Chapter Fifty Maya

Chapter Fifty

Maya

June 2023

After telling Simmons about the ski trip, I feel lighter, like a weight I’ve been carrying with me has lifted. Of course, I had to leave out the part about the drugs. I didn’t want to go to prison—I had my own daughter to think about. Instead, I focused on all the evidence Lila had on Matthew, the motive he’d had to get rid of her, to target Naomi if he got wind of her investigation. After running through the events of that winter, trying hard to remember it myself, I grow convinced there’s something I’m missing.

My footsteps echo as I enter the cavernous McCosh Hall, pass the faculty lounge, and descend the warped stairs into the basement. Fluorescents flicker overhead in the dim hallway—a lot less glamorous down here.

When I reach the office of Naomi’s thesis advisor, Fiona Williams, I pause, remembering her speech at the funeral. Another young woman silenced in her grave. A noise makes me jump. Movement behind the frosted glass door. Steadying myself, I give the door a light rap. The handle turns slowly, and Fiona peers out of a narrow crack, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Professor Williams. My name is Maya Banks. I saw you at the funeral…I’m Naomi Mason’s sister.” Recognition flashes across her face, and she hurries me inside.

—

“I thought you might have been one of those kids again,” Fiona says, setting the pepper spray back on her desk. “The ones that broke into my office.” The small room smells of cinnamon candles and wet cat. Her desk is littered with mugs of tea, and a kettle gurgles on a small side table. Bookshelves line the back wall with books of all sizes, some upright, others stacked haphazardly. She moves aside a stack of papers before gesturing for me to sit. Behind her, I notice an English literature PhD diploma. It was her, I realize—@FWPhD—who had left the Twitter comment: When it’s one of us it’s an “accident.”

“Tell me, Maya, why are you here?” A thick eyebrow arches above her keen eyes.

“I—I had some questions and I thought I’d stop by. I hope that’s okay.”

She studies me. The kettle whistles. Fiona stands and shuts it off.

As I look around the room, my eyes catch on a turquoise ottoman and a pair of yellow eyes peering out from underneath it.

“That’s Rochester. Don’t mind him,” she says, without turning around. The small black cat hisses before scuttling behind the furniture. Fiona raises the kettle. “Would you like some?”

“No, thank you.”

She pours her tea and sets the kettle down on her desk. “There’s something I need to show you.” Fiona turns her back to me, rummages through her office, and pulls out a phone.

On the screen is a message from Naomi: Have to cancel our Friday meeting. I think someone is following me. Going to stay with a friend.

Fiona pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “She was scared. I didn’t realize how bad it was…”

“Was it Matthew DuPont?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you told the police?”

“They took my statement once and haven’t called since.” She sighs. “I’m not sure how much you know, but given you just asked about Matthew, I’m guessing you’ve got the gist of things. Naomi found out about a number of crimes Matthew was involved in. And not just him, it involved others, his friends, his new fiancée too. Naomi had a plan to make sure they couldn’t continue committing them.”

“A plan for what exactly?”

“Keep this between us, but your sister was helping a journalist at the Times. I’ll see if I can find out who. They were going to expose everyone. ”

The awful feeling rises again. I swallow hard.

“This wasn’t the first time a student has come to me for help,” she says, sadly. “And I’m sorry to see that it’s cost another young woman her life.”