Six Years

Free Six Years by Harlan Coben

Book: Six Years by Harlan Coben Read Free Book Online
Authors: Harlan Coben
Tags: Fiction / Thrillers
lock, opened the front door, and flipped on the lights. For some reason I expected, I don’t know, to find the place in shambles, as though someone had ransacked the joint, as they say. I had seen too many movies. My apartment remained, at kindest, nondescript.
    I rushed over to my computer and jumped on the e-mail. I opened the one from Mrs. Dinsmore and downloaded the attachment. As I mentioned earlier, I saw my student file years ago. It was, I thought, a tad disturbing, reading professors’ comments that had not been shared with me. I guess at some point the school decided that it was too much to store all these old records so they’d scanned them into digital forms.
    I started with Todd’s freshman year. There was nothing particularly spectacular there except that Todd was, well, spectacular. Straight A+’s across the board. No freshman got straight A+’s. Professor Charles Powell noted that Todd was “an exceptional student.” Professor Ruth Kugelmass raved, “A special kid.” Even Professor Malcolm Hume, never one easy with praise, commented: “Todd Sanderson is almost supernaturally gifted.” Wow. I found this strange. I had been a good student here, and the only note I’d found in my file was negative. The only ones I’d ever written were negative. If all was okay, the professor just left it alone and let the grade suffice. The rule of thumb in student files seemed to be, “If you have nothing negative to say, don’t say anything at all.”
    But not with good ol’ Todd.
    First-semester sophomore year followed the same pattern—incredible grades—but then things changed abruptly. Next to second semester was a big “LOA.”
    Leave of Absence.
    Hmm. I checked for a reason and it only said, “Personal.” That was bizarre. We rarely, if ever, leave it at just that—“Personal” in a student file—because the file is closed and confidential. Or supposed to be. We write openly in here.
    So why be so circumspect about Todd’s LOA?
    Usually the “personal” reason involves some kind of financial hardship or an illness, either the student’s or a close family member’s, either physical or mental. But those reasons are always listed in the private student files. None was listed here.
    Interesting.
    Or not. For one thing they were probably more discreet about personal issues twenty years ago. But second . . . well, who cared? What on earth could Todd’s taking time off as a sophomore have to do with his marrying Natalie and then dying and leaving behind a different wife?
    When Todd came back to school, there were now more professor comments—not the ones a student would long for. One professor described him as “distracted.” Another said that Todd was “clearly bitter” and “not the same.” Another suggested that Todd should take more time off to deal with “the situation.” No one mentioned what the situation was.
    I clicked to the next page. Todd had been brought up to the disciplinary board. Some schools have students deal with disciplinary issues, but we have a three-professor rotating panel. I did it for a two-month stint last year. Most of the cases that came before us dealt with two campus epidemics: underage drinking and cheating. The rest were a smattering of thefts or threats of violence or some variety of sexual assault or aggression that didn’t meet the standard for law enforcement.
    The case that came before the disciplinarian board involved an altercation between Todd and another student named Ryan McCarthy. McCarthy ended up hospitalized with contusions and a broken nose. The school was calling for a heavy suspension or even expulsion, but the three-professor panel gave Todd a total pass. That surprised me. There were no details or minutes on the actual hearing or the subsequent deliberations. That surprised me too.
    The handwritten decision had been scanned into the file:
    Todd Sanderson, a superior member of the Lanford College community, has had a tough blow in his

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