"Even if we go with the idea that one of them followed her," I said, "and brought along a knife to scare her with for some reason, what did he think was going to happen next? Did he seriously expect to get away with it? They're part of the same social circle. It's tiny, and it's intimate. There's no reason why she shouldn't agree to anything he wanted, then head straight home and tell the other three exactly what had happened. Cue shock, horror, and quite possibly--unless it's Daniel--our knife-wielder getting thrown out of Whitethorn House. These are smart people, Sam. They couldn't overlook something that obvious."

"In fairness," Frank said helpfully, switching sides--apparently he was getting bored--"smart people do stupid things all the time."

"Not like that," Sam said. He left his pen lying across his notebook and pressed two fingers into the corners of his eyes. "Stupid things, yeah, sure. Not things that make no sense at all."

I had put that look on his face, and I felt like crap. "Do they do drugs?" I asked. "People on coke, say, don't always think straight."

Frank snorted smoke. "I doubt it," said Sam, without looking up. "They're straight arrows, this lot. They take a drink, all right, but from the looks of them I wouldn't say they'd even be into the odd bit of hash, never mind the hard stuff. Our girl's tox screen came back clean as a whistle, remember?"

The wind hurled itself up against the window with a bang and a rattle, fell away again. "Then, unless we're missing something huge," I said, "they just don't add up."

After a moment Sam said, "Yeah." He closed his notebook carefully, clipped the pen onto it. "I'd better start looking for something huge, then."

"Can I ask you a question?" Frank inquired. "Why do you have such a hard-on for these four?"

Sam rubbed his hands down his face and blinked hard, like he was trying to focus. "Because they're there," he said, after a moment. "And no one else is, at least not so's you'd notice. Because if it's not them, what've we got?"

"You've got that lovely profile," Frank reminded him.

"I know," Sam said, heavily. "And I appreciate it, Cassie; I do, honest. But right now I've got no one that matches it. I've plenty of local fellas--women as well--in the right age group, some of them have records and I'd say there's a good few are smart and organized, but there's no sign that any of them ever met our girl. I've plenty of acquaintances from college, and a few of them tick just about all the boxes, except as far as I can find out they've never so much as been to Glenskehy, never mind knowing their way around the place. There's no one who matches right across the board."

Frank arched an eyebrow. "Not to labor the point," he said, "but that's what Detective Maddox and I are going after."