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The redhead had passed out on the couch, potato chips across her chest. From the TV an inane cartoon discharged piano-tinkling and boinging sounds. Thirty-five thousand dollars' tuition put to good use.
    "I thought you wanted to speak in private."
    "This will be fine." Tim sat on the bed opposite her, a sheetless mattress. "Was this Leah's bed?"
    Katie nodded. "When you get dropouts or suicides, they let you have your own room for the whole year. It kind of rules."
    Makeup bottles blanketed one bureau; the other was blank. Katie's bed was covered with flowery pillows and teddy bears. A single window overlooked the well-kept track with its rubber runway and lush grass oval. Beyond it the hill dropped away steeply. A line of palm trees reared up in the distance, the bursts of fronds silhouetted against the backdrop of the Pacific like fireworks.
    "Tell me about Leah."
    "We sort of got stuck with Leah. Assigned roommate. She was pretty sweet when we first got here, but she wouldn't rush the sororities, and we sort of left her behind, you know? Socially." She cupped a hand by her mouth and stage-whispered, "She was, like, the big V."
    "The big V?"
    "A virgin. Which is cool, but we tried to bring her around guys, and she was just so...I don't know, geeky. Playing on her computer all day and stuff -- total code monkey. And her clothes -- her clothes were bad. And then she started acting weird."
    "Weird how?"
    "She sort of turned her back on her friends -- what friends she had. These dorky kids from her classes, they stopped calling. And she got really anal. Like, on time to the minute. And really neat -- lining up the edges of her notepaper and stuff. When we first started as roommates, she was way more casual. I never would have lived with her if she was like how she ended up."
    "When did you notice this change?"
    "Like, maybe a month to six weeks before she split."
    "How did you know she got in with a cult?"
    "She kept asking us to come to meetings with her. Stuff like that."
    "Where were the meetings?"
    "I don't know. Off campus, I'm pretty sure. We didn't listen, really."
    "What did you do?"
    "Laughed at her mostly." A flicker of remorse in Katie's sea-green eyes. "Hey, I'm being honest."
    "Did you meet anyone in the cult?"
    "No."
    "Notice her with anyone new?"
    "No."
    "Do you know the names of her friends? Here on campus?"
    "Like I said: What friends?"
    "Did she mention the names of anyone in the cult with her? Or refer to someone as the Teacher?"
    "No."
    "Have you heard from her? Or has anyone seen her?"
    "No." Katie smiled. "No. No, no, no. I don't know anything about where she is. I just know she's gone." She checked the tag on her inner wrist with a shrug of her hand.
    Tim jotted down his cell-phone number on the back of a generic Marshals Service card with the Spring Street address and main phone line.
    "If you think of anything else, give me a call."
    Katie relinquished her hug hold on a big white bear and took the card.
    Tim stood, giving a last glance at Leah's half of the room. Bare mattress, empty shelves, empty nightstand.
    The thought of growing up in the house of Will and Emma Henning left Tim cold. So did the thought of living here with these veiled bullies, painting their lashes and nails and talking in code like cackling hens. Girls too pretty and rich and white to require empathy. Girls hell-bent on maintaining a status that required riding the top of a social hierarchy.
    His first case since Ginny -- he wasn't exactly keeping the misplaced protectiveness in check. He decided, staring at the left-behind Scotch tape on the blank wall, that if the empty rooms of girls hastily departed now struck a nerve, he would allow himself that.
    He flipped his notepad closed. "Thanks for your help."
    Katie scurried after him to the door. "What? I called. Her parents wouldn't even know she was missing if it wasn't for me. I did my part." The hard, pretty shell of her face shifted for a moment, and he saw the softer features