Chapter Thirty-One Naomi

Chapter Thirty-One

Naomi

January 2023, four months before her death

The next morning it’s drizzling outside and freezing in my dorm room. After throwing on a sweatshirt, I try calling Liam to tell him about the person following me yesterday, but he doesn’t answer. His lack of communication is making me worry that he’s either ignoring me again or out of his mind on some kind of bender. I check his Instagram, but he hasn’t posted in weeks.

Sensing a stare on the back of my neck, I anxiously glance over my shoulder, half expecting to see him behind me, but he’s not there. I’m turning back around when, out of nowhere, a bike whizzes past, and I lurch back, my heart pounding out of my chest.

—

After breakfast, I receive an unexpected email from Professor DuPont asking me to come to his office because he “wants to have a quick chat.”

Do I go??? I text Amy.

YES, she replies. Then… It wasn’t him yesterday, right?

I try to picture the man, or what I thought was a man, on the towpath but can only conjure a dark, shifting figure. I don’t think so…I still don’t know if it was anybody at all.

Don’t worry, she writes back. He can’t do anything on campus. See if you can get him talking. This is our chance.

—

I reach the door to DuPont’s office, take a deep breath, and knock.

“Come in,” he says after a moment, and I find him turned away from me at his desk, talking on the phone. Without looking at me, he holds a finger up for me to wait, and so I stand awkwardly by the door.

A minute later, he hangs up the call and gestures for me to have a seat.

“How well do you handle pressure?” he asks, and after I give a confused shrug, he continues. “I spoke with Calum Fuller at Omnis Media. He mentioned they have a job for you.”

“What kind of job?”

“They’re looking to add more diversity at the hiring stage. You could work in the newsroom, eventually be an anchor. Cover important stories.” He pauses. “It would be better, though, if you chose one, uh, side to lean into. Your ambiguity might confuse them.”

I have to clench my jaw to keep it in place. So first he implies that I’m only being offered the job to up their diversity ratio, but if I take it, I’d have to pick which box to check? Sounds like a great fit.

My whole life, at an upscale store, a restaurant, my own apartment building: that itchy feeling of someone staring. The realization that, even before I look, I won’t like what I’ll find: The coldness in their eyes. The set of their mouth. And their whispers: What is she doing here?

The moment I’d look, they’d turn their gaze away. There’d been worse, of course, than stares and whispers, but those seemed to penetrate the deepest.

“The starting salary is low, thirty-five to forty K a year, but keep your head down and work hard. They’ll take care of you.”

“Thanks for thinking of me.” My breathing is shallow, but I force a smile, trying to refocus my attention and get him talking. “You know, my sister wanted me to work in finance.”

“Well,” he says. “HBS is always an option.” Was he suggesting he could help me get in?

“Do you remember my sister? Maya Mason?”

DuPont’s brow lifts, almost imperceptibly, as if trying to read me. “I do.”

He sits back in his chair, watching me closely, and I’m suddenly put on edge, but remembering my promise to Amy and realizing this may be my best chance, I press on. “She graduated in 2013…isn’t that the year you went on sabbatical?”

A pause. “It was.”

“Did something happen?”

He narrows his gaze at me, and I falter.

“I’m not sure what my sabbatical has to do with your job prospects, Naomi,” he says coldly.

I clear my throat and continue. “Maya told me recently that a Greystone member died her junior year. It was hard on her—on you, too, I’m sure. I didn’t know if that was why you left, or…I see how much you care about all of us here, so I just wondered…” His eyes darken, and I drop my gaze.

Shit. I’ve gone too far.

I’m mentally backpedaling, my thoughts spiraling through the thick silence. Now what?

“You’ve looked it up, I assume?” he says, more a statement than a question. His gaze on me is almost unbearable.

“Not much, just a quick search after Maya mentioned it.” I swallow. Glance toward the door.

In that moment, DuPont’s phone rings, the tension between us snapping.

As he turns away to answer, my body slackens with relief. While he’s occupied, slowly, carefully, I back toward the door, hoping to escape.

But when I turn to grip the handle, his voice booms across the space. “Naomi.”

I stop, my heart lurching to my throat.

“If you really want to know what happened, why don’t you ask your sister?” he says, and when I turn around, he’s staring at me intently. “After all, she was one of the last people to see her alive.”