I merged onto 1-40. The speed limit here was seventy, and the truck seemed pathetically grateful to get a chance to stretch its horses.

Mischievous thoughts occurred to me. “Maybe it was a gift from a secret lover and the only time she could wear it was when she was meeting him? Or maybe she’s a catalog model for Victoria’s Secret.”

Dwight wasn’t amused. “So why let the rental payments lapse?”

“Well, jail time did it for the Lincoln boys. Sickness? Death? The storage facility has to send a certified letter, but letters get tossed. Or lost. Especially during crisis times.”

Before I could speculate further, the car in the lane beside me misjudged my speed and started to cut in front of us without signaling. I had to swerve to avoid hitting him, and I gave a blast of the horn that sent him back into his own lane as I accelerated to get away from him.

“Jesus H, Deb’rah!” Dwight yelped. “Eighty-eight?”

“Oops,” I said, and kept the speedometer on a sedate seventy till we hit the Chapel Hill exit.

Visitor parking’s almost nonexistent on UNC’s north campus around the Old Well that actually furnished water for the first students back in the 1700s. I stopped beside Old East, slid out, and told Dwight to circle the block while I went looking for Stevie. “There’s his Jeep, so he shouldn’t be far.”

I had no qualms about disturbing the scholar. He’d had at least four hours to study if he’d gone straight to the library after dropping Eric off in Raleigh.

“Steve Knott?” asked the first student I saw when I entered his stairwell. “Yeah, he just went up. Next floor. First room on the left.”

The lights were on and the door was ajar, and when I pushed it open, Stevie, was hanging freshly pressed shirts in his closet. He was, shall we say, surprised to see me.

Indeed, his first words of welcome were “Oh shit, Deborah. What’re you doing here?”

“Dwight wants to talk to you.”

“Dwight Bryant? He’s here?”

“Yep. Wants to know why you and Eric decided not to leave your names Friday night. Since you wouldn’t come talk to me this afternoon, you can talk to him now.”

“You sicced him on us? I don’t believe this.”

“Nobody sicced him on you, honey. Nobody had to. We talked to both of you at that Pot O’Gold slide, remember? When Dwight looked over an alphabetized list of attendees, you think he wouldn’t notice which Knott wasn’t on it?”

“Did y’all talk to Eric yet?”

It occurred to me that he might be more forthcoming if he thought we knew something he didn’t, so I merely shrugged. “Dwight’s keeping an open mind. He wants to hear your version.”

“Oh Christ!”

“So why don’t we get on downstairs before he gets tired of driving around in circles?”