A College Girl Makes Reckless Choices In This Excerpt From Academic Thriller The Department

There’s something about the coldest time of year that makes it the perfect time to read thrillers. Maybe it’s the fast-paced plotting, the edge-of-your-seat twists, the often desperate characters, and the inevitable secrets that all somehow combine to help us get through the dark months. And the forthcoming novel The Department sounds like it’s about to check all those boxes and then some

Jacquiline Faber’s buzzy debut follows the story of a jaded philosophy professor who becomes entangled in the case of a missing student. Neil Weber hardly knew Lucia Vanotti, but rumors are already swirling about what might have happened to her. Curious and stuck in a rut in his own life, he decides to insert himself into the investigation of her disappearance, with unexpected consequences. Described as perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Gillian Flynn, The Department is told through the dual timeline perspectives of Neil and Lucia as they wrestle with obsession, trauma, and the dark secrets at the heart of their small Southern town.

Here’s how the publisher describes the story. 

Philosophy professor Neil Weber can’t think of one good reason to get up in the morning. His wife has left him, his academic research has sputtered, and the prospect of tenure is more remote than ever.

Until Lucia Vanotti disappears.

A college student at Neil’s Southern university, Lucia has a secret of her own—one that haunts her relationships and leads to reckless, destructive behavior. When Neil is drawn into the mystery of her disappearance, he finds new energy, purpose, and relevance. But at what cost? Each clue pulls him deeper into Lucia’ s dark past, but also into the hidden lives of his closest friends and colleagues.

What has driven Lucia to risk everything? And why does Neil, a professor who hardly knew her, care so deeply about finding her?

The Department won’t hit shelves until February 4, but we’ve got an exclusive excerpt from the story to help tide you over until then.

People do things for all sorts of reasons. Because it’s hot. Because they’re bored. Because what’s the worst that can happen when the worst has already happened? That night, I did it because he had a nice smile.

His name was Eric, and I saw him while I was waiting in line for the bathroom.

“Where do I know you from?” he asked.

We were at a frat party. People moved in eddies around the furniture and congregated in the halls. Music drifted upward, Kendrick Lamar pumping through the house. Downstairs, the line for the bathroom was monstrous, so I came upstairs looking for another. Now the boy with the smile was squinting, trying to place me.

“Macroeconomics,” I said. “Last year.”

Be humble. Sit down, said Kendrick Lamar.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,” Eric said. Full lips, straight teeth.

“You’re that pretty girl who sat in the back.”

Other people’s flirtation is cringeworthy. Less so when it’s your own.

“Your hair’s longer,” I noted.

“Yeah, I’m growing it out.” He ran a hand through it. I could picture his bedroom, down to the didgeridoo in the corner. It would be one of those expensive ones, aboriginal, first-class from Australia.

I stood with my back against the wall. Eric moved closer so we didn’t have to shout over the music. When the bathroom door opened, I smiled and pushed past him. He was still waiting there when I came out.

“You want to see my room?” he asked.

I took a sip of my beer, let the bitterness sting my tongue and run down my throat.

“Yeah, sure.”

As we passed the stairs, I glanced down at the crush of people. A boy was pumping the keg. There were beer cans everywhere and a three-foot bong on the table. I followed Eric into his room. No didgeridoo, but a djembe drum, hand-carved with little elephants along the bottom. I watched him rifle through a drawer and pull out a bag of pills.

“You down?” he asked.

I shrugged, then opened my hand.

“Don’t you want to know what they are?”

“Not really.”

He laughed. “You’re crazy.” He placed two pills in my palm, and we clinked our beers and swallowed them.

My favorite moments are the ones leading up. Not the act itself, but the prelude. The moment when you know something is going to happen but hasn’t yet.

I could feel Eric’s eyes on my body. The way they came to stop at my belly button, where my shirt didn’t quite cover. He stood there, studying the curve of my hips. It’s easier to love yourself in these moments when you can see yourself through someone else’s eyes. Tandem-riding their desire. It’s fleeting, of course. Easy come, easy go. But if you can catch it, it’s the best drug there is.

Eric smelled like clean laundry. He lifted his hand and brushed his thumb against my breast.

“You cold?” I looked down. My nipple was erect. Boys are so stupid.

Then his mouth was on mine. His hands moved across my body, under my shirt. He fumbled with the button on my jeans, and I tried to let my mind go. To be present. But already, I could feel it slipping. Feverish anticipation sputtering out in the technical details of reality.

In my mind, I could hear Michelle: Scoundrel, she would say. She would be talking about me, not him. We messed around, and afterward, I climbed off the bed, got dressed, and opened the door. From downstairs, the music came surging upward.

“It’s Vicodin, by the way,” Eric called out, but I’d already shut the door.

I could see the top of Naseem’s head from the stairs. There were bodies all around him. High or drunk, in various stages of disrobing. He craned his neck and looked up at me. I knew, right then. He was furious. He turned and pushed his way through the crowd and out into the night. I stumbled after him.

Outside, the street was wet from the rain, and the asphalt reflected the streetlights in slick halos of yellow.

“Naseem,” I shouted. “Wait up.” He walked quickly, and I hurried to keep pace. I was feeling the Vicodin now, a groggy warmth spreading across my limbs. “Slow down!” I jogged up behind him.

He stopped abruptly. Stood there in the middle of the road, his feet planted in a pool of light. A few months earlier, I’d asked him about his relationship with God. “But do you believe?” I had pressed. God had abandoned me a long time ago, and I was fascinated by those who managed to hold onto faith.

Naseem had thought about it. That’s how he was. Not impulsive, like me. Deliberate, slow. When he answered, it wasn’t what I thought he’d say. He said God came to him as a patch of blue light on a navy carpet. The sun passing through a stained-glass window, gold lettering at the base of the dome. For Naseem, it wasn’t about the rules. Not about pressing his head to the floor, shoes by the door. It was standing in that patch of light that moved according to Earth’s rotation.

Naseem was the best thing that had ever come into my life. Unfortunately, I was intent on destroying every good thing. Now we stood in the middle of the street. I looked at him and felt my body gripped with fear. I reached out; he pulled away.

“You drag me to this party, then you ditch me the entire time.”

“I didn’t ditch you the entire time. I had to go to the bathroom.”

“For an hour?!”

I wasn’t sure what Naseem knew. But that’s the cruelty of suspicion: it imprisons the doubter.

“It wasn’t an hour,” I insisted. “It was only, like, fifteen minutes.” I had no idea how long it had been, but I preferred to fight on this level. Over logistics, details. Minutes on a clock.

Naseem exhaled, and I could see the shape of his breath in the cold air. He was shaking his head. His eyes were wet. Not crying. Not not crying.

“I don’t know, Lu. I don’t know,” he kept repeating. I don’t know. It hung around us, terrible and heavy.

“Don’t say that,” I begged. “Don’t say, ‘I don’t know.’ Please.”

“What do you want me to say?! You give me no choice. You take away all my words. You make everything impossible.”

Naseem’s friends didn’t like me. They didn’t think me worthy of him. I wasn’t. No one was. But especially not me. Even Michelle had said as much after I introduced them. Or rather, she’d said: “He’s lovely. I feel sorry for him.”

I tried to hold his gaze, but he kept shaking his head.

“I love you, Lucia. But you pull this shit, and—I don’t know. I don’t know.”

My chest was so tight, it was hard to breathe.

In a way, I suppose that’s what I was chasing. That moment when my own emptiness disappeared behind something terrifying. The fear of Naseem leaving—the look on his face, the hurt, the vulnerability. Only then did I feel frightened; only then did I feel alive.

“Look at me. Please,” I said. We stood there a long time like that.

I stepped close to his body. I wanted no space between us. I tucked my head against his chest, and finally, reluctantly, he enclosed me in his arms.

That night, we lay in his bed. I could hear the voices of his roommates down the hall, their words muffled and their laughter far away. I turned on my side and looked at him. His eyes were closed, his profile illuminated in the blue light of his electronics. I lifted my finger and traced the hills and valleys of his face.

“Don’t ever leave me,” I whispered.

In his sleep, Naseem inched toward me and draped an arm across my body. But already, I could feel him slipping away. What choice did he have when I was pushing so hard?

The Department will be released on February 4, but you can pre-order it now.

Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter and Bluesky at @LacyMB