“What do we do?” she asked him.

“We’ve got to stop the class. It’s madness that he’s been allowed to go on this long anyway.”

“Dean Orman,” she said. “We go to his office tomorrow morning and tell him what we know. We show him the book.”

Brian said nothing. She felt in his silence something else, some other pressing issue that he wanted to tell her but hadn’t yet.

“What, Brian?” she prodded him.

Brian sat down across from her. She pulled two folding chairs up to the card table she used to eat her dinner when she cooked in Brown. He didn’t sit so much as he crashed down, the chair creaking a little under him. He exhaled loudly and rubbed his face with both hands as if to wipe away some of what he had seen. “Orman’s wife,” he said. “Elizabeth? I picked her up tonight in the bushes down by the Thatch River. She’d been beaten by someone.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“As a heart attack. Listen, she told me not to tell anyone. She said Orman would kill the guy if I told. So we have to keep that quiet until I can figure out something else. I really don’t think-Mary, I don’t think that was part of the game. I think she was telling the truth. She looked awful.”

“Oh God,” Mary said. She felt tears in her eyes, the heat of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. She closed her eyes and tried to will herself not to cry. “Oh no. Oh God.”

“Mary,” Brian said gently. “Here.” And then his arm was around her. They were hugging each other, but strangely there was nothing romantic about it. It was just something you did, a healing act. She felt his heat and she stayed there in his chest until he pulled away, and when she was standing up on her own she didn’t regret what she’d done.

He lay on the top bunk and she took the bottom. Mary knew that he wasn’t sleeping by his uneven breath, by the way he could not be still. Like him, her rest was labored, erratic. “Brian,” she said. It was late, sometime after midnight. A siren passed outside, screamed down Pride Street. “Did you know that Williams has an assistant?”

They found Troy in the online campus directory. Beside his name they saw the familiar lightning bolt, which meant that he was online. “Let’s e-mail him,” Brian said.

“You mean now?”

“Hell yeah, now. I want to see what he knows.”

Slowly, still pacing the room, Brian dictated the message to Mary.

To: thardings@winchester.edu

From: mbutler@winchester.edu

Subject: Professor Williams

Troy,

We found Williams’s book, A Disappearance in the Fields. A very fine book. A masterpiece. We were wondering-did Williams write that himself, or did he have help from someone in the Philosophy Department? By the way, it was Pig. I guess you know that by now.

M

They waited. Mary refreshed her screen a few times, hoping that Troy would get the e-mail and respond to it immediately. Brian made himself another mug of tea in the microwave. Down on the quad, a fire burned-the every-Monday bonfire of the Delta girls, who were notorious for showing up to their early classes smelling of smoke and with their hands stained with soot.

“Maybe he’s working on a paper,” Brian said.

Mary felt the first signs of exhaustion coming on. It descended on her suddenly, pulling her down toward the floor. If she could just lie down, if she could just-

“Mary.” Brian was pushing her shoulder, waking her. She looked at him. Blinked. He pointed at the screen, and she saw a message from Troy in her in-box.

To: mbutler@winchester.edu

From: thardings@winchester.edu

Subject: Belated Congratulations

M,

Congrats on the solve! I solved the one in the spring of ’04, and it was a great moment. They were all talking about it today in the department. Leonard thought he was going to fool you all this time, but I guess not.

And yes, I have read Leonard’s book. I’m not into true crime, but A Disappearance… is one of the classics of that genre. A shame it never got the recognition it deserved. That girl, Deanna Ward, she’s still missing, you know. Leonard thought he got some new leads a few years ago, but they turned out to be dead ends.

All the best,

Troy

“Why would he lie?” Brian asked.

“Why is anyone lying? Why is the woman at the high school lying, making up a story about a fake book? It’s part of the game, Brian. Obviously Troy is playing it, too.” She still felt the buzz of sleep in her head, that flagging sensation of late-night fatigue.

“Ask him,” Brian said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, ask him. Tell him that the book’s a fake. See what he says.”

Mary would have never done it had she not been drunk with fatigue. She had spent her life sidestepping such confrontations, but tonight she was feeling bold, ready to tear down Williams’s game and get to the heart of this thing that had been plaguing her for the last month.

To: thardings@winchester.edu

From: mbutler@winchester.edu

Subject: One More Thing

Troy,

The book’s a fake. A friend and I have secured two copies, and both of them have text on exactly twenty-five pages, an introduction by “Leon Williams,” and then nothing for the rest of the book. When we Google A Disappearance in the Fields, we get nothing. No Amazon listing, nothing in the Library of Congress database. Winchester University Press hasn’t published anything for the last twenty-five years. We want to know exactly what this is and we want it to stop. You and Williams are playing a dangerous game.

M.

Now she felt sped up, her senses awake and aware and her heart mashing through her chest. Brian was pacing again. Outside, the orange flames of the Deltas’ fire licked up toward the sky. Mary stared at the screen. She refreshed. Nothing. She drummed her fingers, all the nails bitten to the quick, on her desk. Refreshed again. Nothing. Where was he? Maybe they had scared him off. Maybe they had driven him away. Was it possible that Troy was calling Williams right now and asking what he should do? She expected a call from the “campus police” any minute, another admonition to stop what she was doing. Maybe-

Another message appeared in her box.

To: mbutler@winchester.edu

From: thardings@winchester.edu

Subject: Re: One More Thing

M.,

You and your “friend” don’t know what you are getting into here.

Troy

Upon reading it, Brian murmured, “Fuck him,” under his breath. With some force, he took the mouse from Mary and clicked Compose. Then he began to type.

To: thardings@winchester.edu

From: mbutler@winchester.edu

Subject: The Game

Troy,

Apparently you don’t understand. What’s going on here is a criminal enterprise. We have spoken to a woman from Cale High School who has told us the story about Deanna Ward. Leonard Williams has brought in a man impersonating a former police officer, and that man told the class a story about the same girl. Now we have found a book about that girl that was apparently “written” by this Leon character, and the book is a fake. We have already contacted Dean Orman, and he has personally told us that he is keeping Williams on a “short leash.” His words. You all do not seem to understand the complexity of this thing. You are dealing with real people, real events, and it doesn’t seem to faze you one bit. Now, I suggest you tell us what you know before I come over to Perkins Hall.

It took only a matter of minutes for the next message to appear in her box.

To: mbutler@winchester.edu