scene of Helen’s death.
    One other photo from the same day. The light golden as the sun set, flaming orange and violet over the water. Helen and Schultz. His arm outstretched as if taking the photo with one hand while his other arm lay protectively around her shoulders. His lips pressed against her cheek. Her face scrunched with delight.
    Selene put the photo back where she found it and pulled out the stack of letters. An envelope addressed to the professor, care of the University of Athens in Greece. Beneath the torn flap lay a letter on thick stationery, a Greek key embossed in gold around its border. The handwriting was barely legible: a miniature garden of curlicues, some words too small to read, others obscured by long, trailing flourishes. It took Selene, who’d never been much of a reader in the first place, nearly a minute to decipher each sentence.
    Dearest Theo,
Helen had written.
You’ve been gone for two weeks, and it feels like an eternity.
    Selene checked the date at the top of the page. September. Almost exactly a year ago.
    This last year with you has been the happiest of my life, and now I feel it’s all slipping away. I know you’re coming back, but January feels so far away. How can I bear it?
    Every time I pass the Met, I think of our first