For a long moment Dr. Sacco studied him, searching for any tics or microexpressions that might betray him.

“So that’s your response,” she said.

“Yes.” He hated having to lie. Hated that he had plunged blindly into that damn affair with Taryn. He hated the day he’d met her, hated the fact he wasn’t a better man than what he’d become. Hated that he was not the good husband Maggie deserved. The last time he’d sat in this chair, he’d been charged with defending a fictitious teacher having an affair with a fictitious student. It had been like a preview of coming attractions. His life had imitated art in all its tragically stupid glory.

“Then unless some other evidence develops, that’s all for now,” she said. “I’m sorry for any inconvenience.”

Unless some other evidence develops.

Which meant she’d be watching him. Which meant he would always be under this shadow of doubt and could never slip up, never let down his guard.

He stood up to leave, but at the door he paused. “You said it was an anonymous caller on the phone. Did she give you any clue who she was?” he asked.

Her eyes narrowed, and suddenly he regretted the question. “Why would you want to know that?” she asked.

“If I’m going to be accused of something this serious, I’d like some idea of who she is.”

“I suppose I can tell you it wasn’t a she.”

This startled him. “The caller was male?”

“Yes.”

He knew at once who had made the call: Cody Atwood, the boy who always trailed in Taryn’s wake. The boy who clearly worshipped her, who seemed to have no other friends. For him, Taryn must seem like a dazzlingly brilliant sun around which he revolved.

Taryn had put him up to this. What other torments did she have in store?

CHAPTER 33

JACK

It was probably paranoia, but as he walked across campus the next day, he felt as if everybody who saw him knew his secret. As if scored on his forehead was the bright-red letter A. Hester Prynne, meet Jack Dorian.

Every other morning when he walked into his seminar, he’d hear the buzz of conversation and greetings of “Hey, Professor.” But that morning, a strangely conspiratorial silence hung over the room. Where Taryn usually sat, there was an empty chair, like a black hole sucking in all the light. Cody was present, though, and when Jack looked at him, Cody could not hold Jack’s gaze.

So it was Cody who’d called the Title IX office. Had the son of a bitch blabbed to the whole class? Was that why they were all staring at him?

Jack refused to let them know how rattled he was. He bid them all his usual “good morning” and took out his notes. He was damn well going to conduct this class as he always did, despite the anxiety gnawing like a rodent in his stomach. At least he didn’t have to deal with Taryn’s presence. He hoped she’d drop out of the course, just to avoid the discomfort of their facing each other across the table for these final weeks of the semester. Perhaps that noose around his neck was loosening, just a bit. Just enough for him to breathe again.

But that afternoon, while he sat in Dunkin’ in Garrison Hall, the noose snapped tighter than ever.

He was having coffee and reviewing his notes on The Human Stain for his Modern American Novel course when he looked up to see Taryn descending on him like a hawk. Without a word, she scraped a chair across to his table. She was dressed all in black today, the color of doom, her face so rigid it might have been chipped from granite.

“Taryn,” he said, “I was wondering why you didn’t show up for—”

“I’m going to do the talking,” she snapped. “And you’re going to listen.” She dropped into the chair and leaned toward him with a predatory lurch.

He glanced at the students sitting a few tables away, worried that others would hear, but no one seemed to be paying attention. They were all in their own little bubbles, unaware of the nasty little drama unfolding just a few feet away.

“Can we do this outside?” he asked.

“No. Right here.”

“Then please can you keep it down? Let’s not make a scene.”

“I don’t care if we do make a scene, Jack. All things considered, I think I’m being pretty fucking calm about this.”

He shot another glance around the room. Said quietly: “What do you want? Just tell me what you want.”

“Let me lay it out for you, bullet point by bullet point. One, I won’t be returning to your seminar. I know you’re probably relieved as hell not to see me in class anymore, but it doesn’t mean I’m dropping out. Oh no, I’m enrolled till the end.

“Two, you’re going to give me an A because I deserve it. And because of all the pain and suffering you put me through.

“Three, you are going to pull every string you can and get me whatever I want. For a start, I’ll need a paid position as a teaching assistant, and you’re going to write me a recommendation worthy of Heloise d’Argenteuil. And if you don’t, I’m going straight to Elizabeth Sacco and telling her how you fucked my brains out.”

“It’s your word against mine, Taryn. How are you going to prove—”

“I’ll tell you how I’m going to prove it. You left behind a little souvenir at my apartment.” She whipped out her cell phone and thrust it at him.

He stared at the photo on her phone, a photo that made no sense. All he saw was a close-up of dark-green fabric. “What is this?”

“Don’t you recognize it? It’s the sofa in my apartment.”

“What does this have to do with anything?”

“Have you forgotten what we did there? Maybe you can’t see the little white stain you left behind. But it’s still there, on the fabric.”

His stomach clenched. Semen. She’s talking about semen.

“I’d call that pretty good proof,” she said, shoving her phone back in her pocket. “I’ve also got a witness in Dr. Hannah Greenwald. She saw us together at the conference hotel. At breakfast, remember? And I’ve also saved all those texts you sent me. Even if you’ve deleted them from your phone, I’ve still got them. I’ve got proof, Jack. So much proof.”

Yes, he had sent her texts, but he couldn’t recall what he’d written or if there’d been anything incriminating in them. He’d since deleted them, but she already had more than enough evidence to destroy his job, his marriage, his life. And nothing in her face, cold with purpose, made him doubt that she was ruthless enough to do it.

“This is blackmail,” he said.

“Call it what you want. I’m just collecting what I’m due.”

“All right. All right.” He tried to steady his breaths, tried to think past his panic. “If I give you the A, if I do everything you want, what happens then? Can we just end this? Can we get on with our lives?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“Haven’t decided what?” His voice rose, and suddenly he felt the collective lines of awareness from others in the café converging on them. At least there was no one here whom he recognized.

“I haven’t decided what else I want from you,” she said. She scraped back her chair and stood up. “But when it’s time for me to collect, I’ll be in touch.”

“But stay away from my wife.”

“What?”

“You visited her at her office, and it wasn’t for a physical. I don’t want you to ever get near her again.”

“Or what?”

“Just don’t.”

She snapped on dark glasses and walked away.

He watched her push through the door and exit into a cold gray drizzle. And he thought about the metaphor at the core of Philip Roth’s novel, the universal human stain—that messy moral complex of imperfections that pollutes everything a person touches.

And we all end up paying for it.

CHAPTER 34

JACK

“Your girl’s officially in the program!” announced Ray McGuire. He stood grinning in Jack’s doorway, his head bent at a rakish tilt. “I just signed the acceptance letter. It’ll go out in today’s mail. That should make her pretty damn happy. A teaching assistantship is still pending the fall budget. But she’s in.”

“She certainly earned it,” said Jack. In more ways than one.

“The grad committee had it narrowed down to two final candidates. It was your recommendation letter that nudged her over the finish line. We’re expecting great things from her, Jack. Must make you proud, eh?”

Relieved was what Jack really felt. Relieved that he’d delivered the goods as promised. This should be the end of it, because Taryn couldn’t afford to expose him now; it would nullify his recommendation letters and jeopardize her future at the university. They’d been partners in sin, and now they were partners in deception. However much they despised each other, they were now forever chained to each other, and Taryn was clever enough to understand this.

This was absolutely the end of it.