Chapter Twenty-Two Naomi

Chapter Twenty-Two

Naomi

November 2022, six months before her death

The week of Thanksgiving break, the temperature across campus dropped another ten degrees, and the cold in our room has crept in through the cracks in the stone. These buildings were built in the 1920s, and the rattling metal wall heaters do little against the frigid air.

Tonight Amy and I are alone. Zee is at Trey’s, and we’ve ordered take-out pho and boba and are watching Get Out in our pajamas. I can’t stop thinking about how she’s been acting, though, unnerved by her recent jumpiness, her withdrawal from all social activities, her refusal to talk to me.

Before the opening credits are over, I turn to her. “Hey, is everything okay?”

I think I see a flicker of fear cross her eyes before she turns her face away. “Yeah, why?”

I shrug. After I’d pressed her about reporting the break-in again earlier this week, she’d been acting especially strange, totally avoiding me. Did she think I didn’t notice the deep bags under her eyes? The way she wasn’t eating? I’ve been oscillating between worry and frustration, and right now the frustration is getting the better of me.

“Ever since the break-in…you’ve been gone a lot. I get it, and I know you don’t want to report it—” She flinches, and I soften my tone. “I just want you to know I’m here…if you want to talk. If what you’re writing has you this scared, I’m worried about you dealing with it all on your own.”

Amy doesn’t respond. Her hair falls over her pale cheeks and when I look down at her hands, they are twisting in her lap. “I’m fine,” she says.

With an exhale, I turn back to the movie. If she won’t open up, there’s nothing I can do. I think the moment’s passed, when, in the middle of the movie, as the unnerving sound of a spoon scrapes the edge of a teacup, Amy says something barely audible. “What do you think of Professor DuPont?”

I glance at her. “What?”

“Professor DuPont,” she repeats, and I turn to face her. The light from the projector glows in her irises.

“I want to know what you think of him,” she says, her voice thin.

“I don’t know, I guess he seems fine? I’ve only interacted with him sporadically, though, so I’m not sure I’m really the best judge of his character, if that’s what you’re asking.” I look at her. Why this sudden change of topic? Does he have something to do with her article?

“You know the Hunt article that came out a while back?” Amy asks. “The Times focused on the insider trading and fraud. But…there were some weird emails Professor DuPont sent to Theodore Hunt too. No one was interested in them because they didn’t seem relevant to the financial crimes, but I wanted to keep digging, so the Times kept me on after my internship. The emails had some details about the Greystone Society. The reporter I’d been working with thought it would be a good story for a Princeton student, elite societies and all that. But I’ve found some other things too…I didn’t know if I could talk to you about it or not since you’re a member…”

My arms prickle. I never told her I was a member.

I pause the movie. “Wait, how do you know?”

“I’ve been working on this for months, Naomi. And frankly, once you know where to look, it’s not that hard to find information.”

“But you said you were working on something about water quality…”

Amy looks down, and my face warms as I fight feeling betrayed. “Why would you lie about that?” I remember the seemingly innocent questions she’d asked over the past months: Where was I going? Who was I seeing?

“So all the questions you asked about—”

“No, it wasn’t like that, I promise.”

I stare at her, furious, and fight to keep my voice even. “So tell me now, then. What’s going on?”

Amy hesitates, takes a deep breath. “Okay…Something happened about ten years ago—one of the Greystone members went missing during a Society ski trip, a girl named Lila Jones.” She swallows. “The official story was that she got lost in a snowstorm, and the next day her body was found in a ravine.”

The air suddenly feels thin. Lila. I know that name. I shudder as I make the connection. I’d heard my sister say it before. I think they’d been friends. But why wouldn’t she tell me she’d had a friend die while she was in college?

“The thing is,” she continues, “the timing is more than a little suspicious. Lila had been suing a member of the Society, but a few days before she died, the case was suddenly dropped.”

“What was she suing for?”

“Assault, apparently.” I go still as Amy continues. “No one else has been willing to talk and it’s been difficult to know who to approach about it, but I got ahold of her brother…”

“What did he say?”

Amy hesitates as if unsure whether to tell me. “You have to promise you won’t tell anyone. I know someone’s life means more to you than any Greystone-inner-circle bullshit, right?”

I lean in. “I promise.”

She nods and lowers her voice. “He said he didn’t believe her death was an accident.”

I sit back as if physically struck. Was I understanding correctly? Lila’s brother thought someone killed her? And if it was while she was on a Society ski trip, it meant he thought someone in Greystone killed her.

I feel lightheaded as I imagine the kind of trouble Amy could be in if this got out. If whoever hurt this girl was still around, they could be dangerous; they could come after her.

My chest seizes with concern. “Amy, why are you doing this?”

“I have to find out what happened,” she says.

“But poking around a potential murder could be dangerous—especially if whoever did it has a lot to lose.”

Amy blinks rapidly and shakes her head, then closes her eyes and breathes out as if trying to expel the same feeling of dread from her body. Her eyes are huge in the near-dark of our room. She looks scared, yes, but I think I see another emotion too, a flicker of determination. “If it’s dangerous for me to poke around Greystone, don’t you think it’s pretty dangerous for you to belong?” she says pointedly before continuing, “Look, I think it’s likely whoever assaulted her had something to do with her death. But I can’t find a complete public record with the details of the case. I’m going to see if the Times will let me petition the court.”

All the blood has left my face, my hands, and has pooled in my gut. There’s nothing I can say to stop her, so instead, I tell her what I know. “My sister was in Greystone ten years ago. With someone named Lila. I think they were one year apart.”

—

I remember being around eleven at the time I heard Lila’s name. Maya had brought me to Greenwich the summer after her junior year to meet Cecily’s brother and his wife, John and Margaret, for the first time.

That night, we’d swum in the pool, and I remember feeling so cool and grown up, hanging out with Maya and her friends, in awe of her new life.

After we’d dried off and had dinner, Maya and her friends disappeared into Cecily’s room. I was a kid, so I didn’t expect they’d invite me, but I felt left out downstairs by the fire. So, encouraged by Margaret’s knowing wink, I did what any younger sibling would do: I crept upstairs and peered in through the crack in the door.

That was when I first learned about Greystone Society.

They’d kept their voices low, and I could hear what I’d thought was excitement in their whispers, could feel the frenetic energy running through the room, but when I saw their faces, I knew the tremor in their voices was fear.

I leaned into the door, and what I heard next would stay with me forever— We have to remember Lila left on her own. It was an accident —and they swore to one another they would never speak about it again.

—

My mind spins now as I make the connection, but as hard as I try, I can’t remember which one of them had said it. “My sister mentioned her once,” I tell Amy now. “I think it must have been the summer after she died.”

Amy nods. “My theory is that Lila and Professor DuPont might have been having an affair. Last week in the library I overheard a couple of girls saying he’s been divorced twice because his wives always leave him when they find out about his affairs. I’d been digging into everyone involved in Greystone in 2012 trying to figure out who Lila was suing. Well, it turns out Matthew’s wife filed for divorce just a few months after the ski trip. And that’s when the total lack of news coverage on Lila’s death started to make more sense—if she’d been suing someone involved on the admin side of Greystone, rather than a student, it would be easier for them to shut it down. I even dug up the police report on her death. It claims she died of hypothermia, but they found her miles away from the cabin where she was staying. So my question is: Why was she out there alone to begin with?”

I take a deep breath, ignoring the chill running through me, trying to steady myself enough to think. “Okay, so what now? Your article comes out and names Professor DuPont as a suspect, and then what? Isn’t there some kind of statute of limitations?”

Amy’s eyes are locked on mine as she says, “Not for murder.”