"Maybe it's because he'd just promised Phoebe he wouldn't leave," Jamie said. "He was going to leave, and then he changed his mind and decided to go home. Maybe that made him happy in a way, to have finally decided on something."

"Speaking of deciding," Vera said, "this coming weekend will be time for you to decide on your big essay topics for The Catcher in the Rye. Remind me to set aside a few minutes at the end of cla.s.s to discuss what might make a good topic versus what might make a weak topic."

On Friday afternoon, Vera's mother called to ask if she'd heard about the woman who'd been strangled in the park ("So close to where you live!" she'd lamented). Vera had known it was only a matter of time before her mother got wind of the news story and took it as further proof that Vera was in grave danger living all by herself.

Exasperated, she said, "Mom, this happened the week before last. What did you do, read a week-old paper that was kicking around at the doctor's office or something?"

"Yes. And I can't believe you didn't call me, when somebody got killed practically in your own backyard, where you walk all the time!"

"It wasn't practically in my yard, Mom, and I don't walk through the park at night. I'm alert to my surroundings. I lived in New York City, remember?"

"You sound stressed. I'd feel better if I could see you. Why don't you come down? You could call in sick on Monday, and you could have a nice, long, quiet weekend. I think you'd find it good to get out of there."

Vera was almost persuaded. Perhaps a relaxing weekend would be just the thing right now. But reason won out. "I have a lot of work to do this weekend, Mom," she said, not without regret. "And this would be a really bad time to call in sick. My girls need me." As soon as she said it out loud, she sensed the inherent foolishness of this comment. She doubted that they needed her for anything.

The following Monday, Jensen Willard returned to cla.s.s. She was not late this time-in fact, she arrived before several of the other girls did-but she did not make eye contact with Vera as she came in and settled into her seat. She bent over her notebook, underlining the page's blue rulings with a black pen.

"Feeling better?" Vera said.

"A little." Jensen still didn't look up. She had a spot of high color on each usually pale cheek, like a child who had been playing hard outside in the snow. Maybe she really does have the flu, Vera thought.

"Do you want my make-up homework now? I still haven't done my final essay for Catcher."

"Those aren't due till next week. Let's talk after cla.s.s is over." Vera noticed that some of the other girls were beginning to shift in their seats. What was it about a simple utterance from Jensen Willard that seemed to make the other girls physically uncomfortable? Vera recalled the accounts people had given of interacting with known psychopaths, Ivan Schlosser among them: There was just something about him that made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up. But was Jensen really a psychopath? And why hadn't she noticed before that the girls reacted this way to her? Perhaps, Vera thought, I am simply projecting.

When cla.s.s was over, Jensen remained at her seat until the last girl had gone. Then she got up and spoke, her gaze now redirected to the top of Vera's table. "Sorry I missed so many cla.s.ses. I wanted to talk to you about some topic ideas I had for my Catcher final."

"There's something else I'd like to discuss first." Vera reached into her first-period folder and took out the two typed sheets she had found in her faculty mailbox days before. "I've been wanting to ask you for several days how you got this journal entry into the faculty lounge."

"What journal entry?"

Vera rustled the two sheets together. "This one right here."

"That isn't a journal. It's a freewrite that I a.s.signed to myself."

"Your freewrite, then, if that's what you want to call it. I call it very strange. Why did you put it in my box anonymously, as it were? Why not just give it to me in cla.s.s?"

"I don't know," Jensen said.

"You don't know?"

"Seriously. I wrote it, but I didn't mean to pa.s.s it in. I don't know how it got in your box. I'm sorry if it bothered you."

This was a stalemate. Jensen looked Vera in the eye, a rarity, but Vera found her affect so flat that she could not tell if the girl was lying or not. The red spots in her cheeks seemed to darken, and Vera could not tell if this was an angry flush, or a defensive one, or one of pure embarra.s.sment.

"I really I hope you aren't toying with me, Jensen. I don't find it cute or funny. You know that I . . . you know I think highly of you. But please don't toy with me."

"I'm not. I don't know why you would think that. I did turn a new journal entry in today, though, when everyone else pa.s.sed their stuff in. It's really short. I'm sorry about that, too-it being so short, I mean."

Vera put the two typed pages back into her folder, looking up at Jensen. "Well," she said almost gruffly, "you've been so prolific with your other entries. I don't think a shorter one is something you need to be sorry for. It's not length I'm worried about. It's more a question of the content. Some of the things you write . . ."

"Can we talk about my essay ideas now? I have Advanced French coming up in ten minutes."

There were many things she wanted to say to the girl. She wanted to ask her to explain her comments about Sufia Ahmed and how she envied her for being dead. She knew, as an educator, she should try some outreach to the girl if she was having such thoughts-but there was something about the girl, her funny dignity and privacy, the need for personal s.p.a.ce that was bigger than most people's, that made her unable to ask.

And then, of course, there was that fear. That inexplicable fear that seemed to be getting worse and worse.

They reviewed Vera's expectations for the final essay on The Catcher in the Rye. When they were finished, Jensen had made it as far as the door before she turned around slowly, teetering a little from the weight of her knapsack. "Miss Lundy?"

She had never called her that before. She had never addressed her in any way at all, Vera realized.

"Miss Lundy? When do you think you'll be able to read the new journal entry I turned in today?"

It struck Vera as a loaded question. "When? I can't tell you exactly. I may not get to it right away because I'm still catching up on so much other work. But by this weekend, I'm sure I'll be able to look at yours and everyone else's. Why?"

Someone was coming into the cla.s.sroom-Kaitlyn Fiore again, with her forehead puckered and her mouth already open, as though she were about to launch into a tale of woe. She didn't hang back seeing that Vera was talking to someone but instead sidled up to her and waited expectantly. Jensen turned around again and was just out the door when Vera called after her, "Jensen? Was there anything else?"

The girl's mumbled reply was almost inaudible, but Vera thought she could make it out well enough. "No," she said. "Nothing else."

Her school day finished, Vera found an envelope containing a two-hundred-dollar check for her in her mailbox at home, wrapped in a note: "Spend this on something nice for yourself. Don't give it to those nasty student loan people. Love, Mom."

She wasted no time cashing it, purchasing a sixty-minute phone card on her way home and calling her mother from a coffee shop to thank her, resulting in forty-five minutes used on her card. With the remainder of the money she would buy a new bottle of not-bottom-shelf conditioner for her hair and bank whatever was left. Lean times indeed, she thought, when drugstore conditioner is a splurge. After picking up the conditioner, she stopped in at the library to return her books and pick out a few more. The same humorless librarian she always saw, the one in the turtleneck-and-jumper set, gave her the evil eye as she brought three new crime books to the circulation desk.

The rest of the school week pa.s.sed without event. The empty chair where Sufia Ahmed had sat still seemed to occupy its own large s.p.a.ce in the cla.s.sroom, but every day it became a little easier to look the other way. The news articles about Sufia still appeared in the Dorset Journal on a daily basis, but the front-page story eventually found its way deeper and deeper into the pages of each issue until it ended up occupying a quiet s.p.a.ce in the Lifestyles section one Sunday morning, under the heading A MOTHER'S GRIEF.

Another Friday came and went, and Jensen Willard had made no further ripples in cla.s.s. In fact, she kept her head down through Vera's cla.s.s discussions, drawing more and more lines in her notebook until they were so heavily inked that Vera, nearsighted as she was, could see the black ink slashes from several tables away. The vehemence of these suggested, to Vera, a chaotic state of mind. But for once she did not feel tempted to try to draw the girl in. She was content, for now, to leave her alone in her solitary bubble, where she could pose no threat to her or the other girls whom she'd begun, to her own surprise, to feel protective toward.

Later that Friday evening at home, trying to talk herself out of going to Pearl's-she had not been since that night and instead had made do with drinking at home-Vera drummed up the motivation to start looking through her students' journals. Though she at first thought of leaving Jensen Willard's self-professed "short" journal entry for Sunday, she made herself look at it first. Perhaps it would give her some insight into the girl's reason for sending that worrisome previous journal-or the freewrite, as she'd called it.

It didn't take long for Vera to locate Jensen's entry within the pile. It was handwritten, for one thing, in neat, rounded letters. All the other girls typed their entries, and Vera wondered what had kept Jensen from doing so this time. Also, unlike her previous journal entries-but much like the writing she had put in Vera's faculty mailbox-there was no t.i.tle at the top, not even a name. But its authorship was clear enough, Vera saw as soon as she started reading.

It's a funny thing about knowing you have a limited time to live and that you can literally take your own life in your hands, as the saying goes. My life is a small life. I guess it would fit in my hands all right. But the thing I'd always thought-always counted on-was that I would know to the day and hour when I was going. I would have those last few days to know I was saying good-bye, and though no one else would know it, and I'd have some closure for myself before I left. Now it isn't going to be like that, exactly.

I have figured some things out.

Vera, who had been reading this with a mounting sense of dread, turned the page and saw that more was written on the back, but Jensen's handwriting became drastically smaller here, its pen strokes fainter, like those of a feeble old woman. Seeing this transition made her hold her breath.

Earlier this evening (it is Tuesday night right now-actually, Wednesday morning at 1:30 A.M.), I went downstairs with an idea of what I might do. My mother was snoring away on the couch while The Late Show played on TV in the background. I stood by the side of the couch for a while, looking down at my mother. I wondered if she might wake up. But she didn't. It seemed particularly significant that she was not awake for me. It seemed to reinforce that I was meant to go through with my idea.

After I had stood beside her a long time, I went into the kitchen and looked around in the cupboards, where we keep our over-the-counter medicines. There wasn't much in there. A big bottle of Tylenol. The remainder of some cough syrup that I hadn't drunk yet. Les had had a sleeping pill prescription once that he'd gone on when he had to quit smoking-I thought those pills were still in there. I rattled around in the cupboard, looking. From the living room, my mother called out in a sleepy croak, "Honey? What're you looking for?"

"Nothing," I said. I shut the cupboard door.

"You were looking for SOMETHING."

"A Tylenol."

I can't do it here at my parents' house anyway. I realized this when she came into the kitchen, her two-piece pajamas rumpled and her hair in curlers, to see if she could help me find the Tylenol that I had already found. I do know my parents love me. I can't die in the house because I can't have them be the ones to find my body. I don't think my mother would ever recover from that.

Plan B came to mind then, and this is the plan I'm sticking to. In an indirect way, I got the idea from Holden Caulfield; I was thinking about his time spent in hotels, going down to the piano bar and drunk-dialing women and having a prost.i.tute sent to his room. Not that I'm planning to do any of that, mind you. I could check in to that new hotel on the Wheaton Road and do what I have to do. Some poor hotel worker will have to find my body looking all putrid, but that's a job hazard for them, I'm guessing. They probably have to take a "What to Do When You Find a Putrid Body" cla.s.s when they major in hotel management and hospitality.

I've gotten my stepfather's old service pistol out of my parents' closet. I'm not sure if I know how to use it, but I'm watching some YouTube tutorials. It can't be that hard. I don't think I'll use it on myself. I think I will pick a different option there. But if my parents or the police get wind of this, I won't hesitate to use it on myself just to get the business over with quickly.

Friday night is when I'm going to check myself in.

It is also the night I am going to check out for good.

A suicide threat, Vera thought. Or maybe a promise. And she wanted to be sure I heard it.

Numbness was one of her first reactions. Was this a real threat or just schoolgirl melodrama? Given what she had begun to think about her student, Vera felt it was real. Jensen had now moved beyond being a mere squeaky wheel-one who sought attention in pa.s.sive-aggressive ways-and into the most serious sort of problem. And Vera knew she had a responsibility, as an adult and as her teacher, to respond to it.

The second clear thought Vera had was, This is a h.e.l.l of a time to have only fifteen minutes on my phone. But fifteen minutes would perhaps be enough, if she handled everything just so.

No police, Jensen had said. No parents. But the parents would have to be contacted. She had no choice but to reach out to them if she wanted to get any sense of their daughter's whereabouts.

Her hands shaking, she took the phone book off the top of her refrigerator. Checking the listings, Vera couldn't help but think of Jensen's parents, envisioning them as Jensen herself had described them: She pictured Mrs. Cudahy looking like an older Jensen, slim-hipped and with salt-and-pepper hair, and imagined the husband who was twenty-five years her senior. Two people who, if Vera had read between the lines correctly, loved their daughter beyond measure.

She was in luck; a Leslie Cudahy was listed with a Pine Street address-no more than a ten-minute walk from her studio and only a few streets away from the Ahmeds' duplex. She punched the numbers into her phone, and as she waited for the ring, she felt her paralysis and terror replaced by an almost preternatural sense of calm. I've got this, she told herself. I've got this under control.

A drowsy-voiced woman answered on the third ring.

"h.e.l.lo," Vera said. "Would this be Mrs. Willard?"

"Used to be."

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I meant Mrs. Cudahy. I don't know why I said Willard."

"Who is this?" The woman-Mrs. Cudahy-sounded patient, as though she were used to being roused from sleep to answer such calls.

"My name is Vera Lundy. I'm Jensen's English teacher, her subst.i.tute English teacher for the rest of the school year."

"Oh, right, I've heard about you."

How odd, Vera thought, that Jensen had spoken of both of them to each other-Mrs. Cudahy to Vera, and Vera to Mrs. Cudahy-weaving a familiarity between two women who hadn't met. "I was just hoping to find Jensen at home. I wanted to speak to her about something."

"I'm afraid she isn't. She's doing a sleepover at a friend's house."

Vera's stomach lurched. She realized she had been half expecting that Jensen would be home watching Wheel of Fortune with her parents and that the threat presented in the journal entry would be a false alarm. "A sleepover with a friend?" But she has no friends, Vera wanted to say. Not unless you counted Bret, or her former friend Annabel, or her semi-friend Scotty-none of whom seemed a viable candidate for a sleepover.

"Yup. Her new friend Phoebe, from English cla.s.s. You must know her."

Vera had an urge to laugh-the sort of anguished, ill-timed laugh that can easily end in tears. There weren't many girls named Phoebe nowadays, and the only Phoebe Vera had recently heard mention of was in a book. "Phoebe? She didn't say her friend's name was Phoebe Caulfield, did she?"

"Yes, Phoebe Coffle. About an hour ago she got dropped off. You want the number there, or you just want me to give her a message? There isn't anything wrong, is there?"

Vera wanted to tell her that quite possibly something was wrong, very wrong indeed, but she could not say this to the sleepy but good-natured voice on the phone. Instead she took the number down, wanting to stall for time, keep Mrs. Cudahy on the phone longer in hopes that she might disclose something else that could be of use. She was thinking hard, trying to improvise, but deception did not always come so easily to her; she could only thank her politely for the information she'd received and apologize once again for being a bother. "No bother," Mrs. Cudahy said. "I probably owe you a thanks. You woke me up just in time for my show."

Eleven minutes left on her phone.

She dialed the number Mrs. Cudahy had given her and found that it was not a working number. She went on the Internet, cursing her connection for its slowness, and performed a Google search for hotels in the Dorset area until she found what she was seeking: A newly erected Roundview Hotel was in business on the Wheaton Road, all the way on the other end of town. Things were adding up, painting a clear and ominous picture in Vera's mind.

Ten minutes left on her phone.

Twelve dollars in cash in her wallet: Vera took the time to count them. Twelve dollars, and no time to waste finding an ATM. She hoped this would be enough as she dialed the number of a taxi company and asked to be picked up. The dispatcher on the phone said, "We'll send someone right over," so Vera sat on the stoop of her building and waited, shivering in her coat and hat. The air was pregnant and still, as though a light, spring snow were coming. She was already mentally calculating what she would cut from her monthly budget in order to afford the cab fare; about four morning coffees, she figured-but no, she couldn't go without her coffee. Perhaps she could write a smaller check for the cable TV bill and pay the difference later. Why, she berated herself, are you even thinking of this now? Another girl could be dead. Your very own student could be dead in a hotel room, and you're thinking about twelve dollars.

The cab, when it finally came, had an interior that smelled sharply of underarm sweat, forcing Vera to mouth-breathe as she tried to respond to the driver's perfunctory questions about how long she'd lived in the area and whether she'd heard anything about the snow that had been forecast for later in the evening. She wished herself back in New York City, where the cabbies never bothered with politesse, never felt compelled to fill silences with small talk.

It was critical that she be able to think. Riding alone in the backseat, she thought about Jensen Willard being alone in a hotel room for an hour-about what could have been accomplished in an hour. The calm self that had taken over was starting to recede, and nervousness kicked in as the cab nudged its way through the dark.

Another ten minutes pa.s.sed before she reached the hotel. Entering the lobby, she saw an indifferent-looking young man shambling behind the reception desk-a tall desk designed, it seemed, to make its patrons feel diminutive. With as much poise as she could muster, Vera leaned against the desk, lifted her face to the young man, and said, "I wonder if you can help me. I'm looking for someone who I think is staying here tonight."

The desk clerk gave her a once-over through hooded eyes. As he leaned in closer, Vera got a distinct whiff of strong, skunk-like pot emanating from either his hair or his clothes. "What's the name?"

Vera told him, and spelled it upon his request.

"Hold on a sec," the desk clerk said, and he scrolled through the computer records with maddening leisure. "Nope," he said at last, "Don't have anyone registered with that name."

"Oh." She should have expected that this might be a possibility, yet she refused to accept it. Had the girl gone somewhere else and planned to check in later? Should she do a stakeout in the lobby?

"I do have a Phoebe Willard, though."

"That's it! That's got to be it. Could you call her and see if she'll meet me in the lobby? Please tell her that her teacher Miss Lundy would like to see her."

Vera held her breath as she waited for the young man to call the room number. Please, she thought, let it be her number. Let it be her and let her answer. And let her not do anything drastic as a result of me coming. She said that her parents and the police shouldn't interfere, but she didn't say anything about me, did she? She allowed herself to exhale, not a moment too soon, when she heard the desk clerk saying, "Someone's down in the lobby to see you. Some woman who says she's your teacher." He hung up the phone, looked over at Vera, and said, "She'll come down to meet you. Have a seat if you want. There's free coffee."

Vera took a seat in one of the stiff-backed chairs in the lobby. Her chair faced a cement fishpond, the sort one sees in Chinese restaurants of a certain type; three dark fish swam lethargically, their long fins wilting in the water. A few pennies were scattered at the bottom of the pond-what did tossing the pennies signify? Some kind of luck? A wish granted? She felt around in her coat pockets, but her pennies were kept up at home, stored in a canister intended for flour-emergency money for hard times.

She realized she was scared again, now that she knew Jensen was all right. Relieved, of course, but what would she say to her now? She had planned to convince the girl to go back home, to forget her melodramatic idea of killing herself. She had no idea what to expect from Jensen. If she was becoming as unhinged as she'd sounded in her recent communiques, convincing her might not be easy. She might even lash out. What if she brings that pistol downstairs? Vera thought.

The elevator made a humming sound; its up arrow lit green, then its down arrow. Someone was heading to the lobby. When the little bell declared itself and the elevator car reached its stop, Vera watched its doors open and saw Jensen Willard emerge. The girl was dressed in a baggy, dark-gray T-shirt and military pants that were much too long; she kept treading on their hems but somehow didn't stumble over them. This boyish ensemble made her look younger and more delicate, almost gamine, as she inched her way over to the lobby.

Her hands were empty, and Vera could see no sign of a bulky weapon in her pants pockets. She didn't appear to be carrying anything other than her own dark mood and the weight of her own slight body.

"Well, h.e.l.lo, Phoebe." Vera got out of her chair, and the quick motion made her feel light-headed for an instant. The girl was very much alive. Now what? she thought. "I'm glad I found you."

"Why?" Jensen's voice was solemn, and her breath was fragrant with alcohol-vodka and orange juice, unless Vera missed her guess.

"I read your last journal. I only guessed that this might be where you were."

"Oh," Jensen said. "That's why you're here. By the way, were you looking for a penny? I have one." Jensen reached into one of her deep pants pockets, leaned forward, and let a single coin drop into the pond. The fish swam for the far ends of the fountain and quivered there, waiting for this disturbance to pa.s.s. "Since you've come, maybe you'd like to come up and see my room? There's wall art with lighthouses on it."

"Goodness," Vera said. She wavered for an instant, wondering if this was an invitation she wanted to accept. Her instincts told her that she did not want to be alone with Jensen Willard. She thought of her saying, It must have been awful for whoever found the body, with a little smile that, in her recollection, had taken on a ghoulish sort of pleasure. "Why don't we just talk down here? It's quiet, and we have this whole s.p.a.ce to ourselves."