“No, it’s not weird that I want to keep all of us out of trouble. And run a department smoothly. How do you think the rest of the university will respond when they find out you might have killed a woman? How do you think the female faculty will respond? They’ve felt like their concerns have been taking a backseat for years. They have a stronger voice now. And I’m glad. We have a female provost now, in case you haven’t noticed. The first time in the history of the university. It’s a new world, and you don’t want to be in the crosshairs.”

“I didn’t do anything. Why am I in the crosshairs?”

I’m shaking my head, disgusted. But my disgust is served with a heaping side of hypocrisy. I know a giant secret about Madeline, and in the confined space of the car, with the night getting late and the cold wind blowing outside, I almost tell Preston all of it. The book I stole and Madeline’s reappearance. I desperately need a friend. . . .

But I can’t blow everything up.

So I give him a piece of the puzzle.

“You know I might have been the last person to see her alive,” I say.

“Sure.”

“I don’t really know what happened that night. I was drunk at Dubliners. And she walked me home. Part of the way or the whole way, I can’t be sure.”

I hesitate to say more.

But Preston pushes me. “Go on. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know what happened to her after that. She disappeared.”

“Jesus, Connor.”

“I know. I’m sick about it, Preston. I’ve thought about that night a lot over the last two years. If I was the last person to see her, then maybe I could have helped prevent whatever happened. I blew it.”

“It’s bad,” he says.

“I know. I told you this so you wouldn’t be blindsided. That’s everything about her disappearance.”

“I don’t know what to say, Connor. Really.”

“I’m trying to get this out in the open here. You know I need my job. You know it’s the only real stability I have in my life. What would I do if I couldn’t teach?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I need the money and the benefits.”

“What about the book?” he asks. “You should have plenty of money.”

“What is this with everybody thinking the damn book made me rich. It didn’t, okay? It’s not The Da Vinci Code.”

Preston lets out another sigh, this one longer. And he turns away, looks at the dashboard display like he really needs to know how much gas is in the tank. “I’ve got to get home.”

“So what are you going to do at work?” I ask. “Are you going to talk to Paul?”