The Sixes

said.

Phoebe headed back toward West Gate, making slow progress over the sodden grass. She tried calling Wesley again. Still nothing. As she dropped her phone into her purse, she glanced around her. The other two playing fields were empty now, though far ahead of her she could see the football players trudging into the gym after practice. She was on the western edge of the Grove, and she realized that there was no one in the immediate vicinity. She pulled her pashmina around her and began to hurry.

When Phoebe stopped to catch her breath, she heard footsteps behind her and spun around. A man was coming towards her. He had on a dark jacket with a scarf obscuring the lower part of his face, but she knew the gait. It was Duncan. He’s been following me, she thought. She froze for a moment, and then took a step awkwardly backward, unsure what to do.

“Phoebe, wait up,” he called to her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked roughly.

“What am I doing?” he said. “I saw you at the game, and I wanted to catch up with you. Is something the matter? Why did you cancel tonight?”

“I thought I explained,” Phoebe said. “I need to be with Glenda.”

“No,” he said, stepping closer. “Something’s the matter, I can tell.”

Phoebe glanced over his shoulder. Behind one of the dorms, a bunch of boys was tossing a Frisbee, calling out funny insults to each other as they played. She knew it wasn’t smart to say anything, to confront Duncan, but she couldn’t hold back.

“You lied to me,” Phoebe blurted out. “You knew Lily, didn’t you?”

Duncan said nothing for a moment and just looked at her, his eyes wary.

“All right,” he said finally. “I did know her. But it’s not what you think.”

30

PHOEBE HAD BRACED herself for the fact that Duncan had lied to her about knowing Lily, but the actual words still rocked her.

“Did you have an affair with her?” Phoebe said.

“No, of course not.”

“Really?”

“You honestly think I had an affair with a student here?” Duncan said indignantly.

“Lily told at least one person that she was in love with a man she was on a committee with last spring.”

Duncan pressed his lips together, as if holding the words back.

“Okay, something did happen,” he said after a moment.

Phoebe’s heart seemed to stop. She glanced over his shoulder again. The boys who’d been tossing the Frisbee had given up and drifted off.

“You slept with her?” Phoebe said.

“No, I told you I didn’t,” Duncan said. His anger was rising, and he swept a hand roughly through his hair. “But she seemed to have a crush on me, and it might have been partially my fault. I’d become friendly with her when we were on a committee in part because I knew she was a wreck about her boyfriend disappearing, but also because I liked that she was so passionate about animal rights. She came by my office a couple of times this term to continue the discussion. Then one day she called and asked me to grab a beer after class. I thought she was including other kids from the committee, but she was alone and I started to pick up this flirtatious undercurrent. So I backed off completely. Even if I’d been interested—and I wasn’t—I would have never jeopardized my career here.”

“And that’s it?” Phoebe demanded.

He didn’t say anything for a second, and she saw him take a breath.

“No,” he said, “there’s a bit more than that. About two weeks ago, I bumped into her at a farmer’s market a few miles from here. It seemed odd to find her there, and later I realized she might have overheard me tell someone I was headed there on the weekend, and showed up on purpose. She asked if I wanted to have a cup of coffee with her. There were a few plastic tables set up. I felt backed into a corner, so I said yes. And as we were sitting there, she leaned over and kissed me—totally out of the blue.”

He shook his head as if the memory still bugged him. Was it all an act? Phoebe wondered.

“I told her I was flattered,” Duncan said, “but that I didn’t believe in dating students. She apologized and said she was just confused about a bunch of things. I felt sorry for her—I could tell she was still troubled about the boyfriend and trying to sort things out. That was the last contact I had with her this semester—though I saw her a couple of times coming out of the science center. If I’m the man she told people about, I had no clue her feelings ran that deep.”

“But why would you lie to me? Why tell me you didn’t know her?”

“A student drowns in the river? A student I rebuffed romantically? That’s not information I intended to broadcast on campus. I hadn’t even told Miles.”

He’d misled her so successfully before, she didn’t know how to read whether this was the truth or not.

“Look, Phoebe,” he said when she’d didn’t reply. “That’s why I acted like such a prick this morning when you mentioned her having an affair. Once you and I had become intimate, I was having second thoughts about withholding this information from you. I don’t make a habit of lying.”

“Is that right?” she said. “But you told me a lie just the other day. You said Miles had had an angina attack, but when I talked to Jan today, she claimed he doesn’t have angina.”

“Wait, you spoke to Jan?”

“I asked her if Miles was okay.”

Duncan threw up his hands. “I should have told you. He hasn’t admitted to Jan that he has it. He doesn’t want to alarm her. If you don’t believe me, call him.”

He seemed frustrated with her. But that was what liars often did, she knew. They flipped things, becoming indignant with you.

“Then why tell me it was Bruce you were going to see?” she said.

“What?”

“You told me at first you were going upstairs to see Bruce.”

“I misspoke, for God’s sake. I work with both of them every day. Where are you going with this, Phoebe, anyway?”

“Well, there are these inconsistencies, but then I’m supposed to believe you when you say that there was really nothing between you and Lily. And then she ends up dead. And so does Hutch.”

“Are you suggesting that I did something to her—that I killed her?”

Stop right there, Phoebe commanded herself. Don’t go any further. But she couldn’t contain herself.

“Did you?” she asked, her voice suddenly hoarse.

Duncan let his arms drop by his side and shook his head in dismay, his mouth pinched together.

“I don’t believe you’re doing this, Phoebe,” he said. “I thought we had something together—something good.”

He turned abruptly and traipsed off along the woods.

I guess that’s it for us, Phoebe thought, regardless of what the truth is. I just ended everything.

She felt overwhelmed—by sadness and grief but also by anger that Duncan had lied to her, and by fear that everything he’d said just now had been lies as well. She wanted to believe him, but she was still nagged by doubt.

She waited a minute until Duncan was out of sight and then made her own way across campus. By the time