I'm 64 years old. She said, "I retire in June. My pension is through this university. I know if I say something and it goes wrong, I lose everything I've spent 22 years building. I know that, too." The room was quiet.
Through the window of the administrative suite, the campus was waking up outside. Students crossing the paths. someone cycling past. The mundane, ongoing, ordinary life of a place that looked from the outside completely fine. Let me think about it, Marge said. That's all I'm asking, Clare said.
She stood up and Marge, whatever you decide. Thank you for the list. Marge looked at her. That boy told me I wouldn't be remembered, she said. After 22 years, her voice was steady.
But there was something underneath it that had weight. Clare looked at her. He was wrong, she said. She left. That same afternoon, she found Tom Grady replacing a light fixture in the second floor hallway of Whitmore Hall.
He looked at her when she stopped beside him. He came down off the small step ladder. She said, "I have a question for you." He waited. The camera system in this building, she said. "The one that was supposedly under maintenance the day Dylan grabbed me." Tom looked at her steadily.
"I know this building," he said. I've maintained this building for 11 years. Was there scheduled maintenance on that system? He picked up a screwdriver from his toolbox and turned it over in his hand. There was a work order, he said.
I saw it in the system the next morning. Logged October 14th. Who submitted it? Work orders for camera systems go through the facilities manager? But this one, he paused.
The submission code was from the administrative office, not Facilities. She looked at him. That's not how it works, she said. No, he said it isn't. She was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, "Is there a backup system?" He put the screwdriver back in his toolbox. He looked at her for a long time. He said, "When we had the equipment theft in 2019, the university installed a secondary backup server. It runs independently of the main system. Different network, different power supply.
It records all camera feeds on a 48-hour loop. She waited. Nobody in the administrative office knows about it. He said it was an outside contractor. The paperwork went through Facilities directly.
Webb was on sabbatical when it was installed. She said, "Does the feed from room 214 route through it?" He said, "Every room in this building does." She stood very still. Tom, she said, "Is that footage still on the server?" He said, "I pulled it the morning after it happened. I have it on an external drive locked in my truck." She looked at him. He looked back at her.
This man who had walked into Desert Storm at 20 years old and come home to work in a building for 11 years and recognized a walk he had never stopped having. "Why?" she asked, he said. because I've watched that boy walk through this building for 3 years and I've watched the people around him look the other way. And then you walked in. He paused and you didn't look the other way. She was quiet for a moment.
Thank you, she said. He picked up the stepladder and folded it. Don't thank me yet, he said. Thank me when it's done. The following week moved with the particular heavy slowness of something that is about to break.
She taught her classes. She watched Dylan. He had gone quieter since the incident, not remorseful, queer in the way of someone who knows that other people are handling things on his behalf, and he only needs to wait. She had seen that before in people who had always had other people handling things. On Thursday, she went to find Bethany Ross.
She found her in the campus coffee shop alone with a textbook open in front of her that she wasn't reading. Clare bought two coffees and sat down across from her without asking. Bethany looked up startled. "I'm not going to stay long," Clare said. She set one of the coffees in front of Bethany.
"I just wanted to check in." Bethany wrapped both hands around the cup. I heard they only called two witnesses to the inquiry, she said. Her voice was carefully flat. Yes, I wasn't called. No.
Bethany looked at the table. Someone messaged me Tuesday night. told me that if I said anything to anyone, they'd make sure my financial aid application had issues. Clare was still. "Did you screenshot it?" "Yes." "Don't delete it," Clare said. Bethany looked up.
"What's going to happen?" Clare looked at her. She thought about what it would mean to make a promise she wasn't sure she could keep. She had never done that. Not once in her life she said, "I don't know exactly what's going to happen." But I know that what Dylan Holtt did in that classroom is on video and there are 40 people who saw it. And I know that what he did to you and to other students before you is documented, even if they tried to bury it.
And I know that systems that protect the wrong people eventually stop working. Bethany was looking at her very carefully. How do you know? She asked. Clare was quiet for a moment.
Because I've watched systems fall apart, she said. and I've watched them hold. And the difference is always whether there are people willing to tell the truth when it costs them something. Bethany swallowed. She nodded very slowly. Okay, she said.
Two days later, Webb called Clare to his office. Senator Holt had called the university president that morning. The president had called Dean Owens. Owens had called Webb. The message passed down through four layers of administration was simple.
Clare Mercer was to be suspended. Webb told her across his desk with his hands folded and his voice in that carefully reasonable register. Given the ongoing inquiry and the concerns raised by the Hol family, the university feels it's appropriate to place you on administrative suspension pending the completion of the process. He slid a document across the desk. She looked at it.
How long? She asked. The suspension takes effect in 48 hours. She looked at the document and my classes a substitute will be arranged. She nodded once.
She did not argue. She did not raise her voice. She did not show him anything. She signed the acknowledgement line. She stood up.
Webb said Clare, "This isn't personal." She picked up the document and looked at him. "It's always personal," she said. "For someone." She left his office. She walked down the hallway and down the stairs and out through the main doors of the administration building. Outside, the air was cold and the sky was flat and white.
She stood on the steps for a moment. She had 48 hours. She took her phone out and texted Reeves. Suspension in 48 hours. Moving now.