Renee Paquin walked out of the practice room, violin case in hand, down the hall, and out into the hot, dry California afternoon. The warmth felt like velvet against her skin—especially coming out of the chill of the air-conditioned building. She breathed deep of the eucalyptus-scented air and smiled.

Her neck was tight and her shoulders were sore, but practice had been good, and she was pleased with herself. The summer music festival was coming. She would be playing in concert with her chamber group, but had also been chosen to play as a soloist at one of the evening concerts—a prestigious coup for any McAster student, but especially for a sophomore.

Life was good.

Her hard work was paying off. To play in the festival was to prove to her parents she had done the right thing in staying for the summer instead of going home to Michigan to loll the months away on the lake.

She walked across campus with a smile on her face. She would go back to the house to change clothes and do some laundry, then meet Michelle, Xenia, and Jenna for a few games of doubles tennis. Then they would all go downtown for a light dinner at one of the sidewalk cafés on the plaza.

It was only a ten-minute walk from the practice rooms to the sorority house, a big Victorian house situated on the corner of a street lined with huge oak trees. She went first to the garage, where she had dropped a bag of laundry the day before and never got the time to do it. She had to get some of it done today because she was running low on underwear.

The laundry bag had been left on the floor, which she knew better than to do because bugs could crawl into it. One time Jenna had dumped out her laundry and three mice had scurried out of it.

The idea made Renee’s skin crawl. She picked up her bag and held it by the very bottom so she could drop it and run screaming if she needed to. But only clothing tumbled out onto the table.

Right away she noticed that it didn’t smell right. She blamed it on a week’s worth of sweaty tennis clothes. It smelled as if all the body odors had fermented or something. She wrinkled her nose. Gross. It almost smelled like stale sex, which was impossible, of course, since she and Jason had broken up months ago and she had yet to get the bad taste of that relationship out of her mouth.

She scooped up the underwear and threw it in a washer. She had better things to do than think about boys.