by David Bell
“It’s about your talk last night,” she says, impressed with herself for how steady the words sound.
Nye’s eyebrow goes a millimeter higher. “What about it?”
“I really enjoyed it. I did. I liked the way you talked about the book and how you wrote it. And answered all those questions. It was interesting. I haven’t started reading it yet.”
“I’m sure you have plenty of other reading to do with graduation coming up.”
“No doubt.” She tries to generate saliva in her mouth and manages to summon a drop. “Anyway, last night. It’s about the crowd, the people who were there. Well, one person who was there.”
Nye straightens in his chair, tilts his head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“Okay,” she says, plunging forward. “You’re going to think I’m nuts, but I’m pretty sure I saw Madeline O’Brien in the back of the room last night.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It feels good to say it.
Even though Nye stares back at Rebecca, his face showing nothing beyond the raised eyebrow, and even though he probably thinks she’s the craziest, most irrational person he’s ever met in his life, she’s glad she said it.
Ever since last night when she went to the event, Rebecca has been turning over in her mind what she saw. The woman in the back of the room with the red hair and the glasses. At first, Rebecca assumed she was another student, someone she’d taken a class with but didn’t really remember. One of those faces she sees around campus or at parties that looks vaguely familiar but she can’t remember where she knows them from because maybe she was off in her own head in that class, or maybe the person never participated, or maybe Rebecca was a little drunk when they met at a party.
But then the woman did something familiar. She tugged at her eyebrow. It doesn’t seem like much, and for anybody else, it wouldn’t be. Except Madeline used to tug at her eyebrows when she grew nervous. Rebecca observed her doing it in class one day and locked eyes with Madeline, and then when they were walking out of the room, Madeline said, “I know that eyebrow thing makes me look like a freak. I only do it when I’m really nervous.”
And Rebecca told her it was no big deal, that everybody has their little quirks. And she asked Madeline if she had a test or a paper or something coming up, and Madeline said, “Oh, no, it’s something personal,” and walked away.
And that was about a month before she disappeared.
So when that woman at the reading started tugging on her eyebrows, Rebecca really believed it was Madeline. And Rebecca shuddered and everything turned cold like she’d seen a body rise from a grave.
But she calmed down—a little—and after the event tried to catch up to the woman, to talk to her and find out if it really was Madeline, but the eyebrow puller was long gone by the time Rebecca made it across the crowded room and started looking.
And didn’t that make her seem even more suspicious?
Nye continues to stare for an uncomfortably long period of time. Finally, he says, “Now, why would you say something like that?”
“Did you see the woman in the back of the room? With the really red hair? You must have seen her because she was right in the back. She would have been directly in your line of sight. Did you see her?”
“I might have,” Nye says, sounding irritated. “You think that was Madeline?”
Nye’s attitude knocks Rebecca off her stride. She could tell him about the eyebrow thing but wouldn’t that sound as ridiculous—or more so—than everything else she’s already said? Aren’t there a lot of anxious young people who stand around at the back of crowded rooms pulling on their eyebrows? And the woman looked so much thinner than Madeline. And Madeline is supposed to be . . .
Besides, Rebecca knows people in power don’t really like it when you bring up unpleasant or unusual things. They like to see the world a certain way, and they don’t like to listen when someone has a different opinion. Nye isn’t totally like that, she knows. He’s pretty good about listening to students and trying to understand them. But still, he’s a professor. And a dude. And they just don’t always listen the way they should.
She wishes she’d kept circling the building. But she’s in it now.
“Did this person talk to you? Or say something to you?” Nye asks.
“No, she left before I could.”
Nye takes his time speaking. He scratches his head and seems to be carefully formulating a response. He looks like he wants to let Rebecca down easily, not just come out and say how ridiculous and immature she’s being. And Rebecca would hate it if any of her professors thought she was immature. She’s not that kind of student. She meets every deadline, comes to every class. Visits office hours for every professor, even those she really has nothing to ask.
When Nye does talk, the irritation is mostly gone. He sounds . . . Rebecca isn’t sure. Does he sound relieved?
“So maybe you just wanted this person to be Madeline,” he says. “Maybe you found yourself thinking of her because the book is about a murder in a town like Gatewood, and your mind played a trick on you, so you could only see what you wanted to see. Were you and Madeline good friends?”
“Not really,” Rebecca says. “I liked her. But we didn’t hang out much. Just one class. Sometimes I’d see her at a party. One party in particular . . .”
Rebecca doesn’t want to say more. She won’t get into that night. She won’t tell Nye about Zach and the thing in the alley. She thinks Nye would understand better than most. She thinks Nye would be the kind of person to give her the benefit of the doubt and really listen.
But how could she be sure?
She remembers that woman in her dorm back during her freshman year. The one who transferred away . . .
Nye goes on, his words more forceful. “I did see that woman in the back of the room, the one with the red hair. I couldn’t miss her, like you said. But I didn’t think she looked anything like Madeline. Not at all. If you wanted to hide, you wouldn’t show up with hair dyed that bright of a color. And I think we’ve all had to face the harsh truth that Madeline is probably not coming back. Not after two years. It’s really unfortunate.”
“Yes, I know the statistics.”
Now Nye leans forward, his brow furrows. “Do you know something about Madeline’s disappearance? Is there a reason why you think she would be here?”
Rebecca’s heart resumes its flapping. It feels like it’s going in four directions at once inside her chest. “No, I don’t.”
She thought Madeline was dead. Everybody did, and that was freaky enough.
But then what if Madeline was alive? And back?
Isn’t that even freakier?
“I’m sorry you seem upset about this,” he says. “It’s hard when there aren’t answers about someone. Maybe it’s best to just chalk this up to a misunderstanding. And for you to concentrate on your own work.”
Rebecca gets the message he’s trying to send. And it’s what she feared someone in a position of authority would think or say. Just forget about it. It isn’t your concern. These aren’t the ’droids you’re looking for.
That’s what they always say. . . .
“You’re probably right,” she says. “And I have to be getting to my class.”
“Is there something else I can do to help with this?”
“No. That’s okay.”
“Good.” Nye leans back. He looks more like his usual self. Chill. Easygoing. The cool uncle again. “And I’ll get to the thesis soon. I promise.”
“Thank you.”
Rebecca exits his office and pushes through the double doors, back out into the cold. The wind blows stronger, and the flurries swirl faster.
She tries to take in what Nye said, tries to see it his way. After all, chances are Madeline is dead. And if she’s alive, she doesn’t want to come back.
But damn, Rebecca thinks.
The way she pulled on her eyebrows . . .
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CONNOR
PRESENT
I always enjoy talking to Rebecca. She’s a good kid—a diligent student. A little shy but a hard worker. If every class had twenty Rebecca Knoxes in it, my job would be a walk in the park. But I can’t wait for her to leave because I want to open my laptop and get back to what I was reading. I’d just found the article when she knocked on the door. And now it’s cutting it too close. I have to get to class, or I’ll be late.
And truth be told, I need the distraction. Rebecca’s visit and her recognizing Madeline shake me more than anything else from this morning. But if Madeline’s in town, even disguised, the possibility of her running into friends, students, professors, increases exponentially. It’s a small community, with a limited number of places to go. The walls of my office look closer, like they’ve moved several feet forward during the course of the morning.
The classroom is a refuge even though I’m distracted. I head off to my next class, Introduction to Creative Writing, and half of that class is fiction and half is poetry. I know nothing about poetry. I’ve never written it. I’ve never even read it. But I have to pretend to be an expert for fifty minutes a day. While the students read their assignments out loud—and their readings sound like recitations of the tax code—my mind continues to drift back to what I was reading when Rebecca came in.
An article from the local paper about Sophia Greenfield’s murder.
I’d only scanned the beginning when Rebecca knocked, but the details cycle through my mind like a GIF. Twenty-seven-year-old Sophia Greenfield was found dead outside her job last night. Police have no suspects. Her husband, Zachary Greenfield, was working late. When she didn’t come home, he grew worried and found her body in the parking lot. Her parents have been notified.
A picture accompanied the article. A smiling blond young woman. Pretty. Bright. A life full of promise. All of it cast away in a few moments of struggle inside her car.
There’s something more about her face, something I recognize. It feels like I’ve seen her before—have I?—but I can’t say where. I don’t think she was a student. I don’t think I knew her from anything else.
Does she just look like all the other beautiful, smiling, healthy young faces populating this college town? The ones that always make me think about Jake?
But . . . Bowman is right. Her story sounds just like my story. Just like Madeline’s story. A woman murdered in a parking lot. Her husband the prime suspect.
The scarf. The position of the body. The wounds.
What would I think if I were Bowman?
The room has gone silent. I’ve blanked out, gone off into my head. I look around. Nineteen faces watch me expectantly. I’m supposed to be saying something, leading the way. After all this time, it’s still hard to believe I’m the authority figure. That I’m the one people look to for guidance.
“That was a great discussion,” I say. And I have no idea if it was or not. I glance at the clock. Only seven minutes left in class. Close enough. I tell them what to read for next time and send them packing. I dash out of the room faster than they do, eager to get back and finish reading about Sophia.
As I navigate the halls, I look at every student’s face more closely than ever. Normally I glide past them, nodding or saying hello to those I recognize, trying hard to remember names of students from past semesters.
But today I look. Closely. Is Madeline walking among them? Could her hair be another color now? Could she have changed her mind and decided to resurface on campus, blowing everything in my life sky-high?
Given the details she put in the book, could she have committed a murder? Or does she know the murderer?
What else is she capable of, then?
And what does she have in mind for me if she knows I stole her book?
“Connor.”
I freeze among the streaming lines of students. They ripple around me like I’m a boulder in a river. Bulked in their winter coats, phones to their ears or in front of their faces. I look behind me in the direction I heard my name called.
It’s Lance coming toward me. He’s almost sixty and has been teaching creative writing at Commonwealth for nearly thirty years. When he was young, he published a number of poems, some even in prestigious journals around the country. But the well apparently ran dry a while ago. I’m not even sure he writes anymore. Lance’s moods fluctuate like spring weather, and I never know which version of him I’ll encounter. He may speak about something that occurred in his classroom in a self-aggrandizing way, or he may bemoan his own laziness and lack of focus. Every once in a while when I pass him in the hallway, he ignores me for no apparent reason. So I always approach him cautiously and follow the cues.
“You look a little ragged,” he says when he reaches me, shaking my hand. We start walking side by side. Lance is shorter than I am by an inch or two, and he’s grown a little bulkier through the middle with each passing year. He’s never been married, never had a steady partner as far as I know, and even though they’re good friends, Preston has told me he thinks Lance sits at home and drinks too much. On more than one occasion, I’ve smelled liquor on his breath early in the morning. At least once a year, he misses a few days due to the “flu” or a “nasty cold” that won’t let him get out of bed, which I’ve grown to suspect is code for him being on a bender, a debilitating combination of alcohol and depression.
We’ve socialized more in the five years since Emily and Jake died. Two single men passing the time by going to a sports bar, eating wings, and watching basketball. I never wanted my life to go that way, but those are the cards that were slapped down on the table in front of me.
“Champagne,” I say. “Gets me every time.”
“I hear you. I’ve been trying to cut back on drinking. That’s my New Year’s resolution. One of them.”
“What’s the other?” I ask, not because I want to know or believe he’ll follow through on any of them. I ask because it seems polite.
“To write more,” he says. “I’m not getting any younger, and I just need to get some things finished. Get that old fire back. I’ve let that part of my life fall away. I feel sorry for myself. You know, with all the teaching I do and the committees . . . It’s one thing to have helped so many young writers the way I have, but I need to think of myself.”
It’s a familiar litany, one Lance recites almost every day. We approach my office, and while he goes on—and on—about his workload, I start scanning student faces again, hoping not to see Madeline.
“. . . besides, you’ve inspired me, Connor.”
I tune in to Lance again. “How’s that?”
“You wrote your book while you were teaching. Why can’t I write a few poems? Right?”
“Sure. I’m glad to hear you say that.”
“You must have written pretty fast, though,” Lance says. “A book like that. A page-turner. A potboiler. A money shaker. I remember you and me commiserating over drinks just a short time before you got the book deal, and you were saying you’d been in a long dry spell with writing too. That was our bond: that we were both running on fumes. Something turned it around for you because that book came out of you.” He snaps his fingers. “Like magic.”
Every word that comes out of Lance’s mouth is tinged with an archness, a hint that there’s something behind the words that the listener may or may not understand. So I try not to make too much of this casual hallway conversation, but my mind starts to race away from me. Why is Lance asking me about my writing dry spell right after the book has come out? Right after Madeline showed up at my house?
“I guess I felt inspired,” I say.
“Is that the secret? Just . . . inspiration?”
“I guess we all have to keep plugging away,” I say.
“Yeah.” And he laughs, as though I’ve said the funniest thing he’s heard in a month. “We all have to keep plugging away, don’t we?”
He claps me on the back and walks away.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I return home a little after five. On the way, I stopped by the bank and managed to get some information about a second mortgage in order to find money to pay off—or to pay back—Madeline. As conversations about money often do, this one overwhelmed me and made me realize I wouldn’t be able to get my hands on a bunch of cash that quickly.
When I pull into the driveway, the sun is already disappearing, the winter dark descending. The snow flurries have stopped, and the skies are clear, which means an even colder night. Emily and I used to take turns cooking dinner, and I want to believe all I have to look forward to is going inside and making my not-so-famous spaghetti and meatballs. We’d pair it with a bottle of semi-cheap wine and watch Jake roll his eyes at us as we laughed at our not-so-clever jokes.
Instead, I psych myself up for walking Grendel and getting back inside, battening down. Maybe eat a turkey sandwich or make a frozen meal in the microwave. I haven’t prepared the meatballs in five years.
But an unfamiliar car waits for me in the driveway when I pull behind the house.
“Shit.”
Madeline?
But would she be so obvious? She came without a car the night before. It’s too cold for the driver to wait around outside, so it isn’t until I step out that I see it’s Bowman. She climbs out and nods at me as I approach her, her hands tucked deep into the pockets of her coat.
“I hoped you’d be here soon,” she says. Mercifully, the wind is calmer, sparing us the worst of the windchill effect. “I considered going up to Goodlaw, but then I thought that might be a little too embarrassing for you. Who wants a cop showing up at their place of employment?”
“Thank you for that,” I say. “Is there something you need to ask me?”