Scott hesitated. The boundless energy from the young teacher wasn’t what he’d expected. “I’ve read your doctoral thesis…”

“You have! Oh, that’s great, I mean, if you liked it? Did you think that I got it all right?”

“It’s excellent,” Scott said, a little taken aback. “And your insights are right on point.”

“Thank you, Professor. I can’t tell you how much that means. You know, you do all this work, and maybe it gets published by an academic press-I’m still hoping for that-but really hardly anyone except your board and maybe your girlfriend actually sees it. To find out that you’ve actually read it…”

“There is a question,” Scott said stiffly. “There are some similarities between your thesis and a piece I did some months later.”

“Yes. In The Journal of American History. I read it carefully, because we dealt with much the same material. But similarities? How do you mean?”

Scott took another deep breath. “I have been accused of plagiarizing some of the paragraphs you wrote. I did not, but I have been accused.”

He stopped and waited. It took Louis Smith a couple of seconds to gather himself.

“But, that’s crazy,” he said. “Who accused you?”

“I don’t know. I thought it might be you.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“No. Absolutely not. Impossible.”

Scott felt dizzy. He had no idea what to think. “But I have in front of me a printout of your thesis, and I must say that there are paragraphs that are word for word the same. I don’t know how this happened, but…”

“Impossible,” Louis Smith repeated. “Your article came out months after my thesis was written, but you must have been doing your writing and research at more or less the same time. And there were delays in publishing my thesis. In fact, other than on the university website, which links to several historical sites, it’s hard to get a copy. The idea that you managed to find it, and then adopt some of the language…well, this is a mystery. Can you read me the paragraphs that are the same?”

Scott looked down at the yellow-highlighted words. “Yes. In my article, on page thirty-three, I wrote…”

And Scott ran through both.

Louis Smith responded slowly. “Well, that’s most curious, because the paragraph you read me that purports to be in both papers does not exist in mine. That is, I never wrote that. It’s not in my thesis. I mean, the points are similar to conclusions I draw, but what you say is there, is not.”

“But I’m reading from a printout of your thesis.”

“I don’t know for certain, Professor, but my immediate suspicion is that someone has tampered with the document you have in front of you. Do you know anyone who might do that?”

The wind had picked up, cutting razorlike across the pitch, and the daylight was fading in the west, making the world filmy gray and indistinct, as Hope gathered the team around her at the end of practice. The strands of hair that had escaped from ponytails were plastered to their foreheads with sweat. She had worked them hard, perhaps harder than she ordinarily would near the end of the season, but she had lost herself in running with them, feeling a release in breathlessness, as if the cold air was the only thing that could possibly distract her.

“Fine effort,” she said. “As sharp as we’ve been all season. Two weeks before the play-offs. You will be tough to beat. Very tough. That’s good. But there are seven other teams heading into the tournament who might be working just as hard. Now it becomes something more than physical. Now it’s about desire. How do you want this year, this season, this team, to be remembered?”

She looked around at the glistening faces of young women who had come to understand that a prize can be attained by hard work and dedication. It finds a spot in their eyes first, Hope thought, then spreads right into their skin, so intense that it gives off a sort of heat.

She smiled at them all, but felt a deep hole inside.

“Look,” Hope said carefully, “in order to win, we’re all going to have to pull together. So is there anything anyone wants to say here in front of the team? Is there anything holding you back?”

The girls looked oddly at each other. Some heads shook back and forth.

Hope was unsure whether any rumors about her had begun to circulate. But she found it hard to imagine that there hadn’t been some talk, yet. There are no secrets in some worlds, she thought.

The girls seemed to collectively shrug. She wanted to interpret this as support.

“Okay,” she said. “But if there is anyone, and I mean anyone, who is bothered by something, anything, before we start the play-offs, they can come to me. Office door is always open. Or, if you don’t want to talk to me, then see the athletic director.”

She could not believe she was saying what she was. She had the sense to change the subject.

“This is, without doubt, the quietest you’ve ever been as a team. So quiet, in fact, that I’m going to assume you’ve all lost your voices because you’ve worked so hard. So, let’s cancel the postpractice run. Give yourselves a cheer, a pat on the back, and then grab your bags and head on in.”

This got a round of applause. No extra laps always worked.

Hope gave them a wave, sending them on their way. They are ready, she thought. She wondered whether she was.

Within seconds, the girls had started to make their way off the field, knotting into groups, and Hope could hear laughter. She watched them depart, then sat on the wooden sideline bench.

The wind had increased, and she hunched her shoulders against the cold. She thought to herself that being a part of something, such as the school and the team, was a large part of how she defined herself, and now that was in jeopardy. A shadow moved across the green grass of the field, making the earth seem black. Little in the world is as soul-deadening as being falsely accused, she thought. An empty fury filled her. She wanted to find the person who had done it and pummel him or her with her fists.

But whoever it was, at that moment, seemed to have no more substance than the darkness growing around her, and Hope, as angry as she was, instead put her head in her hands and sobbed uncontrollably.

“Ashley? Ashley Freeman? I haven’t seen her in a while. Months. Maybe even more than a year. Does she still live in the city?”

I didn’t answer that question, but asked, “You worked here at the museum at the same time as she did?”

“Yes. There were a bunch of us working towards various graduate degrees who filled part-time jobs here.”

I was in the lobby of the museum, not far from the restaurant where Ashley had fruitlessly waited one afternoon for Michael O’Connell. The young woman working the reception desk wore her hair close-cropped on one side and spiked on the top, giving her a roosterlike appearance, and she sported at least a half dozen earrings in one ear and a single large, bright orange loop in the other, which made her seem curiously off balance. She looked up at me, with a small, youthful smile, and finally got around to asking the obvious question.

“Why are you interested in Ashley? Is something wrong?”

I shook my head. “I’m interested in a legal case that she was connected to. I’m just doing a little background work. Wanted to see where she worked. So, you knew her, when she was here?”

“Not very well…” The young woman hesitated.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t think too many people knew her. Or liked her.”

“Really?”

“Well, I overheard one person once say that Ashley wasn’t at all like who she pretended to be, or something like that. I think that was the general consensus. There was a lot of talk and speculation when she left.”

“Why?”

“There was a rumor about some stuff found on her workstation computer that got her in trouble. At least that’s what I heard.”

“Stuff?”

“Like way different stuff. Is she in trouble again?”