She really had no idea how to navigate hookups, and dating was an equally confusing equation. Besides, Conrad was a student at one of the dorms she supervised.
She’d mumbled a quick good night and hurried into the house, leaving Conrad Carter looking surprised and Minerva befuddled. When she hinted to Hideo about an interesting grad student she’d met from a nearby dorm—was it ethical to go out with someone in a dorm that was technically under your watch?—he laughed and asked which guy she was talking about. Minerva shook her head, unwilling to reveal more.
She’d seen Conrad in the following days and smiled at him when they crossed paths, thinking perhaps she’d ask him if he wanted to catch a movie or head to Bailey’s on the weekend. But when the Halloween weekend came, chaotic and interminable, she stumbled onto him smoking pot with a junior who was dressed as a sexy witch.
She wrote both of them up. She was doing her job, although she suspected he interpreted it as a petty attempt to get back at him for hooking up with another girl instead of her.
Anyway, she was glad she’d been cautious around him. He was a brat, a spoiled boy. Noah Yates was probably more of the same.
“I’m doing rounds with another resident director in a bit,” she said.
“Well, then, I guess I tried,” he replied with a shrug, stepping back.
She glanced at Briar’s Commons, the dark trees smudged across the sky like charcoal. She wanted Conrad to leave, but a question tumbled from her lips.
“Did Thomas tell you where he was going before the winter break?” she asked.
He paused and frowned. “Why would he tell me anything?”
“You were roommates.”
“We didn’t get along. And it wasn’t my fault. I know that’s what you think, but I wasn’t always antagonizing the guy. He found weird shit to freak about.”
“Like what?”
“He said I stole things from him or moved them around. Then he had this insane idea that I was staring at him at night.”
“Staring at him?”
“And following him. Our last blowup was because he said I followed him down a path but that I erased my tracks. I mentioned this to you, it’s in one of your reports.”
“No, you didn’t,” she said. Hannah must have written that up, or maybe another resident director. She’d been trying to avoid Conrad in the winter, so there might have been an incident that she’d passed on to another staff member. Or the admin office had simply handled that one by themselves. The campus was chaotic at the end of term.
“He was a freak. And he should have been written up, not just me. He lit candles in his room, you know? Talked to himself. Weird shit. All I did was play a few CDs at night.”
“Do you remember what he was doing in December, during finals?” she asked.
“Skipping classes.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“He was locked inside his room and complaining about any noise I made.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“I don’t know. Before Midnight Breakfast. I knocked on his door to ask if he wanted to go to the cafeteria together and he didn’t answer.”
Midnight Breakfast was one of those campus traditions left over from the old days when Stoneridge had been a women’s college. The girls at Stoneridge had gathered the first Friday in December in the dining hall, where eggs, bacon, and toast were served to hungry students cramming for exams. It remained a popular activity, an event that signaled the impending end of term.
Minerva tried to remember the exact day she had last seen Thomas. It must have been after Midnight Breakfast. Perhaps the weekend after? Damn it, she wasn’t sure.
“Why are you asking about Thomas?”
“His sister is picking up his stuff and it came to mind.”
Conrad nodded. Minerva didn’t say anything else, but he remained by the door, looking at her.
“You filed the report?” he asked.
