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Seven
Down the Rabbit Hole
Clover
Isit there for a minute after Maverick leaves my office, trying to understand what his motive could be. It almost seems like hewantsme to report him. That doesn’t make a lot of sense—not from what I understand about his potential career trajectory. While I’ve tried my hardest not to pay attention to him—other than being annoyed when he shows up for class late or checks his phone messages while I’m teaching—I am aware, based on what I’ve read in the school paper, that he shows real promise, along with a few of the other students on the school hockey team.
I’m also aware that for every student who thinks they’re going to get called up to a professional sports team, there are another dozen whose dreams are going to be crushed. I don’t know enough about the sport to be able to say which category Maverick fits into. Not that it should matter.
I pick up the key and flip it between my fingers. It could be any key. The only way I’ll know if he’s lying or not is if I take it to the athletic facility and see if it works. And there’s no way to know whether he’s made copies.
The question remains: Where did he find it, and how long has he had it? How many offices or changing rooms has he snuck into? Would it give him access to personal files? His own? His teammates’? As soon as I think it, I brush the thought aside. He seemed so contrite.
I remind myself that my feelings about this could be skewed. Particularly since I’m still dealing with the man I married and his attempts to pull me back into a relationship I don’t want to be in. It makes sense that I don’t have a lot of faith in the authenticity of the opposite sex.
I put the key in my purse, so it’s out of sight. I’ll take it with me the next time I go to the athletic facility and find out how honest Maverick was.
My phone buzzes on my desk, startling me.MOMflashes across the screen. Normally, I would message back right away, but this morning is throwing me for a loop, so I leave it for now and turn my attention to the revised paper sitting on my desk. I leaf through it. The font hasn’t been enlarged to make it seem as though it fits the word count, and the spacing doesn’t look off, but it seems awfully convenient that he’s handed in a paper copy.
I log into my computer to check for an emailed version. I notice a message from Maverick received about ten minutes before he showed up at my office door. I read through the first few pages of the paper, aware that I need to pass it over to my TA for a revised grade, but it doesn’t hurt to have a look.
Students were supposed to write the story of a childhood memory from the point of view of someone other than themselves. As I read through the first few pages, my stomach rolls and sinks, because the story is about a little girl who goes missing at a carnival.
I perform a search withWaters+carnival+abduction, and a slew of headlines appear.
Most of the articles chronicle the brief abduction of a little girl at a local carnival more than a decade ago. They don’t name her, but they do name the family. The case seems to have been high profile mostly because the girl’s father is hockey legend Alex Waters.
Maverick’s father.
And the pieces start to fall in place.
Based on the dates, Maverick would have been seven or eight years old when his sister was abducted. According to the articles, she was only missing for an hour, and the man who took her suffered from mental health issues. He’d lost his own daughter in a tragic accident he caused not long before the abduction, and he’d suffered a psychotic break.
Understandably, there’s little information detailing what happened to the girl while she was missing. And although they found her relatively quickly, the trauma was clearly real. Based on the story Maverick decided to write for this assignment, it’s something that still affects him deeply.
I have to pause my research when a few students stop in to discuss assignments. But when my office hours end, I close my door and fall down a rabbit hole of information related to the abduction of Lavender Waters.
It forces me to see Maverick in a different light. And makes me believe he was sincere when he came in here this morning and said he would corroborate my story if I chose to report him.
It isn’t until the alarm goes off on my phone that I realize I’ve been scouring articles for hours, and I have a class in less than twenty minutes. I turn off my computer, gather my things, and rush off to teach my class.
* * *
I don’t havemy gym clothes with me, and I feel extraordinarily conspicuous as I make a stop at the athletic facility before I head home for the night. It’s a few minutes out of the way, but I need to know whether this key does what Maverick said it would.
When I reach the women’s locker room, I peek inside. There are a couple of women at the mirrors, but no one is paying attention to the door. I slip the key in the lock and turn. The deadbolt appears. I quickly reverse the motion, sliding the key free.
My hands are shaking, and a fine sheen of sweat covers the back of my neck as I move down the hall toward a darkened corridor—the one that leads to the physical therapy offices, which are currently closed. The door to get into the hallway is locked, giving me an opportunity to test the key a second time. And once again, it turns in the lock.
“He was telling the truth.” I close my fingers around the warm metal, feeling the bite of the teeth against my palm.
“Ma’am? Can I help you?”
I startle and spin around. “Oh!”
A man wearing a blue Facilities Services shirt, pushing a rolling bucket and mop, stands about ten feet away. He takes a cautious step back. “I didn’t mean to startle you. The PT clinic closes at seven on Wednesdays.”
“Oh, it’s fine.” I wave a hand in the air and clutch my purse. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and got turned around. I, uh, a student turned in a key today. It might be an important one. Maybe I could pass it over to you?”
