Page 161 of The Professor's Wife

He whistled under his breath.

A cold smile spread across his face.

The horror sank deeper than my fear of death.

Once Rowe was gone, I would be entirely in Oliver’s hands.

And worse than dying was leaving my son at Oliver’s mercy.

“No,” I whispered.

Oliver’s pen stopped moving.

“No lesson?” he asked.

I stared at the papers beneath his hand.

The forms that would send my son away.

My mouth felt numb.

“Send him.”

Oliver resumed grading.

I stood there for another moment, waiting for him to look at me.

He never did.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

TRISTAN

Daisy left half-finished glasses of water everywhere.

One beside the bed. One on the counter. One in the cup holder beneath the map, where every hard turn threatened to send it into my lap. There was usually another tucked beside the books she’d collected along the way, placed too close to the edge of the shelf because she had been reading and forgotten about it.

She never finished any of them.

Two mouthfuls. Maybe three. Then she moved on and left the water behind.

But God fucking help me if I tried to empty one.

“I was still drinking that.”

She always said it too quickly. Her hand would shoot toward the glass, and something would change in her eyes. She wasn’t upset about the thought of wasting the water. It wasn’t even about being thirsty. It was almost like she just needed to have a glass of water within hand’s reach.

The first time, I laughed.

The second time, I noticed something was off.

By the fifth, I left the glasses where they were.

There were six inside the van that morning.Sixglasses of warm water Daisy had no intention of drinking and couldn’t bear to see emptied.

I knew they meant something, but I didn’t know what.

That was the problem with Daisy.Everything meant something.