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little wild – had finally sparked a connection. The picture – the grainy head-shot – was of the woman she had seen last night. The woman who had run from the arch.

FIVE
    â€˜ M s Schwartz?’ Dulcie stumbled into the conference room, oblivious to the particularly pointed look Martin Thorpe was giving her over his glasses. ‘So nice of you to join us.’
    â€˜Dulce.’ A flash of silver caught her eye. Her buddy Trista was nodding her over to an empty seat, the ring in her nose as effective as a lighthouse in her current fog. Trista’s specialty was nineteenth-century fiction, her thesis on ‘Characterization through Metaphor in the Late Victorian Novel,’ but in appearance she was adamantly postmodern. As Dulcie slid into the seat, Trista leaned over to whisper: ‘Thorpe’s gonna blow.’
    Dulcie waited till the acting chair seemed diverted before responding. ‘What’s up?’ It came out louder than she’d meant, and instinctively they both glanced over. Thorpe was bent over a schedule, his fluff of white hair glowing in the fluorescent light. ‘Is it about that missing girl?’ she continued, her voice softer.
    Trista shook her head. ‘It’s Dimitri. He’s a no-show.’ Her friend had misunderstood her, Dulcie realized as she glanced around. The handsome transfer, a new addition the previous fall, was not among those seated around the big table. ‘So, how’d the meeting with Chelowski go?’
    â€˜And do you have the new forms, Ms Wright?’ Thorpe’s question caught Trista off guard. ‘The question was rhetorical,’ he continued, as she started to stutter some kind of response, and tossed some sheets of paper on to the table in front of her. Only then did Dulcie realize that nearly everyone else had already taken their copies from the acting chair’s three neat piles. ‘The problem will be real, however, if you don’t learn the Coop’s new procedures for taking book orders.’
    Dulcie picked up her copies and pretended to peruse them as Thorpe droned on. She didn’t really want to talk about her disastrous meeting with her adviser right now. Besides, she kind of liked the acting chair. His specialty, Renaissance English poetry, bored her to tears, but the man himself, little and nervous, had her sympathy. Maybe it was because of her own fashion sense – or lack thereof – but she identified with his rigid uniform of khakis and pullover sweater vests. Growing up on a commune – what her mother called an arts colony – she had found life back East mystifying in so many ways. These days, she had her own uniform: layering the bulky, but colorful sweaters her mother knit, usually out of commune-carded wool, over jeans or, when the occasion merited, a long gypsy-like skirt. Thorpe’s argyle fixation was another issue – the socks matching the sweater vests matching his scarf – but, after years of fashion faux pas, she could relate. Or maybe, she realized as he wiped his pale hands together for the third or fourth time, it was that he looked a little like a mouse. A diamondback mouse. But surely these forms weren’t as important as a missing girl. A student. There was something else about the girl, something Dulcie couldn’t quite place. Maybe she had sat in on a class once.
    â€˜Ms Schwartz?’ The mouse was addressing her.
    â€˜I’m sorry?’ She sat up, aware of all the eyes on her.
    â€˜Your new student?’ That was it. She’d been in one of the sections Dulcie led – the discussion group for one of the big survey courses – but hadn’t stayed. ‘Ms Schwartz?’ Dulcie looked up and realized that Thorpe wasn’t the only one waiting. ‘A Ms McCorkle?’
    â€˜Yes, she’s one of mine.’ Across the table, Dulcie saw Lloyd, her office mate, wince. So that hadn’t been the question.