Caitlyn swayed in the doorway, hoping Ruth would elaborate. “Sure. But if you can tell me a little more, it might help me to find the right department.”

  Ruth huffed. “Do you know what’s happening in Tigray? Ethiopia?”

  “Um.” Caitlyn knew, but would Chloe? “I’m not sure.” She took a few hesitant steps into the office.

  “Sit.” Ruth gestured to the empty chair next to her desk.

  “Okay.” Caitlyn sat and waited.

  Ruth pushed her foot against the desk to swivel her chair so that she faced Caitlyn. “Our student, Amari, came to the United States to escape the war. Now he can’t get financial aid because he wrote on a form that he already has a degree from Ethiopia. But it was only a one-year program, so he should be entitled to aid for a bachelor’s degree. Anyway, they won’t let him correct it without an official transcript. But his old university shut down because of the war.”

  “Oh wow. What can he do?”

  “Jeff submitted paperwork explaining the situation, but the Department of Education denied the appeal. Apparently, Jeff accepted it as the final word.” Ruth blew out a frustrated breath. “I don’t accept it. This student survived a war. He has no other way to pay for school, and I’m not going to tell him—” Her voice cracked.

  Was Ruth going to cry? Caitlyn held her breath.

  Ruth did not cry. She set her jaw and stared past Caitlyn with a steely gaze. “I am not going to tell him that no one in this country is prepared to listen to him and make a reasonable decision. I don’t accept it.” Determination flashed in Ruth’s vivid blue eyes.

  The raw passion on display was like nothing Caitlyn had ever seen from an administrator. Ruth looked ready to punch through walls if it would help the student. I’d hate to be the one in her way.

  Ruth placed her hands on the desk, seeming to steady herself. “So. If you find me a phone number, I will call them myself, and I will keep calling until this is resolved.”

  “Got it.” Caitlyn nodded firmly, hoping to show her commitment. “I’ll start looking right now.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  Caitlyn got up and walked to the door. Compelled to say more, she turned around. “I think it’s great that you’re fighting for him.”

  Ruth gave her an odd look. “Well, of course I am. He’s our student.”

  “Of course. I’ll see what I can find.” She returned to her desk, feeling disoriented.

  At first, Caitlyn had assumed Ruth’s uncompromising leadership style was the product of an oversized ego. Now she saw something different. Ruth sincerely believed she was on the side of the students. Some of her efforts were misguided, but her heart was in the right place—at least some of the time.

  The chance to help filled Caitlyn with a heady sense of purpose. She navigated to Google and found a phone number for students filling out their FAFSA forms. But a help line wasn’t good enough. Ruth needed someone with the power to overrule whatever policy had resulted in the current impasse.

  Twenty minutes later, Caitlyn hadn’t found anything useful. She supposed staff with authority weren’t eager to receive calls from the general public.

  Caitlyn slouched in her chair until a jolt of inspiration caused her to sit up straight. The Harvard alumni network. Surely someone who went to Harvard worked at the Department of Education or at least knew someone who did. She navigated to the Harvard website in her browser and began to type her login information, then stopped.

  Oops. She couldn’t log on as Caitlyn Taylor—not on a Pulaski computer, where IT surely kept records of web traffic. No one would notice in the short term, but still. She had to be careful.

  Reluctantly, she pulled out her phone. Using her thumbs, she navigated to the alumni message board, entered her credentials, and tapped out a new post.

  I need contact information for someone in the Department of Education who works in the area of financial aid. My sister is seeking to help a student who has issues with his paperwork due to conflict in his home country, and the standard process is getting us nowhere. Please help!

  Caitlyn Taylor

  As she clicked submit, she prayed Harvard would come through. She didn’t want to let the student down. It had nothing to do with pleasing Ruth. Nothing at all.

  Caitlyn set her phone down and returned her attention to her desk when something moved in her peripheral vision—an enormous cockroach right next to her chair.

  She shrieked and jumped up. Breathing hard, she backed up to the wall while her gaze remained locked on the hideous bug.

  “What?” Ruth called from her office.

  “There’s a…a huge… Oh no.”

  The bug skittered under the desk out of sight.

  Her panic rose. She couldn’t work there, knowing the hideous creature was lurking inside.

  Ruth walked out and looked Caitlyn up and down, her eyes wide. “What?”

  Caitlyn swallowed. “There’s a cockroach the size of my hand under my desk.” She pointed with a shaky finger.

  Ruth narrowed her eyes. “You’re afraid of bugs.”

  “Yes. Um, just the big ones.” Surely the admission wouldn’t compromise her cover. Chloe was just as squeamish around crawly things. “This one is huge.”

  “That thing there?” Ruth pointed to the other side of the desk. The bug had crawled out and stood still on the carpet.

  “Yes!” Caitlyn shrunk back even farther.

  Ruth scoffed. “It’s an ordinary cockroach.” She approached the desk and plucked a letter opener from the cup of pens and pencils. Then she flung it at the roach like a dart, spearing the bug right in the center. A gob of puss oozed onto the rug.

  “Holy shit.” Caitlyn stared at her. “How did you do that?”

  Ruth shrugged. “I’ve got good aim.”

  “I’ll say.” Caitlyn watched in awe as Ruth turned to walk back to her desk as though she hadn’t done anything extraordinary.

  “Leave it there and call Eugenia,” Ruth called over her shoulder. “She doesn’t believe we have a bug problem—maybe some freshly stabbed evidence will make the case.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Caitlyn searched her brain. Eugenia, the director of facilities. Chloe had mentioned that they often bickered.

  She returned to her chair, replaying Ruth’s effortless slaying in her mind. Gross bug aside, it was incredibly hot.

  * * *

  The afternoon stretched on with no response to Caitlyn’s message and nothing to do besides field emails and phone calls. Ruth’s day was crammed with meetings, but Caitlyn hadn’t been asked to take notes.

  Caitlyn wished Ruth would call her into a meeting, partly to escape the phone—but also because she found herself increasingly fascinated by Ruth. She wanted more opportunities to observe before her stint as Chloe came to an end.

  A few minutes before one o’clock, a young woman with curly, red hair and freckles entered the suite, clutching a Manila folder to her chest. She slowly guided the door to the closed position as though the glass might break, which was completely unnecessary. People marched in and let the doors swing behind them all the time.

  At last, the woman turned to Caitlyn. “Hi, Chloe. I’m here for the meeting. I’ll just wait here.” She sat in the far corner of the waiting area and crossed her legs.

  Caitlyn checked the next meeting on Ruth’s calendar. The attendees included Beverly, Piper, and Maggie Simone, the director of research. So this had to be Maggie—but the woman before her looked too young and insecure to be a director of anything.

  A quick search brought up Maggie’s LinkedIn profile, confirming the woman’s identity and title. Maggie had received her bachelor’s degree four years earlier, so she was probably about twenty-six, which seemed quite young to be a director of anything.

  Beverly and Piper strolled into the suite together.

  Piper pointed at the door. “Is she in there?”

  “I think so,” Caitlyn said. “Unless she stepped out through the back door.” As the words came out, she realized she wasn’t sure the door behind Ruth’s desk was an actual exit. I hope it’s not another damn closet.

  Piper didn’t indicate that Caitlyn had said anything amiss, however. She walked right into Ruth’s office without knocking and closed the door behind her. A moment later, she returned. “Ruth said to come in and sit down. Chloe, she’d like you to take notes.”

  “Oh, okay.” Caitlyn glanced at the phone. If she didn’t ask Gary to cover, she’d have to deal with voice messages when she returned to the desk, but she wasn’t in the mood for his weird flirting. Instead, she typed a fast email:

  Please cover Dr. Holloway’s line for the next hour. Thanks.

  After making sure to close Maggie’s LinkedIn profile, she picked up her laptop and followed the others inside.

  Ruth sat at the head of the conference table, now wearing her blazer even though her office was as warm as it had been earlier. “Okay. Let’s get started. We’re going to review retention rates for our high-risk courses and make note of any that have gotten worse since last year—or better. I suppose it’s possible that by some miracle or fluke, something has gotten better.”

  Piper snickered at the comment, but no one else reacted.

  Ruth turned to Maggie. “You said you have data for us?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Maggie’s head bobbed as she pulled a slim stack of paper from her folder. She passed a copy to Ruth first, then quickly distributed them to everyone else.

  Caitlyn scanned her copy. It was a printout of a spreadsheet. Each row listed a course name, the percentage of students who had stayed in the course until the end of the term, and the increase or decrease from the previous academic year.

  Ruth tapped the table with her pen as she examined the handout. “Well. As I anticipated, we still have retention problems in most of these courses. But there was a big improvement in Math 110.” She furrowed her brow. “What’s going on there?”

  “It’s Maria Stafford,” Beverly said. “She taught multiple sections in the spring. The students love her, so they’re more likely to stick it out. The year before, she was out on maternity leave.”

  “Well, that’s impressive,” Ruth said. “An 18 percent increase.”

  Caitlyn started to type the information in her notes. She checked the table to record the exact numbers and then stopped. Wait a minute. That wasn’t an 18 percent increase.

  While the group discussed math courses, Caitlyn studied the table. A pattern quickly emerged. Maggie had simply taken the difference between the two percentages.

  Beverly circled something on her handout. “The English department is getting worse. Look, they had a 12 percent decrease in retention for English 201.”

  No, they didn’t.

  “That’s almost as bad as history,” Piper said. “Fourteen percent.”

  As the meeting plodded along, Caitlyn grew agitated. Every time someone said percent decrease, it was like nails on a chalkboard.

  It wasn’t Caitlyn’s place to speak up. She was only there to take notes—and to pretend to be Chloe, who certainly wouldn’t spot a math error. Besides, there were four other people with advanced degrees at the table. One of them should notice.

  Nobody did. The conversation grated on her until she couldn’t hold it in. “Um, it looks like there’s a typo on the table.”

  All four heads turned to look at her.

  “Where?” Maggie asked.

  Caitlyn pointed at the handout. “The column header says percent increase or decrease, but that’s a different calculation than what you have in the column.”

  Maggie blinked rapidly. “No. It’s the difference between the two numbers.”

  “Yes, but you calculated a difference in percentage points. That’s different from a percent increase.”

  Ruth scribbled in the margin and looked up. “Chloe is right. It’s not a percent increase.”

  “Hold up,” Beverly said. “Are you saying sixty-eight minus fifty-seven isn’t eleven?”

  “No.” Caitlyn shook her head. “Think of the first number like a pie—”

  “What?” Maggie said.

  “She’s saying to subtract fifty-seven from sixty-eight,” Piper said. “Or… Wait.”

  “Oh, for the love of God.” Ruth smacked her forehead with her palm. “You take the difference between the two numbers and divide it by the original. That’s a percent increase. Chloe is right.”

  “Oh. I see.” Piper gave Caitlyn a curious look. “Good catch, Chloe.”

  Maggie’s face was as red as her hair. “Well, that’s obviously what I meant. It’s the percentage point increase.”

  Caitlyn felt sorry for her. Shit. I shouldn’t have said anything. “It’s an easy mistake to make—very common. If you tweak the heading to say percentage points, it will be correct.”

  “Yes,” Ruth said, “but I’d prefer the actual percent increase from now on.” She arched an eyebrow at Caitlyn. “Perhaps Chloe can show you after the meeting.”

  “I know how to do it,” Maggie snapped. “I was just doing percentage points. That’s all.”

  Ruth studied Caitlyn for another moment, then shook her head. “Let’s move on. What happened in Music 105?”

  Caitlyn looked down at her laptop, regretting that she’d said anything. She’d upset Maggie. Ruth seemed to be wondering about her. On top of that, she’d have to teach Chloe how to calculate a percent increase over the weekend.

  * * *

  Ruth watched in silence as her employees vacated the room.

  Maggie wore a dark expression, no doubt brooding over Chloe’s correction of her handouts.

  Meanwhile, Chloe fled without making eye contact with anyone.

  Piper stayed behind, probably sensing that Ruth wanted to debrief. When everyone else had gone, she closed the door and sat back down. “Thoughts?”

  Ruth held up Maggie’s handout. “How is it possible that my institutional researcher doesn’t know how to calculate a percent increase?”

  “Well, Maggie isn’t really a researcher. That’s her title, but she was hired to pull data for simple requests. From what I understand, that’s all your predecessor ever asked of her. She’s not an analyst.”

  “Fine. But please tell me why Chloe is the one who caught it.”

  “That was a surprise. Still, a percent increase isn’t too complicated. I’m pretty sure my daughter studied percentages for the SAT. Maybe Chloe did the same thing. She went to college, didn’t she?”

  Ruth searched her memory. “I believe she has an associate’s degree from LCC. But that’s not the point. Why was she checking the math in the first place?” She got up from her chair and began to pace. “There’s something off about her. I’ve noticed it all week.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “First of all, she’s punctual—hasn’t been late for three days. Then yesterday, she gave me beautiful notes from the senior staff meeting. You should see them. They were organized with bullet points and links to relevant documents. Usually, she sends a couple of paragraphs, and I clean it up it myself.”

  “Maybe she’s taking her job more seriously.” Piper shrugged. “That’s good, right?”

  “Perhaps.” Ruth sat on the edge of her desk and crossed her arms. “But it’s more than that. She looks nervous all the time.”

  “Sounds like your ideal employee.” Piper winked. “Seriously, you should talk to her. Maybe she’ll tell you what’s going on.”

  “I’m not sure that’s any of my business.” The thought made her warm and somewhat itchy. She tugged on her shirt and scratched her neck.

  “Okay, but work is your business—talk to her about that. See how it’s going for her and if she needs anything. You’re her manager, so that would be perfectly appropriate.”

  Work. It’s about work. “You’re right. I’ll talk to her sometime this week. But not today. I’ve got back-to-back meetings, and then I’m going to this colloquium…thing.” She drew circles in the air in lieu of remembering the name.

  “The what?”

  “It’s a series of talks put on by the social science faculty. I’m overdue for an appearance.”

  “Okay.” Piper stood. “But don’t put it off too long. There’s no reason to be afraid of your own assistant.”

  “I’m not.” The suggestion was absurd. There was just something about Chloe that threw Ruth off-balance, particularly in the past couple of days. “I’ll talk to her,” she said again. Maybe if she gained some insight, she’d feel more at ease.

  Chapter 6

  Caitlyn realized her mistake as soon as she walked into the room. The colloquium had attracted a crowd she could count on one hand—four older people who looked like professors, plus a fifth man plugging in a laptop. The others were busy arranging tables into a small square, apparently not expecting anyone else to attend.

  She should have known. Of course an academic lecture in early June would be nearly deserted, especially at a liberal-arts college that didn’t have graduate programs. So much for hiding out in the back of the room.

  Caitlyn started to walk out when one of the professors said, “Chloe?”

  Shit. The middle-aged man who approached her was a complete stranger to Caitlyn, but he obviously knew Chloe.

  “You’re attending the colloquium?” He kept his tone neutral despite the confusion in his gaze.

  “Well, I thought—I mean, I didn’t…” Caitlyn scrambled for an excuse.

  His eyes widened. “Oh goodness, you don’t have to explain yourself. Staff are welcome at all of our events, and we’re always delighted to have new people. Especially during the break, when some of our regular members are away.”

  “Oh. That’s good.” Caitlyn slid another glance at the door. So close and yet out of reach.