Page 46 of Best Offer Wins
My pulse quickens. I turn the volume on my phone up a couple notches.
“Yeah, we woke up one day—me and our other roommates—and she’d packed up and left. We only had a couple months left to go before graduation, it was really bizarre.” Chloe sighs on the other end of the line. “Sorry, I know this isn’t why you called, it’s just no one’s asked me about her in a while.”
“No, no, if she and Professor Bradshaw were really that close, this could be helpful,” I say, struggling to wrap my mind around this new information. “I’m just not sure I totally understand…”
“I still don’t really understand it myself,” says Chloe.
I’m trying to think of an articulate follow-up question, but none of this is making sense.
“So she was just… gone?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure she left on her own? How do you know something didn’t happen to her?”
My head swims. What, exactly, is Curt capable of?
“Oh yeah, we talked about calling the police,” says Chloe, “but later that morning, she Venmoed her rent for the rest of the year. We were shocked she had that much cash. She included a message—something about just needing a break. I texted her constantly for weeks afterward, but I never heard back. I was really hurt by it.”
“That must’ve been really hard,” I say, as another new email appears at the top of my inbox. That makes an even thirty unread. I close out the window so I’m not distracted. “And you really have no idea why?”
“None. I mean, she’d been acting a little out of character, like, partying harder than she did typically. But we were in the home stretch, you know? I guess I thought she was finally letting herself have some fun. She’d always taken school so seriously.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. She never missed a class, studied harder than anyone, you know the type. I think it had to do with being the first one in her family to go to college.”
“That’s impressive.” (I do know the type.)
“Her plan was to work at the Treasury Department for a couple years, then go back to school for a PhD. I figured she’d be the Fed chair one day.”
“Huh,” I say. “Seems even weirder, then, that she’d go MIA.”
“Right,” says Chloe. “I still look for her online sometimes, but I’ve never found anything. My best guess is she’s back in Florida somewhere, since that’s where she’s from.”
“Hm, okay,” I say. “But if we could just backtrack a little bit—what did you say her relationship with Professor Bradshaw was like?”
“Oh, they were close. He got her an internship the summer after sophomore year at his dad’s firm. He was basically a mentor to her.”
“Did you ever talk to Professor Bradshaw about where Dottie might have gone?”
“Now that you mention it, yeah, I did send him an email about it.”
My fingers hover over my keyboard, waiting for her to say more. I notice I’ve been leaving sweaty prints behind as I type.
“And what did he say?” I nudge.
“Just that he didn’t know anything, but he’d let me know if she got in touch.”
“But that was the last time you heard from him?”
“Yeah.”
“How did Dottie and Professor Bradshaw become so close in the first place?”
“Well, like I said, she was just a star. Every class I had with her, she was always the one raising her hand, asking the brilliant questions, debating the professors. We had one class with Bradshaw together, and a lot of us didn’t like him much, but she got along great with him. If he wasn’t gay, I’m sure we all would’ve wondered about it, you know? But I think he just thought she had a lot of potential. He just kind of took her under his wing.”
“Do you know if they were still that close when she left?”
