“Look, I understand why it’s hard for you to admit. Writing love letters to a student is probably against some code of behavior the business school makes you agree to or something.” Harvard would likely find how badly written the letters were to be even more objectionable than Jonathan crossing the boundaries of professional behavior.

“Rachel, I really don’t know where this is coming from. Why are you doing this?” The nerve had gone from twitching to jumping.

I carefully laid out the reasons behind my conjecture, as if I were structuring an answer to a particularly tricky exam question, being as gentle as I could when I pointed out that both Jonathan and the letters shared a frequent habit of misquoting poetry or misattributing the poetry to the wrong poet. “When you add it up, it all points to you.”

There was silence as I waited for him to respond. “You can’t prove it,” he said, a new and hostile tone to his voice that I smugly took as evidence of a usually hidden violent streak.

“You’re admitting that you wrote the letters?”

“Yes. Not that it’s any of your business.” He made a sharp turn onto a deserted side street.

“Where are you going?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice level. Our plan allowed for the possibility that Jonathan might deviate from the route back to the hotel, but the speed with which he was maneuvering on the slick roads was unnerving.

“I’m driving you back to the Charles.”

“This isn’t the way. There’s no reason to go down-” I looked in vain for a street sign so I could broadcast where we were. One flashed by, but I couldn’t make out the words. Glasses, I thought. I definitely needed glasses.

“If you tell anyone about this, I’ll lose my job. You know that, don’t you?” He made another sharp turn onto another equally deserted side street.

“Well, I don’t know how you’re going to be able to do your job from jail. And are you sure this is the way to the hotel?”

“Now what are you talking about?” he exploded, jamming his foot down on the accelerator as he swung the car into another turn. The wheels skidded in the snow, and there was a hair-raising moment when we were hurtling toward a tree. I was bracing myself for the impact when I felt the wheels gain traction under us.

“Don’t you think you should slow down?”

“Why would I go to jail?”

“Don’t be dense, Jonathan.” The reckless way he was driving was making me testy. “For attacking Sara Grenthaler, of course. And slow down already. The roads are too slippery for you to be driving like this.”

“I’ve got snow tires.”

“Snow tires or not, you’re still going to jail.”

“I love her, dammit! I love her! I love her,” he repeated.

And then he slammed the car to a stop.

Thirty-One

J onathan put his head down on the steering wheel and burst into tears. I looked up and realized, shocked, that we’d emerged from the tangle of side streets and were parked directly in front of the hotel.

“Um. Uh, Jonathan. Don’t cry,” I said lamely.

“I love her,” he sobbed. “And she barely notices me. She just thinks of me as her boring old professor. But I love her.”

“Um, I’m beginning to see that. But don’t cry.”

“I pour my heart out, and she could care less. She even gave me the letters back. As if they meant nothing to her.” He picked his head up from the steering wheel and looked at me, as if I shared his anguish and his outrage. “How could she do that to me?”

Thankfully, there was a tap on the driver-side window. It was O’Connell. I turned to peer out the back. There were a couple of cars behind us: Jane and Sean’s Volvo and what was probably O’Connell’s unmarked police car. I was impressed that they’d managed to keep up with Jonathan’s wild race through the snow-covered back streets of residential Cambridge.

O’Connell tapped on the window again and Jonathan slowly rolled it down. “Professor Beasley. I think you should come with me.” The detective was holding Jane’s cell phone in his hand, and it was on speaker, echoing his words back to us. I decided I could safely end the call I’d placed and pressed the off button on my own phone.

It was well after eleven, but a unanimous decision was reached that we could all use a nightcap. We retired to the lounge at Rialto, on the second floor of the hotel, once we’d ascertained that there was no longer any threat of live jazz.

“That was a nice after-dinner activity,” said Hilary, tucking her long legs under her on the velvet-covered sofa.

“But it was scary hearing you trying to tease out a confession from him,” Jane told me. “I mean, I knew we were right behind you and everything, but he sounded like he was really out of control.”

“You know,” said Emma thoughtfully, “I really believed him when he said he loved Sara.”

“He does love her,” I responded. “Just in a bizarre and twisted way. And it all fits. Sara went to him with the letters on Wednesday, thinking that she was going to get help from a wise and caring authority figure. Meanwhile, he must have interpreted it as her rejecting him and wasted no time lashing out. She was attacked on Thursday morning.”

“What a freak,” said Hilary. “And the crying! Ick. Rach, I’m glad we nipped this one in the bud before you started anything. I don’t think I could handle you dating a guy who goes around weeping all the time.”

When it looked like our one drink was going to extend to another round, I excused myself for a moment. I’d been wearing high heels for fifteen hours, which would have been bad enough, but my right foot was particularly sore from where it had connected with Grant Crocker’s groin. I’d taken my shoes off at Jane’s, but I had a feeling that the Rialto would prefer that its patrons kept their shoes on. I ran upstairs to change into a more comfortable pair.

I was all too aware that there hadn’t been any messages from Peter on my Blackberry, so the blinking message light on the phone in my room took me by surprise. I listened to the message as I kicked off my heels and eased my throbbing feet into flats. It was Peter, speaking quickly and in a harried tone.

Hey. Rach. It’s me. I seem to be having a hard time tracking you down, so I thought I’d leave a message here. Anyhow, I’ve got some great news. The client’s made a decision-they’ve turned down Hamilton Tech’s off-I mean, their pitch, and they’re definitely going with us. We don’t want to lose the momentum, so we agreed to stay here until we hammer out every detail. The final negotiations will probably take a while. It looks unlikely that I’ll make it to Jane’s. In fact, there’s a chance I might not make it back tonight at all. Anyhow, I’ll explain it all when I see you, okay?

Oh. And I hope you’re having a good time at the reunion. Say hello to everyone for me, and tell them I wish I could be there. Miss you.

Humph. With a message like that, why even bother leaving one at all? Flimsy excuses, lame apologies-left in the last place I’d look for them and in the one place where he’d be relatively sure not to have to talk to me in person. Who needed it? I tried to work myself up into a healthy rage as the elevator took me back down to the second floor. Surely rage was more productive than giving way to the acrid taste of rejection and its favorite dance partner, loneliness.

A fresh drink was waiting for me when I returned to my friends, and it was a welcome sight. I was already well along the path to mild inebriation, and I’d made an executive decision in the elevator that I was going to take the path to its logical end. Anything would be better than to feel the way I was feeling. Hilary was enumerating O’Connell’s many merits to a less than rapt audience, and Sean and Matthew were deep in conversation in their corner, probably talking about woodworking or something similarly manly. “Anything?” asked Emma in a low voice as I picked up my glass.