Carla McGowan is tall too. And she carries every inch of it with confidence. Yet Kit senses something there. A commonality.

Game recognizes game.

Coach Wanda leans forward and looks all the way down the line of girls.

“If you saw something, say something,” she says. “No use protecting anybody now. And any trouble you know of isn’t as bad as the trouble he’s already caused.”

But the girls remain silent.

“Nobody?” McGowan asks. “I guess I believe that. It would be pretty remarkable if a thirty-five-year-old man was lurking about the school. Coach Wanda woulda probably already been told.” She eyes the team close. They eye her too. “How about Tammy’s family? Do you know of any uncles, older brothers, someone maybe her family didn’t tell me about?”

This question rattles Kit. It reveals, for her, a depth she wasn’t fathoming. Brandon had suggested something like it, but Tammy’s family hiding information from the police?

“Girls?” Coach Wanda says. “Speak up. Now or never.” Then, to McGowan, “Have you checked all the employees of the local hangouts?”

“Well, I’m not sure,” McGowan says, obviously not wanting to give away everything she knows. “What places do you have in mind?”

“I think she once worked at the Rickshaw Inn,” Dana says.

“Bussed tables,” Natasha says.

“We know that much,” McGowan says. “But go on.”

“Maybe someone from there,” Wanda says. Her short brown bob and large glasses give her the look of a coach from the 1970s, not 2022. Kit thinks of a tall, dead woman in a car from the ’80s or ’90s too.

“We’ve certainly checked her former place of employment,” McGowan says. “And while we’re not closing any doors, nobody there fits the bill. Not this bill.”

She seems to stare into the space of the gym for a beat and Kit knows she’s seeing what she saw at what must have been the crime scene. Tammy’s death isn’t just news for Detective McGowan; it’s a memory.

“Who else…?” McGowan asks. She lets the question linger, doesn’t rush anybody.

Melanie raises her hand.

“Yes?” McGowan says.

“Tammy lived at the far edge of town.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe someone from out of town was watching her in town.”

“Watching her?”

“Yeah, like, from out of town.”

Some of the girls snicker nervously. It’s a ridiculous idea. An outsider stopping at the town border, looking across it like they would through a window.

“That’s not such a bad theory,” McGowan says, helping her, it seems. “An outsider seems reasonable. Maybe you’ll be doing work like I do one day.”

Melanie reddens. Kit knows it was hard enough for her to talk in front of everyone like that. It must be unbearable to think everyone is imagining her as a police officer.

“But what I’m looking for here is any concrete instance, a time you actually saw her talking to somebody who fits that bill. Even if it was just a man asking for directions on the street.”

“Why a man?” Natasha asks.