Whitney pointed Edie to Trevor’s suite, and when she knocked, a young man wearing blue eyeliner answered the door.

“Don’t tell me,” he said, “you’re looking for Trevor.”

“I’m actually looking for my sister,” said Edie. “Claudia Castro.”

“Sorry,” said the young man. “Didn’t mean to be rude. My roommate is suddenly very popular. I’m Byrd. Claudia’s not here. Neither is Trevor. Do you want to come in?”

They sat side by side on a futon covered in a scratchy wool blanket. The carpet desperately needed a vacuum.

“I haven’t seen Trevor since Friday morning,” said Byrd. Edie counted back. That was three days. “His laptop is gone and he didn’t come to class today. He hasn’t answered my texts, either.”

“Did he say where he was going?” she asked.

“No. I assumed he was with Claudia. I guess she’s MIA, too?”

“You guess?”

“The whole thing is kind of weird. I never actually saw them together, but when I got back from break he was acting weird. And then he lost his phone. And then Whitney came over and had a little fit at him. She was like ‘Claudia’s a slut.’ Sorry, that was her. So when she left I was, like, did you hook up with Claudia Castro? Because, I mean, that’s a step up. He said no, but he was super cryptic. He was, like, something happened to her over break.”

“Something happened? What does that mean?”

Byrd paused. “I’m sorry, that was a bad way of putting it. I really don’t know. He was, like, she’s all alone except for me. Which didn’t make any sense. She’s, like, kind of a celebrity, right? Anyway, I just figured it was drama. There’s a lot of drama around here. But then, two different random guys came here looking for Trevor. One was older, in a suit. The other one said he was friends with Claudia.”

“What did the friend look like?”

“He was our age. Really cute. Mixed-race, with sort of an afro.”

Ben. She opened her phone, got on Instagram, and found a photo of Claudia’s ex in her sister’s feed. “Is this him?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Edie texted Ben immediately: Is Claudia with you?

Not even a minute later, Ben called back.

“Is she with you?” asked Edie.

“No,” said Ben. “I’ve been trying to find her. Can you come over? There’s something you need to see.”

EDIE