“Such a shame,” Hoffman says. “I think about her from time to time. Has she been on your mind lately?”

“Well, in a sense . . .”

Rebecca told Nye about thinking she saw Madeline. She’d thought about telling her roommate or one of her other friends, but how weird would she sound mentioning the eyebrow thing when that was the only real “evidence” she had?

But then Hoffman leans forward and stops twiddling his thumbs and acts like he is all receptive to whatever Rebecca has to say about Madeline, so why not get his opinion too? He is obviously a weirdo but also smart. And he’s been teaching at Commonwealth for so long he knows all the ins and outs.

She’d tried with Nye, and he wasn’t interested.

Could Hoffman be just weird enough to care?

“Okay,” Rebecca says, taking a deep breath before she plunges in. “You know the other night at Dr. Nye’s reading? You were there too. There was this person in the back of the room with red hair. . . .”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CONNOR

PRESENT

Something wet and cold against my face.

Wet and cold. Wet and cold.

Like someone’s running a washcloth over me.

“Emily?”

For a moment, I see her. The deep brown eyes. The auburn hair.

This is the way she woke me up on thousands of mornings. A kiss on my cheek . . .

So much better than an alarm clock.

The cool sensation stops. My eyelids flutter. Bright light comes through, spearing me in the face. Like a dam bursting, pain rushes through my head. It’s localized on the right side, and I tentatively reach up. My right arm has been pressed beneath my body, and it’s asleep and feels like a club. My hand gets the pins-and-needles treatment, which hurts almost as bad as my head. I flex, trying to work circulation through.

“Ugh.”

When my hand starts to feel normal, I reach again. I touch the side of my head and pull my hand away, examining my fingers.

Dry. No blood. Just a knot.

I look around. Is anyone here?

I see no one, feel a little relief.

Grendel’s nails clack against the linoleum. He licks my face again, his way of telling me he wants to be fed. He wants water. He wants to pee. Somewhere on the list is him asking if I’m okay.

“I’m fine,” I say to him, but the words make me wince.

I sit up, lean back against the counter. The night before comes back. Madeline’s visit. My inability to give her the money she wants that I don’t have. Her threats to go public with my plagiarism.