Sophia smiled for the first time since she came in. And Madeline started to think things really were going to be all right between the two of them.

“What’s on your mind?” Sophia asked. “Writer’s block? Do you want to study me so you can write more of your thesis?”

“I wish. But it’s kind of related.” Madeline pressed down on her hands with greater force. “I think you know Lance Hoffman, right? He’s one of my professors at Commonwealth.”

Sophia rolled her eyes. “He’s not my friend. Zach knows him. They met playing golf at that course called Crosswinds. And we don’t live too far from his house. You really don’t have to apologize about that night. We can just move on.”

“It’s not really about that night. And I’m sorry to even refer to it. But it’s just . . . I gave Hoffman some of my thesis. My director is another professor, but he’s a little out of it right now. His wife and kid died in an accident, and he’s kind of slow to respond. But Hoffman is fast to get back to me, and he’s doing me the favor of helping out. He likes to talk to students and meet with them.”

“He does like spending time with students,” Sophia said, rolling her eyes again. “You can see that from his parties. I don’t want to go to any more of them.”

“Yeah . . .”

Madeline shifted her weight in the chair. She really wanted to pull her hand out and pluck her eyebrow. She really, really wanted to.

“What is it?” Sophia asked. And from the way she asked, Madeline thought Sophia knew what she was about to say. She knew why Madeline had called and what she needed help with.

“I just had a meeting with Dr. Hoffman, to talk about my thesis. And I’m not sure what to do about what happened.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

REBECCA

PRESENT

Rebecca reads late into the night, finishing the manuscript that landed at her door.

Madeline’s manuscript.

She still feels shaken by Dr. Hoffman’s unexpected visit.

She replays the conversation in the parking lot over and over, trying her best to make sense of what exactly he was saying. She draws on the lessons she learned at the beginning of the semester in Dr. Nye’s class, before he stopped teaching and started lurking in the alley outside Troy’s.

Subtext. He taught them that word. Subtext. When someone says one thing, but there’s a deeper meaning buried underneath.

And what’s buried underneath Hoffman’s request that Rebecca not tell the police anything else?

He seemed to be saying that Zach wasn’t as bad as Rebecca thought he was. And that Nye was the real bad guy.