“I wish I had better news,” he said. “We basically came up empty. I don’t know who this girl is, or if she even exists and I can’t find anyone who ever saw her. We’ll have to ask Stefan what else he knows.”

Before I agreed to that, he told me there was no Emily Lundgren or Lindquist in Black Creek anywhere near to Belinda’s age. There were six with similar names, but five were women in their forties and fifties, and one was a three-year-old girl. There were also plenty of female students from Chicago at the school, at least a couple of dozen in Belinda’s year, more in the year before and after, but none of them, to my surprise, was named Emily or Esme, and a search of their records showed that none of them looked anything like the girl in the picture I’d shown to him. Among that number were also several girls named Emma, but the only one from Chicago was Emma Doll, an Olympic speed skater who was African-American and whose face was famous around the world. Pete had spoken with Emma Doll, now a senior, and though she knew about the case, she had never met or seen Belinda before her death. There were girls with the surname Lundgren or Lindquist. One of them was called Caroline Lindquist and she had, in fact, known Belinda fairly well, she told Pete Sunday. In fact, she had been so shaken by Belinda’s murder that she had taken the semester off. Caroline was a name on the list Jill made of Belinda’s close college friends. Had Stefan somehow confused the first and last names?

Of course, it was possible that Esme was not the girl in the picture.

Pete wanted me to know that he hadn’t given up.

He thought that my suggestion to Esme that we meet up in person was spectacular, and we created a plan. As soon as a place was set, I would inform him and he would find a way to be there as well, undercover, with other police to back him up. He promised that I would be safe.

As for the solitary figure in the hoodie, who somehow felt bold to haunt and despoil our lives according to his whim, a few rosebushes one time, maybe next time a piece of wire strung at neck height in the dark, Pete had no idea. Did he know Esme? Was he sent by her? All we knew was that he watched, and that he bided his time.

I had put way too many hopes in a basket that turned out to have a hole in the bottom.

I went to bed.

For once, nothing was required to shove me down into sleep and keep me there.