Kristi didn’t argue. The basement laundry room was dark and dingy. The ceiling was low, the concrete walls looking as if moisture seeped through the cracks, the exposed beams filled with cobwebs. The odors of mildew and mold were ever present, even when Kristi added bleach to her wash.

“Creeps me out,” Mai said. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that you missed a great party.”

“Next time.”

“You mean next year?” Mai asked, her gaze skating once more across the room to the desk where the pictures of the missing girls were strewn. “I’m probably not going to throw another party until next New Year’s Eve. If then. The party itself was fun, but the mess the next day—forget it!” Mai made her way to the door, and holding the basket on her hip, waved and said, “See ya,” before leaving.

Kristi made a beeline for the bathroom, where she took a two-minute shower to rid herself of the smell of grease, onions, and fish that still clung to her from her hours at the diner. After toweling off, she snapped her wet hair into a ponytail and pinned it loosely on her head. Throwing on a clean bra, panties, jeans, and a T-shirt, she then smudged on some lip gloss without checking the mirror. At the front door she stepped into boots, pulled a sweatshirt from a peg and tossed it over her head. She picked up her backpack again and was out the door bare minutes behind Mai.

If only she’d brought her bike from home, the fifteen-speed she’d bought after losing her racing bike to the hurricane, she thought as she clattered down the stairs, cut through a back alley, and jogged across the street separating the apartment house from the campus. Once through the massive gates, she headed toward Knauss Hall, which was primarily used for the biological science curriculum, but now held the new criminology department.

Silently she prayed that Jay McKnight was not her teacher. Surely someone would have told her, right, if there had been a change in instructors?

No way. You sign up for a class; the school registrar/computer decides where you’ll end up.

“Not Jay,” she said aloud, then felt foolish, as if she were fourteen instead of twenty-seven. Get a grip, Kristi. You can handle this. No matter what.

“You know, Baton Rouge is not your jurisdiction,” Olivia said as she entered the alcove in the guest room on the second floor of their cottage.

Bentz had set up his laptop on a TV tray in the room Kristi had occupied when she’d lived here. The makeshift desk wasn’t much, but he did most of his work at the station. He was now hunched over the small computer.