I can’t help but smirk as I glide behind the desk to join her. She closes the door behind me. I hope she still thinks I’m gorgeous after I’m done.

“What do you want, sweetie?”

“This is going to sound odd, but it’s about Caroline Quinn.”

Elaine cackles. “In this town, not that odd. What about her?”

“You were first runner-up for homecoming queen that year. Were you mad they didn’t crown you queen after she’d died?”

Elaine’s brow furrows. “All right, that is an odd question. Why would I want a dead girl’s crown? Even if they’d offered, I’d have refused. I’m not stupid. This town mourned her like she was a saint.”

“She wasn’t?”

Elaine nails me with a thousand-yard stare. “Are you? Is anyone? We all have sharp edges and dirty little secrets. Caroline was no exception. She liked gossip, flirting, a little healthy one-upmanship among friends.”

“Flirting with Joe Bedecki?”

“Him…and others. Like we all did. And I did not limit myself to boys, I’ll have you know, though it was the seventies and we didn’t exactly talk about it. Your generation is far better off in that regard.”

“Do you think Joe did it?”

She waits a beat, as if searching for the words. “I believe a lot of different kinds of men can behave shockingly, strangle a girl if he’s in the mood for it. Joe was one I wouldn’t put it past. He was a dish, though maybe that was part of it. Beware the hot ones, dear. They get away with murder. Sometimes literally.”

“Grace doesn’t think he did it.”

“She told you that?”

“She did. And my mom didn’t think Joe killed Caroline, either. I found a paper she wrote on the murder.”

“That old chestnut. I remember her running around town like Nancy Drew, annoying the shit out of her mom. She found the same thing you will. Joe was good for it. Skulking around the school during the dance. Her underwear in his locker.”

“Were there any other suspects, though?”

“Honey, I was a teenage girl caught up in my own melodrama, so I wouldn’t know. You’d have to ask the sheriff about that. It was less than a week, and Joe’s name was all over the paper, arrested for murder.”

Ben’s grandfather. Which might tip off Ben. Great.

Or maybe not. Time to visit Amber at the police station.

“Should have guessed you’d stop by to keep me company,” Amber says with some amusement when I walk into the station. And then with a deep sigh: “I can’t really help you anymore, though. I’ve already done too much. My dad is on the fucking edge, keeps barking at me to reassure him I haven’t told anyone anything. All the files are on lockdown, too.”