“So?”
“I just thought you should know that you were right about him,” she said, her voice so hushed that it was in danger of being swept away by the chilly breeze that flitted through the alleyway. “About his transcripts.”
“How would you know that?” I asked.
“Because I was supposed to be Waverly’s valedictorian last year.”
She fell silent as a group of students, laughing raucously, passed by at the end of the alley. I waited until their conversation faded then said, “I’m listening.”
Jo huffed into her gloved hands and rubbed them together. “At the end of the spring semester, I was slated to graduate at the top of my class, summa cum laude, until I failed three core classes that were necessary to my major. I’ve never failed a class in my life.”
I could relate. The last few steps before graduation were always the hardest ones to take. My own life was a direct example of that. “Stress has a way of taking us down with little effort,” I said, hoping to reassure the young woman. “Believe me, I know that feeling—like an uncertain future is creeping up on you?—all too well.”
“It wasn’t stress,” Jo insisted, a biting edge to her voice. “I was fine, ahead of schedule even, and then someone altered my grades to make sure that Donovan Davenport became valedictorian.”
The conviction with which she delivered this piece of news supported what I’d already assumed was true. It was evident that Davenport’s transcripts had been tampered with. It was just as likely that whoever was responsible for Donovan’s inexplicable success had also knocked aside other students in order to make way for him.
“Did you report it?” I asked.
“You actually believe me?”
I nodded, kicking the toe of one boot then the other against the brick wall of Research Hall in an effort to get some blood flowing through my frigid feet. “I’ve seen Donovan’s real transcripts. Straight As, my ass. So tell me, did you report it?”
When she realized that I wasn’t messing around with her, Jo’s eyes brightened. “Yeah, I did,” she said. “I went to every professor, but they all claimed that they had no idea what I was talking about, and that I would have to take it up with the department. They sent me on a wild goose chase from one university official to the next. I thought I was going to lose my mind.”
“What happened?”
“Eventually, they called me into the dean’s office for a meeting,” she said, tucking her chin into one of her many scarves. “Except when I got there, I found out that Dean Hastings had called the school psychiatrist, and they were both waiting for me. They told me that I was suffering from intense anxiety and paranoia brought on by stress.”
“What?”
“Yeah,” said Jo with a curt nod. “They said that if I wanted to complete my degree at Waverly, I would have to agree to attend weekly sessions with the psychiatrist, and I certainly wasn’t going to graduate at the top of my class anymore.”
It all sounded too conspiratorial for Waverly’s reputation. The university had an honor code; falsifying grades and forcing students into therapy were violations of that code at the highest level.
“Look, I just wanted to let you know,” Jo continued. She wiped moisture away from her face with the back of her gloved hand. “If they can convince the entire university that I’m crazy, I’m sure they can do the same or worse to you for digging into their business.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“I thought you knew.”
“No.”
“Shit.” Jo looked skyward in apparent dismay. She sniffed, wiped her nose, and said, “Just don’t get involved, okay? And be careful.”
She took a step back as if preparing to walk away, but I grabbed her wrist to hold her in place. “Who’s behind all of this?” I asked in a low voice. “What else do you know?”
“Nothing. Let go of me.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe that,” I said but allowed her to pry herself from my grasp.
Jo looked me up and down as if evaluating my ability to handle whatever information she was withholding. “If you get any deeper in this, there is no way out,” she warned.
“I can handle it.”
She sighed. “Fine. Do you have a pen?”
I flipped open my messenger bag without hesitation and handed her one of the red correction pens I used to grade students’ essays. She uncapped it, took my hand, and began to write on the back of it.
“I’ve had enough of this shit, all right?” she said as she doodled away on my cold skin. “You do what you want with this, but don’t come looking for me. I don’t want to be involved anymore. I just want my damn degree.”
As she capped the pen and gave it back to me, I glanced down at the back of my hand. Jo had only written three words—nec plus ultra—and drawn an outline of a bird, and when I looked up again, she had already made it to the other end of the alleyway.
“Hey, wait a second!” I called after her. “What the hell does this mean?”
She kept walking. “Figure it out. Or don’t. To be frank, the latter is your better option.”
With that, Jo Mitchell disappeared behind Research Hall, leaving me in the cold to stare at the meaningless red ink on the back of my hand.
At home, I collapsed on the sofa for a nap. Franklin hopped up next to me and settled down. I curled in around his warm body and pressed my nose into his fur. He smelled like a dog, musty with a hint of baby shampoo, but there was still something comfortable about it. My mind whirled, circulating through all of the secrets that Waverly University was hiding, but I hadn’t slept a full eight hours in several days, and so I drifted away into blissful unconsciousness.
Some hours later, Wes
