“Lance, if you harassed a student, then you just need to come clean about it. You’re going to face the music with Human Resources. And I don’t know about the stuff with Sophia and the book that Madeline wrote about it, but it’s not worth this . . . being up here. . . . It’s dangerous. Just come down. Explain it.”

“Coming down is more dangerous,” he says.

“Are you saying Madeline is telling the truth in this story? Downstairs you said not to believe it. Did Zach tell you these things that went into the book? If he killed Sophia, he would know.”

Lance looks away from me and over the railing. A few students have gathered below us, looking up. Enjoying the show. I see one of them has a phone out, taking video.

“It’s so much more complicated than you even know,” he says.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

MADELINE

WINTER, TWO YEARS EARLIER

A couple of weeks passed after their last meeting in Troy’s, and Madeline hadn’t heard from Hoffman again.

In Troy’s, he gave her a number of interesting suggestions about how to improve the book and move the plot forward toward its conclusion, and Madeline left the coffee shop that cold afternoon buzzing from the caffeine and overly excited about returning to work on her thesis.

She also wanted to get her hands on that computer—the one Hoffman had offered to let her use. But when their meeting ended, Hoffman stood up without saying anything else about it. He started talking to a student at another table, and he and Madeline made no plans for how to get the computer to her.

She thought he’d bring it up again. By e-mail. In the hallways of Goodlaw.

But she didn’t see him or talk to him.

And Madeline knew how forgetful Hoffman was. Late, scattered, disorganized. Maybe he was still giving her space, keeping his distance. Leaving the ball in her court.

She’d almost cried when he offered the computer. She reached the point weeks later when she wanted to cry again because it wasn’t going to happen. She worked her way up to letting it go, writing it off. It was one of those things people said in the moment but they don’t really mean. Just a gesture, like when someone asks how you are doing but doesn’t really want to hear the answer.

But Hoffman had been so helpful with the thesis. And he’d seemed so willing to hand the computer over. Eager even. And Madeline couldn’t stop picturing herself sitting in her apartment, typing away. With her headphones on to block out the neighbor’s music. After all, even once a draft of the thesis was complete, she’d have to type the whole thing again for the Honors College. How was she going to do that in a computer lab in the middle of the night?