“I can see that you did,” I said.

“They’ll be heading off the field in about two minutes, and the important point is we got guys all over the place. Some dressed as students, others hanging out in town, checking out the hotels and bars, things like that. Where we’re heading now is the student counseling center, where the assistant director’s going to meet us. She was Claire Rawley’s counselor and has all her records.”

“Right,” I said.

“Just so you know, Doc,” Marino said, “we got a campus police officer who thinks he may have spotted Carrie yesterday in the student union.”

“The Hawk’s Nest, to be specific,” Correll said. “That’s the cafeteria.”

“Short dyed red hair, weird eyes. She was buying a sandwich, and he noticed her because she stared holes in him when she walked past his table, and then when we started passing her photo around, he said it might have been her. Can’t swear to it, though.”

“It would be like her to stare at a cop,” Lucy said. “Jerking people around is her favorite sport.”

“I’ll also add that it’s not unusual for college kids to look like the homeless,” I said.

“We’re checking pawn shops around here to see if anybody fitting Carrie’s description might have bought a gun, and we’re also checking for stolen cars in the area,” Marino said. “Assuming if she and her sidekick stole cars in New York or Philadelphia, they aren’t going to show up here with those plates.”

The campus was an immaculate collection of modified Georgian buildings tucked amid palms, magnolias, crepe myrtles, and lobolly and long-leaf pines. Gardenias were in bloom and when we got out of the car, their perfume clung to the humid, hot air and went to my head.

I loved the scents of the South, and for a moment, it did not seem possible that anything bad could happen here. It was summer session, and the campus was not heavily populated. Parking lots were half full, with many of the bike racks empty. Some of the cars driving on College Road had surfboards strapped to their roofs.

The counseling center was on the second floor of West-side Hall, and the waiting area for students with health problems was mauve and blue and full of light. Thousand-piece puzzles of rural scenes were in various stages of completion on coffee tables, offering a welcome distraction for those who had appointments. A receptionist was expecting us and showed us down a corridor, past observation and group rooms, and spaces for GRE testing. Dr. Chris Booth was energetic with kind, wise eyes, a woman approaching sixty, I guessed, and one who loved the sun. She was weathered in a way that gave her character, her skin deeply tanned and lined, her short hair white, and her body slight but vital.