Fair Game

His cell phone was vibrating.

From where he stood at the lectern, Elliot could see it jittering on the top of the desk. He ignored it. The days when a phone call might signal the need to leap into action--and danger--were long behind him. Seventeen months behind him.

"...rats overran the compound, and the stench of the brimming privies polluted the air. Starving prisoners ate candles, bootlaces, vermin."

The usual ripple of disgust ran through the rows of students in his Bryant Hall lecture. A few busy hands made notes, but honest to God. Was the notion that life in a prison camp would be living hell really a point these kids couldn't remember if it wasn't jotted down in a notebook?

"By the time the Civil War was over, more than four hundred thousand soldiers were POWs--that number, you'll be surprised to hear, nearly evenly divided between Union and Confederate troops."

On cue, the blonde in the front line of chairs made a moue of surprise and shifted in her chair to better display her long, slim legs.

What was her name again? Mrachek, Leslie. That was it.

Catching his gaze, Mrachek smiled demurely. Elliot bit back a sardonic grin. Barking up the wrong tree there, Mrachek, Leslie. If Elliot was inclined to get involved with a student--and he wasn't--it would more likely be the broad-shouldered redhead sitting next to her. Sandusky, John.

Sandusky was chewing the top of his pen, staring into space.

Elliot sighed inwardly and continued, "The treatment was no better for officers. More than three hundred of the nine thousand men held at Johnson Island in western Lake Erie, died--primarily of starvation and disease."

His phone buzzed again.

Funny, how you just knew when it was trouble. Granted, Elliot didn't get a large number of calls these days. Not like when he'd been a hot shot special agent with the FBI. His physical therapist, his teaching assistant, his father...that was pretty much it. Maybe that explained why he was having trouble tuning out that ghostly knocking on the desktop. So much for his vaunted power of concentration. Tucker would have--no.

He wasn't about to let his thoughts stray in that direction.

Elliot glanced at the clock in the back of the room. Four minutes to the hour. Close enough.

"And that about does it for today, people."

A few faces blinked at him as though he'd woken them from a dream--which he probably had. Hands dived for cell phones and the incessant messaging and texting began; God forbid anyone actually talk to the person next to them. Laptops, papers and books were shuffled into backpacks and the students began filing out of History 353.

Elliot turned away from the lectern.

"Professor Mills?"

Mrachek, Leslie accompanied by a bored-looking Sandusky, John smiled up at him.

Elliot raised his brows in inquiry. His expression must not have been encouraging because her smile faltered.

"Leslie, right?" he asked more cordially.

"Yeah. Leslie Mrachek. I'm also in your Film and History: The American West class." She was turning the full battery of white teeth, blue eyes and adorably freckled nose his way. Elliot controlled his impatience. Not her fault if his knee was beginning to ache and he was suddenly, keenly feeling the frustration of his new sedate, confined life in academia.