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added, and maybe your head at the same time.
    “Rachel, come on!” Paloma whined.
    But Rachel didn’t move. There, off to the left side of the vase, midway down the series of lines, couldn’t those two darker blue blobs be legs? That was what they looked like to her. Legs splayed out at angles, as if they were … as if they were falling? Falling down the stairs? Was that why the mouth was screaming?
    Do not do this! Rachel cried silently, her breath coming rapidly in her chest. You are deliberately trying to find some hidden, mysterious message in this stupid painting, just so you can convince yourself you weren’t wrong about the seascape.
    Rachel took another two steps away from the painting, walking backward. She bumped into Aidan’s chest and turned toward him to apologize. “Let’s go eat,” she said, trying to collect herself and calm down.
    But she couldn’t stop the thoughts buzzing in her head. She had seen something sinister in the first painting. And look what had happened to Ted. Now she was seeing another strange image hidden in the still life. Someone falling down a flight of stairs.
    She didn’t want to see that. She wanted to see what everyone else saw, an ordinary and, according to Joseph, not great, painting of a vase of flowers. She wanted that more than anything.
    But when she glanced back at the still life one more time, she knew with painful certainty that what she was looking at was someone tumbling helplessly down a steep flight of stairs, screaming in terror.

Chapter 5
    A T BREAKFAST IN THE small cafeteria in the basement of Lester dorm, Rachel struggled to force the image of the still life from her mind. Acting moody wasn’t going to endear her to Aidan and his friends. Although she had other friends, she liked this new group. Joseph was arrogant, Aidan could be patronizing, Paloma was a bit of a flake, and Samantha was a little intimidating. But they were all so interesting, and Rachel didn’t want them writing her off as a hopeless basket case.
    She sipped quietly on her orange juice as she glanced around the table. What was she doing with these people? What did she have in common with them?
    She had met Aidan at a movie in Devereaux’s rec room just two nights ago. She’d gone with Bibi, but as always, after the movie Bibi had latched onto a good-looking soccer player and wandered off. Rachel had been standing in the doorway, waiting to see if Bibi was coming back, when someone behind her said, “I’m trying to figure out why you’re standing there alone. Could be because your friends went off to get something to eat. Or maybe you had an argument with your date and sent him on his way. Or, and this would certainly be my choice, you’re here alone.”
    Rachel turned toward the voice. It was his eyes she noticed first. The brightest blue, without a hint of gray or hazel. He was leaning against the door frame, smiling at her. She didn’t notice the paint-stained jeans or the slight slump to his shoulders or the cleft in his chin until much later. All she saw was the smile. And, of course, the eyes.
    “I’m here alone,” she said simply.
    And then she wasn’t.
    They had talked the night away, and discovered that they had nothing at all in common. He’d been raised in a big, noisy family, while she was an only child, orphaned early and raised by a quiet but loving grandmother. He lived in a city, Albany. She was from a town so small, she’d read every interesting book in the library by the time she was fourteen. She liked rock, he liked jazz. She loved strawberries and cantaloupe, asparagus and broccoli. He said fruits and vegetables were okay, but the best food on earth was marshmallow crème on peanut butter, a concoction Rachel couldn’t imagine trying to swallow. He was a night person, often working on his art until two or three in the morning, and had deliberately scheduled most of his classes for later in the day so he could sleep until ten or eleven. She got cranky if