“Why? What happened? Didn’t he like what you wrote up in the file?”
“Oh, it was glowing.” She rolls her eyes. “He’s highly intelligent, so the writeup was easy, even with my guilty conscience. I used very specific examples of good work that he’d contributed. I thought I’d learned a lesson, and paid the price only in excessive guilt and crushing shame.”
I’m not convinced that crushing shame makes sense in this scenario, but I’m smart enough to keep that opinion to myself. “I take it that something went wrong? Otherwise he wouldn’t feel the need to lash out like a cornered pit bull.”
“He cheated. At work,” she adds quickly.
“Like, on a test?”
Daphne shakes her head, and silky strands of her hair brush the bare skin of my shoulder. “We were working on a big study that follows healthcare workers’ health all over the country. Our office processed surveys from all over Connecticut. Thousands of them. So every day we got these responses either online or in the mail. And I eventually realized that Reardon was throwing responses away.”
“What? Why? To lighten the workload?”
“No.” Her head thunks against the headboard. “He was throwing out responses from Hartford County. It’s sort of a miracle that I ever noticed. But I had been given a research assistant position that was pretty far above my pay grade, so I was kind of psycho about counting and double counting everything that we got.”
“And then the piles shrank?” I guess.
“Yes, but only certain piles. Reardon was digitizing the data that came in on paper. We all were. It’s boring work. But quite a few responses went missing in four zip codes.”
“What’s special about Hartford County?” I have to ask.
“Cancer,” she whispers. “There’s some preliminary evidence of a cancer cluster. It would make his father look bad. That’s my theory, anyway. But I can’t prove he was throwing away surveys from cancer patients. I didn’t even form that theory until recently. But the numbers kept coming up wrong, so I confronted him. That was my second mistake. I should have told someone else first. Or I should have tried catching him in the act. But I just thought there must be some explanation or misunderstanding. And then when I brought it up he was terrifying. Just psycho.”
Oh shit. “What did he threaten you with?”
“He said I was crazy. That I had no proof. And that I’d invented this whole thing because I was so upset that he dumped me. He said he’d file a sexual harassment claim.” Her voice shakes. “He said he could make me look like a crazy stalker. He had the text messages to prove that he’s the one who broke it off.”
“Oh my fucking God.”
“He said if I tried to take him down, he and his father would make sure I never got a diploma from any university anywhere. And I believe him.”
My heart hurts now. I wrap an arm around Daphne and pull her close to me. “And you never told anyone this story, did you?”
“Not a single person,” she says. “I never wanted anyone to know. And I don’t even know why I just told you.”
I do, though. Because this Reardon guy is a terrifying motherfucker. And sometimes fear just spills over whatever container you’re trying to keep it in.
“Okay, okay,” I whisper. “I won’t tell a soul.”
“I’m a coward,” she murmurs. “I pretend to care about science and public health. But all that data is fucked because I’m too afraid to report him. God, my head.” She rubs her temples.
I reach over to the bedside table and flip off the lamp. “This won’t fix itself tonight.”
“It won’t fix itself period,” she says. “Now that he knows I’ve left Harkness, he’s nervous.”
“Yeah, but…” I think it over for a moment. “He’s nervous, but he can’t do anything. It makes no sense for him to make accusations against you now, because that invites countermeasures from you. You’d be forced to defend yourself by telling your side of the story. That’s why threats are his only option. He needs you to be terrified and stay silent.”
“It’s working,” she says. “I’m terrified every day.”
“Jesus,” I whisper.
We sit quietly for a while. I feel Daphne relaxing by degrees. Her breathing slows down, while I think through everything she’s told me. What a mess.
Daphne makes more sense to me than she did an hour ago. No wonder she’s so angry. No wonder she hasn’t been very receptive to all my fun suggestions. I’ve been trying