The contrast was unsettling. I steeled myself as Carmichael hung up, leaned back, and crossed his arms.
“I’m so, so sorry, Brian,” the receptionist stuttered as she rushed in behind me. “She raced right past me. There was nothing I could do to stop her.” She sounded genuinely terrified.
Brian waved an irritated hand in her direction. “It’s fine, Bethany. Leave us and close the door.”
The receptionist wasted no time following his instructions. I took her hasty departure as my cue to move fast.
“You were blackmailing Doug Sinclair.” I had no illusions that Carmichael would have been doing the dirty work himself, but wild accusations had a way of dislodging useful information. My money was still on an Advantage employee or associate—someone who thought they should be benefiting more from Carmichael’s well-oiled machine.
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” he replied easily, chin resting in his hand. He looked bored and kind of annoyed, but not the least bit concerned. “Now, Ms. Thompson, or whatever the hell your name is, I suggest you get the fuck out of my office.”
“Or what?” I asked casually. “You’ll kill me like you killed Doug Sinclair?”
Carmichael laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“Doug Sinclair is dead,” I said. “He was driven off the road.”
“And what does that have to do with me?” Carmichael asked dismissively.
“You were blackmailing him. You tried to apply pressure. Things got out of hand.”
He leaned back, hands resting casually on the arms of his chair now. “I didn’t even know he was dead until right now.”
I shrugged. “Pretty big coincidence, though, don’t you think?”
“Call it what you want.” There was a tightness to his face now. “I didn’t have anything to do with any car accident.”
“So that’s a yes to the blackmail.”
Carmichael shook his head, then made a show of considering the accusation.
“Blackmail him with what, exactly?” he asked, folding his hands in his lap.
“You helped him bribe his daughter’s way into Amherst.”
“I most certainly did not.”
“Youtoldme you did at our last meeting, remember? Those extra payments? I have a recording.”
“Recording.” Carmichael smirked. “What you have on tape, then, is the oldest upsell in the book,” he said. “I suggest your friend paid for an extra that he didn’t pay for in order to convince you that you need to do the same.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Convenient and also true. Go to the police and open up aninvestigation into Ella Sinclair’s file if you want—all you’ll find is a kid who had some help studying for her SATs, revising her résumé, and crafting essays. All well within the bounds of acceptable and entirelylegalcollege counseling. There was nothing to blackmail Doug Sinclair with because he didn’t do anything remotely wrong.” Carmichael stood. “Now, like I said, get the hell out of my office before I call the police myself.”
I crossed Fifth Avenue and walked a couple blocks uptown along Central Park, feeling thrown but also relieved. Doug hadn’t bribed Amherst—which meant he hadn’t lied to me. Still, this wasn’t necessarily the answer Darden wanted. Without any wrongdoing involving Advantage, Doug wasn’t nearly as convenient a scapegoat. Dougwasstill being blackmailed, though—I knew that firsthand. And it was theoretically possible that the blackmail had distracted Doug at work, that he’d made mistakes. I still found that hard to believe, but it was a compromise I could potentially accept—letting Darden scapegoat Doug, but allowing him to retain his fundamental innocence.
It was warmer now, a hint of spring in the air as I passed a cherry tree beginning to blossom. I dropped down onto a nearby bench. The fountains in front of the Met were rising and falling in a hypnotic rhythm. The water reminded me of that T. S. Eliot poem “The Dry Salvages,” which Reed had us discuss during the writing club. “‘Not fare well, / But fare forward, voyagers.’”
“You’re voyagers, too.” He’d gestured around the drafty, cavernous room with the windows that wouldn’t shut all the way even in December. “This place is only where you find yourselves right now.” And then he put a hand on my shoulder as he passed—only for a second. “You have limitless potential.”
The Met’s dancing fountain abruptly dropped then, its cycle complete. And, in the stillness, I had a clear view across the street. To the black sedan, parked alongside the hot dog vendor. Likethat car in the Village that had sped away. Maybe like the car that had run Doug Sinclair off the road. And also like a million other cars.
I stood. But as I stepped forward to take a closer look, the car pulled away from the curb. And then, once again, it was gone. As if it had never been there at all.
November 24, 1992
I wrote about a girl in love during the French Revolution. But there was one line in there … “She loved him in that way young girls do, utterly senseless and deeply brave.”
