She trusted Sophia—but she wanted Sophia’s help in just quietly avoiding Hoffman and making the whole thing go away. Not to fan the flames until the whole campus knew.

“I’m sorry this is so awkward,” Madeline said. “I don’t want you to have to think about the stuff with Zach. He was drunk—”

“You don’t have to apologize for that either. Zach was wrong. And he knew he was wrong. He was drunk, yes, but that’s not an excuse either.” She looked away for a moment, her right hand clenching and unclenching. “He and I are reaching a decision about our lives as well. But it’s very different when a person with that kind of power harasses someone.”

“I don’t want to make a big stink,” Madeline said. “I just thought you might know a way I could quietly extricate myself. That’s the way I’ve always handled things. I don’t really like to confront that much. I’d just, you know, like to quietly slip away from the whole thing.”

“You can’t. You just can’t. You have a duty to all the other women who are going to come after you. All the other students.”

“Okay, okay.” Madeline knew Sophia was right, knew she was saying what any other good friend would say. But things were easier for Sophia. Better. She had a job and protection there. Hoffman could ruin her life. Fail her thesis. Make sure she didn’t graduate. “Just give me time to think about this. I don’t . . . I have to prepare myself for what might happen.”

They left it at that. Sophia went home, but she made Madeline promise to text her if she needed to talk about anything.

Anything.

And Madeline felt better having told Sophia. Having told someone.

Maybe that was enough—just getting it out. Just saying the words to someone who listened and understood. Was that why people went to therapy? Just to be heard?

But that was the last time she saw Sophia. A week later, she heard—on Facebook—that Sophia had been found dead. Murdered in the parking lot of her office. She’d worked late, preparing for a fund-raiser. She was supposed to have a meeting, and when she didn’t come home and didn’t answer texts, Zach went to look for her. And found her strangled to death in her car.

And at the beginning of the new semester, in the late January cold—as she still lived her life in the fog of disbelief and grief—Hoffman reached out to her. He said he had some new ideas about her thesis. Could they get together and talk about them?

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

CONNOR

PRESENT

I pull the door to the classroom closed behind us when we step into the hallway.