“Okay… but how’d you end up talking to Chloe?”
This part’s a bit more delicate. I grab my nearly empty glass from the reclaimed-wood coffee table. “Let me just get a quick refill.” This’ll buy me a little time to review the details once more in my mind. “You need one?”
Dottie shakes her head.
“So, Chloe,” I say, pouring myself a fresh glass in the kitchen, then turning on the sink to rinse my hands. “Since no one knew where you were, I asked around about who you’d been close with.” I walk back into the living room. “Another professor, I don’t remember who, mentioned Chloe was your best friend.”
“Maybe that was Professor Huntington?” Dottie asks, face hopeful. I push away the slightest pang of guilt. Must stay focused.
“Yes, yes, Huntington, that’s right. Anyway, unlike you, Chloe was easy to find. I gave her my dumb Lisa Waters reporter story—like I said, the last thing I wanted was for the higher-ups at Georgetown to find out that I was sniffing around about a tenured faculty member.”
Dottie nods. I keep going.
“So, I told Chloe I was looking into Bradshaw for an article, and that I’d heard a rumor he’d wronged you in some way. I was just trying to see if it rang true to her.”
Dottie leans forward. “And what did she tell you?”
I pause, weighing the gamble I’m about to take. I need to give Dottie a believable reason for why I’d go to the trouble of tracking her down. This still feels like the best option.
“She said she didn’t know of anything for sure, but that she saw an email on your laptop a couple months before you left, in an account she didn’t recognize. She said it looked like you’d written an anonymous message to someone, saying that Professor Bradshaw had lied about something.”
Dottie jerks away, incredulous. “What? How would Chloe have possibly seen that?”
My throat constricts.
“Um, I’m not entirely sure. She didn’t want to give me all the details,” I say slowly. “She said you’d been acting strangely and that she was worried about you. So I think she might’ve been snooping in your stuff.”
Dottie is silent for what feels like a millennium, squinting in concentration, my blood pressure ticking up with each passing second.
“That’s weird,” she finally offers. “I really thought I deleted all that as soon as I sent it.” She’s quiet for another beat as my pulse thunders in my ears. “Well, whatever,” she sighs. “Then what?”
I relax into the chair.
“Talking to Chloe convinced me I was right, so I had a friend who really is a reporter run your name through a database that newspapers use to locate people.” I decide to skip over my little field trip to the courthouse. “The only contact the database had for you was the address of the antique shop.”
Dottie nods again and swallows the rest of her wine. I stand up to fetch the bottle from the kitchen.
“But why do you care so much?” she asks. “Don’t tell me you just want to do the right thing.”
The Chardonnay glugs into her glass as I pour.
“No, you’re right,” I say. “I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. Bradshaw has something I want, and I need leverage.”
“All right,” says Dottie, leaning toward me again, “what’s that?”
“A spot on the Georgetown economics faculty. They’re not adding any new permanent positions, so the only way I’ll get hired is if someone leaves. And if there was ever a good reason to bounce someone with tenure, it’s ripping off student work.”
“Damn.” She finally cracks a smile. “That’s pretty badass.”
“Thanks.” I laugh. “So, will you help me?”
The smile disappears as she looks down at the knotty-pine floor. I stay quiet so she can think.
“I guess it depends what you need,” she says, her eyes again meeting mine.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened to you, and we can figure it out from there?”
She takes a deep breath, followed by a long swig of Chardonnay. Liquid courage to unfurl the whole story.
