A Rule From a World That No Longer Exists
“You're betting on a rule from a world that doesn't exist anymore.” Ashley walks out of the dean’s office, stops at the window and “simply breathes.” Then she finds Simon at the bend in the corridor and gives him the facts: the committee was canceled from above, you weren’t asked, the dean is threatening defamation. And the conclusion: “It wasn’t Jacob. Think about it. He’d have no reason to do it in secret. He’d have leaned on Craig the way he knows how — and you’d have been the first to know, because he’d have held it over you. Someone else brought Craig back.” — “He hits when someone nods. He’s back and he’s quiet — so nobody’s nodded.” — “You’re betting on a rule from a world that doesn’t exist anymore.”
Her argument is not intuition but an analysis of motives: she knows how Jacob uses power (for show), and she can see that this operation was done differently. And once again she has “a very bad feeling … with no reason you could put in a folder” — only now, after chapter sixteen, she believes it. Simon hears the logic and cannot accept it — not because he is stupid, but because he has nothing to pay for the truth with (see “Lock or Wall”). She looks at him “the way you look at someone who’s about to cross against the red light and has already taken the first step” — and repeats the promise to his back: “If he shows up anywhere near your house — you call.” There is nothing more she can do. For now.
