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idea why she was in Archers Rest.”
    “But you know that she was,” I said as the waiter put my salad down. “I mean, you know she wasn’t in a neighboring town.”
    “No, I don’t. I just mean in the area.” Jesse took a stab at some lettuce. “Don’t look for hidden meanings in everything I say, Nell.”
    “I wasn’t. I was just asking.” I went back to my salad, feeling a little scolded. Several minutes of silence passed. This date was not going well. “I signed up for classes,” I offered as a conversational olive branch.
    Jesse’s face brightened. “Did you get that class you wanted?”
    “No, it was all filled up. But I ran into the teacher outside the school, and he sort of suggested I just bully my way in.”
    Jesse smiled. “Sounds like he’s figured you out.”
    “So you think it’s a good idea to push my way into places I don’t belong?” I smiled. “That’s good to know.”
    He laughed. “What did I tell you about finding hidden meanings?”
    After dinner we walked toward the river. I waited for Jesse to take my hand, but he didn’t, so after a few blocks I put it in my pocket. All through dinner I got the feeling that we were more like friends out for a bite than people on a first date, and I was about to say that to Jesse when his phone rang.
    “Now?” he said into the receiver. “All right. I’ll be there in a minute.” He hung up and looked at me sheepishly.
    “Police business,” I said.
    He nodded. “I’m sorry. I hate to cut the evening short.”
    “It’s okay. We weren’t really planning anything else anyway.” I knew the disappointment I felt had crept into my voice, but I didn’t care.
    Jesse stared at me for a long minute, then turned and walked toward the street. He stopped—his back to me. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just waited. Finally he turned.
    “Do you want to come?” he asked.

    We walked into the state police lab just after ten o’clock. A large man with uncombed hair and thick glasses came toward Jesse at full speed.
    “It doesn’t make sense,” he said as he handed Jesse a manila folder.
    “What doesn’t make sense?” I knew I should probably keep quiet, but Jesse was studying the papers in the folder and the large man seemed anxious to talk.
    “She was asleep. She had been given a double dose of diphenhydramine hydrochloride.”
    “What’s that?” I asked.
    Jesse looked up. “An over-the-counter sleeping medication.” He glanced toward me, then closed the folder and looked at the large man. “Dr. Parker, you’re saying that she was unconscious when she drowned.”
    Dr. Parker’s eyes sparkled. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’ve rerun the tests just to be sure. Come with me.”
    Without waiting, he started walking toward a double door at the back of the hallway. Jesse followed him, and since no one said I couldn’t, I did too.
    Immediately upon entering the room, I regretted my decision. On a slab in the center of the room was the girl that had been taken from the river. A sheet covered her body but her head and shoulders were exposed. I had seen dead bodies before, I had even seen this one before, but this was different. A person who has just died still looks like a person, but this girl looked both real and artificial, her skin almost translucent. Never had death seemed as transformative as it did when I looked at the way her brown hair framed her frail features. Whoever Lily Harmon once was, she deserved better than to end up here so young.
    “And then there’s this.” Dr. Parker directed Jesse closer to Lily’s body. He pulled the sheet back and I saw where she had been cut open for the autopsy and sewn together again. I wanted to throw up but I just took a deep breath.
    “It’s a scar,” Jesse said as he stared at Lily’s body.
    “We should go.” Jesse’s warm breath startled me back from wherever my mind had wandered. Even though I knew he was right, I lingered just a minute longer, staring at her,