“My roommate was mental. Anyway, Angela and Devon, her roommate, lived down the hall. We all played softball together. Angela and I also joined intramural soccer. By the end of the semester, she was my best friend.”

“Why didn’t you live together after the dorm?”

Lakshmi looked down at her hands. “My father doesn’t like the idea of me living with other girls. I live in a one-bedroom apartment two blocks from here.”

“Which is where you and Angela went after Bear’s Place that night?”

“The other girls had plans, so Angela and I went to my place to watch a film.”

“On a Friday night?”

“Once a month we had girl’s night at mine. Plus, that close to finals I had a pile of homework and didn’t want to be a zombie the next day. My classes were harder than Angela’s.”

“What was her major?”

“Hospitality. She loves helping people.”

Caitlin noticed the use of present tense. How long would the cord between Lakshmi’s optimism and sanity stretch before it snapped?

“It sounds like she helped you find a place in the world.”

Lakshmi gave a slight nod, solemn. “And now she’s gone.”

Caitlin raised her mug. “Here’s to Angela Chapman.”

Lakshmi raised her own. “To finding Angela Chapman.”

“To finding Angela Chapman,” Caitlin corrected. “And helping her the way she helped everyone else.”

Caitlin moved the conversation toward lighter fare, eventually confessing her guilty pleasures—dark rums, mint ice cream, and tall men with scruff. Lakshmi admitted spending more time than she should with reruns of Friends, intramural soccer, and red wine. Caitlin didn’t pry into what she’d left out—sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Still, Lakshmi’s version of Angela’s last night matched up with the BPD’s account enough to earn Caitlin’s trust.

Her alcoholic buzz now a throb, Caitlin called the night. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at nine thirty, and we’ll get started.”

*   *   *

Caitlin walked along Third Street. Arc lamps lit the sidewalk every two hundred feet, but otherwise the path fell under the shadows of tall oaks. Two blocks from her turn south, she noticed a figure hunched over a low rock wall. Her gut told her the person was male and bigger than her. She could cross to the other sidewalk or barrel through.

She kept going. Fifty feet away, she saw that it was actually two people, waiting. Tension squeezed her shoulders, adrenaline kicked in. At twenty-five feet, she heard a female voice.

“Help, I’m freaking dying.”

Caitlin left her tension behind and ran toward the sound.

A campus police officer in a blue top and bike shorts turned a flashlight her way.

“Whoa there, ma’am. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Caitlin said. “Is she?”

The girl in question lay on a berm behind the rock wall, one arm over her face.