43. Daphne
Daphne
May: They called his case .
When I see my sister’s text, my heart leaps into my throat. I should be in that courtroom. But I’m sitting outside the dean’s office, because when I called her first thing this morning to beg for a few minutes of her time, she’d said “If you can get here by ten thirty I’ll fit you in.”
It’s ten thirty right now. I’m glued to my phone. May and I were up half the night discussing Rickie’s legal situation in the hotel room I’d planned to share with Rickie. My sister briefed me on his choices, and my stomach is in knots over it.
I need him to plead not guilty. I need him to fight it. Reardon Halsey cannot win.
This is all my fault, too. I shouldn’t have dragged Rickie into my mess. I’ve spent the last year with my head up my ass, fixated on my own fall from grace. I should have known better than to imagine I could secretly fix this clusterfuck I’ve created.
That’s stupid, not brave. And now Rickie will pay the price.
The office door opens, and Dean Rebecca Reynolds waves me in.
I sneak another look at my phone. There’s no further update from May. So I shove the phone into my bag because I cannot let it distract me right now. I walk into the dean’s office and close the door behind me.
“It’s good to see you,” she says immediately. “I’m still in the dark about why you quit your job last year. And now I hear that you’ve left the university? Could that even be true?”
“Yes,” I say, and my voice shakes a little. Because I’m here to tell the truth. “I made some mistakes last year. I need to tell you some things, and you won’t be happy with me.”
“All right,” she says, her expression grave. “Why don’t you start at the beginning.”
So that’s what I do. “First, I had a sexual relationship with Reardon Halsey, even though I knew it was wrong, since I was his supervisor.”
Her eyes widen, and I tremble. But I just keep on going. I explain how he ended things without drama. And that I’d felt guilty writing his evaluation, but I’d done it carefully.
Then I explain how I’d accidentally caught him throwing away surveys.
She gasps, but she doesn’t say anything.
So I ramble on about my suspicion of his motive. “But of course I couldn’t prove it. My next mistake was confronting him, instead of sharing my suspicions with you. He threatened me so fast my head spun.”
She sits back in her chair at that. But she doesn’t interrupt me.
“And then I was stuck. If I shared my suspicions, he was going to accuse me of horrible things. I’d be thrown out of Harkness, or at least I’d be under investigation.
So I panicked. I quit working here. I couldn’t write another recommendation for him, obviously.
And I didn’t have any proof. It took me until this past summer to think of a way to prove what he’d done. ”
I pull out my tablet and set it on the desk. “I think you’ll find a mismatch between the postal expenses and the survey entries. Last night, I snuck into the team office and snapped this photo of the login information.”
“ Lord , Daphne.”
“I know . That was the absolute peak of my stupidity. I wanted to prove it myself, and then write you an anonymous letter about it. But then Reardon saw me, and he threatened me again, and my boyfriend attacked him.”
“Good Lord .”
“Yeah,” I say with a sigh. “This is the hardest, most embarrassing conversation I’ve ever had. But that’s all. That’s the whole story. And whatever happens to me, I deserve it.”
She sits back in her chair and stares at me for a long time. I’m nervous about what she’s thinking. And I’m nervous about Rickie’s case. And my future. But I just sit there and take it. Because I brought this upon myself.
“It’s hard to know where to begin,” she finally says.
“I’ll bet.”
Then she barks out a laugh, and covers her mouth with her hand. “It’s always the quiet ones.”
“I’m getting that a lot.”
“I trusted you.”
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly.
“No, I mean I trusted you , and I didn’t trust Mr. Halsey. But I didn’t act on that feeling, because his father is a very powerful man.”
“I’m sure you’re not the first person to make that mistake,” I point out. “I let him charm me into dating him, even though I knew I shouldn’t. I liked the attention.”
“You’re not the first person to make that mistake, either,” she says drily.
“Noted.”
“You understand that I have to investigate everything you’ve told me.”
“Of course.”
“And that will take some time.”
“I hope it takes a very long time,” I point out. “Because I really need a college degree. And I’m only a few credits short. If I get arrested for trespassing here and then thrown out of Burlington U, that’s it for me.”
She puts her head in her hands. “Daphne, nobody is going to arrest you. And you’ll finish your degree.”
I sag with relief.
“You should have just told me that you were involved with him. You’re both undergraduates. It didn’t have to be a big deal. I would have rearranged things. Maybe you would have been taken off the project.”
“In hindsight, that sounds perfectly acceptable. But I let my ambitions get in the way.”
She shakes her head. “If it makes you feel any better, I’d already noted the strange turnout pattern in Hartford. It’s gotten worse in the last couple of months.”
I let out a little moan of anguish. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” A scientist is lost without her data. “I’ve ruined everything.”
“Did you throw any surveys away, Daphne?”
“What?” I yelp. “No way .”
“Right. You didn’t create this problem. And the fact that it’s continued after you left is part of the reason I believe your whole crazy story. But I still have to verify it.”
“Of course you do. And if there’s anything I can do to help—aside from staying far away from your brand-new office building—I will do it.”
“How’s Burlington U?”
“Good. Fine. I like it there. I have a job working for Dr. Drummond. If I’m lucky, I’ll be applying to graduate school in a couple of months.”
The dean taps her pen on the desktop. “Can anyone else verify that Mr. Halsey threatened you?”
“Well, no.” My face reddens. “Only my boyfriend. But seeing as he punched Reardon yesterday after another string of those threats, nobody will believe him.”
She flinches. “Mr. Halsey said he’d accuse you of sexual harassment.”
Burning with shame, I nod.
“If that’s the case, he’s the harasser, Daphne. You’re the one with a case against him.”
“If I hadn’t panicked, you’d be right,” I admit in a small voice.
“And he’ll never confess. His type never does.
The best I can hope for is that you verify the damage he did to your study.
He can’t try to blame me if it continued after I left.
That’s the only way I’ll be out from under him—by slinking off to earn a degree somewhere else. ”
Her sigh is heavy. “All right, Daphne. Thank you for telling me the truth. I have a lot of work ahead of me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are,” she says gently. “Hang in there. You’ll hear from us eventually. I’ll probably need you to sign a statement about all the things you just told me.”
“Okay,” I say, my throat closing up. I did it. I told the truth. And it didn’t kill me. “Thank you.”
With that finally done, I duck out of her office and speed walk back to the old Volvo. I’m nervous about running into Reardon, but luckily I don’t see him anywhere.
It isn’t until I’m locked safely into the car that I pull out my phone. There are two new texts from May. First she writes: Plea is not guilty! Lawyers convened at the bench .
Then, five minutes later: CASE DISMISSED! OMG!
There’s also a photo of Rickie in a bear hug with an older man. It must be his dad. We’d called him last night, just like Rickie had asked me to do.
Now I call my sister, and she answers on the first ring. “You okay?” she asks.
Once again I’m humbled. May dropped everything to rush to Connecticut and be by my side.
She found the litigator for Rickie. She met me in the parking lot of the police station and made me tell her the whole story.
And then, after I told her about breaking into Reardon’s office, she made me unavailable to talk to the police.
“I can just refuse?” I’d asked.
“You can, and you will,” she’d said firmly.
Then she’d bought me a fast food sandwich and made me eat it.
She’d sat up late last night fielding calls from Rickie’s dad and Rickie’s new lawyer and explaining it all to me.
I guess she doesn’t hate me after all.
“Daphne, are you okay?” she repeats. “What did the dean say?”
“She was floored. But she listened. Now she has to go and dig her way through that mess.”
“Not your fault,” my sister says firmly. “Where are you?”
“In the parking lot. Can I come to you and Rickie?”
“Honey, his dad took him home. He needs to get a doctor to look at his broken nose.”
“Oh.” My heart drops. “I have his car.”
“I know, girly. You’re going to have to drive it home. Are you okay to drive? Do you need some food, first?”
I open my mouth to refuse her help. And then I think better of it. “Let’s get some food,” I agree. “And coffee. My treat. And then I’ll let you get back to your life.”
“Sounds nice,” she says.
“I love you,” I choke out. “Thank you for this.”
“I love you, too,” May says. “Now pick a place. I’m starved. Drama makes me hungry.”
So I pick a pizza joint that I used to love.
But not as much as I love May and Rickie.