“That girl?” Irene snorted derisively. “No way. She was a partier and a runaround. My guess is she took a notion to take off and did.”

“And no one’s seen her since.”

“Probably because she was messed up with drugs.” Irene squinted at Kristi. “I know the press gets worked up when girls drop out of college, making something out of nothing. The police don’t seem to think there’s foul play. Those girls who went missing? They’ve done it before. Their families aren’t even concerned and I can vouch for that as far as the Atwater girl goes. I called her mother, and the woman could barely talk to me. Complained of working two jobs with two younger kids to support. As for the dad, now there’s a lost cause. Been in and out of jail. The last I heard he was still serving time. No one wants to ante up the back rent.”

“You’re saying no one really cares about Tara.”

Irene lifted a scrawny shoulder, the pink and brown plaid of her shirt shifting in the sunlight. “She was a party girl. Always with the boys.” She clucked her tongue, then leaned down and picked out one of the weeds daring to grow in the cracks of the parking lot. “That spells trouble to me.”

“Do you know the names of the boys she dated?”

“I keep my nose out of my tenants’ business.”

That, Kristi knew, was a bald-faced lie. Irene Calloway had already told Kristi enough that suggested she loved to gossip, so, Kristi figured, it was only a matter of buttering her up or trading information to learn everything the landlady knew.

“Who collected her things? Someone had to pick up her stuff if she just left it.”

“Not yet they haven’t! And I’m charging ’em rent, too. Space ain’t cheap, even storage compartments.”

“You boxed her things up?”

“Me? Nah.” She shook her head. “That’s a job for the manager.”

Hiram. The do-nothing. Great.

Kristi left the old lady muttering to herself as she yanked a few more weeds from the parking lot. Irene Calloway’s take on things always had a negative spin on it.

Jaywalking across the street, Kristi headed to Adam’s Hall, the vine-clad building that was home to the English Department, where her writing class with Dr. Preston was located.

As she reached the steps of Adam’s Hall, her cell phone jangled with a special tune reserved for her father.

Of course.

“Hey,” she said, making her voice sound cheery, even though she was a little bugged that he’d called. Had there been a day he hadn’t checked in, making up some excuse to talk to her? Well…maybe a couple, but for the most part, Rick Bentz had phoned daily, inventing some lame excuse to talk to her.