A little exploring

You stroll out of your cottage, heading towards the main campus and intending to use the early morning to get a look at the building Valerie told you about. There's no sign of life this early, and you imagine most of the residents are still sleeping.

It's a very pretty morning, with the dawn light illuminating the manicured grounds and the stately stone buildings. The grass twinkles with dew and and there's pastoral glow that you never see in the city. It's not enough to make you want to give up urban living, but you can't help but enjoy it.

You pass the main buildings, walking up the lawn in the direction indicated by Valerie. It doesn't take you long to find what must be the building. It's made of the same fieldstone as many of the larger buildings, but is no more than ten feet on a side. It's set against the base of a knoll, and partly sheltered by large shrubberies.

There are no signs of life, and when you open the door you find that it's a storage shed for gardening tools and equipment. There are two small windows and no other doors. You frown, thinking that this is hardly the place where a pair or rich entitled bitches would choose to spend their time. And what's with Mason Carter coming out before they did? You can't imagine the girls meeting him for some kind of romantic tryst, least of all in these grubby surroundings.

You mutter a curse, thinking that Valerie's description was inexact, and that you have the wrong building. Stepping outside and closing the door you look around for another building but see none. Telling yourself it could be screened by some of the bushes and trees your start to explore.

After ten minutes the only other building you've found is an even smaller and less inviting shed about a hundred feet away. It's also built of grey fieldstone, but is no more than five feet on a side. Unusually for a Pink Rose building, its door is locked, secured by a heavy and relatively new padlock. There are no windows for you to peer in, but you doubt if this could be the building she referred to.

The stupid little bitch must have been lying, you tell yourself. Trying to curry favour without considering that you would check. You're going to have to reprimand her, you decide, smiling with relish as you stride through the undergrowth, taking a shortcut back to the campus and suddenly sprawling as you trip over something, barking your shin.