She half shrugs, accepts she’s stuck talking to me. Maybe out of pity, maybe out of simple curiosity. She steps forward, close enough to hear me over the passing cars and chattering pedestrians.

Rebecca looks me over, letting her eyes trail from the top of my head on down. I must look like hell. I spent the rest of the night driving around after I called the police, stopping a couple of times at twenty-four-hour fast-food drive-throughs for a hamburger or a cup of coffee. Around four o’clock, my eyelids grew as heavy as manhole covers, and I drove out behind the football stadium at the far edge of campus, back to where the parking lot meets a stand of trees. I found a spot there and closed my eyes, locking the doors in case the same person who killed Madeline was following me. I managed to fall asleep in the driver’s seat for a couple of hours, then woke up with a sore neck and a full bladder, but the sleep helped. I intend to get in touch with Diana, allow her to help me. But I need Rebecca to do something for me as well.

I came downtown, then parked behind Troy’s as the sun came up. I’d met Rebecca here for coffee a few times as she began her thesis. I frequently meet students here because it’s close to campus and because most of them pass through here at one time or another, especially the creative writing types who see it as part of their essential selves to hang out in coffee shops and brood over their laptops.

“I need to talk to you about Madeline O’Brien,” I say, cringing inside. I know news may not have reached the students yet. It may not have reached anyone this early in the morning. But with social media, it may have started to spread. “Have you heard anything about her?”

“You mean since I told you I thought she was at your reading? No, I haven’t. Why?”

Shit.

I’ve become the bearer of bad news, the messenger with nothing at all good to share. A medieval rider on a pale horse.

“Okay, Rebecca.” I clear my throat, trying to force the right words out. “I found out very early this morning that Madeline is dead. Someone murdered her.”

The whites of Rebecca’s eyes appear to double in size. She lifts her gloved hand to her chest, placing it there like she’s about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. She looks right at me, but I don’t think she’s seeing me.

“I’m sorry, Rebecca. I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you that news.”

“She’s dead?”