I’ve never been in Oliver’s VW Golf. It’s cleaner than my car. No candy wrappers on the floorboards or clothes littering the back seat. No greasy slashes from Teddy’s bike. We drive in silence, and I stare at his hands on the steering wheel. His nails are bitten down to the skin.

“How did you know,” he says after a while, “that Kap-O was hazing its pledges?”

“I didn’t.”

He takes his eyes off the road to look at me. “Then why did you go there last night?”

I shrug. “I knew they were having a party and I wanted to get inside and look around.”

He shakes his head, and I have the feeling he’s waiting for me to say more. That if I confirmed his earlier suspicions, my actions last night might be forgiven—not condoned or dismissed without punishment—but that if I said Craig’s name, split open my chest to reveal my bleeding heart, Oliver would at least understand my desperation.

At the station, Truman’s Charger is gone. I assume he’s at the university doing damage control. Teddy’s bike is in its usual place. And I realize that whatever’s going on, he wanted nothing to do with it. Or more specifically, nothing to do with me. I try not to look at the handlebars twisting against the metal railing when I follow Oliver up the stairs to the back entrance.

He stops before he opens the door. “Nothing that happens today will bring back your friend,” he says slowly, “but maybe it will give you some peace.”

I think of the skin around Craig’s eyes crinkling when he looked at me. The way his hand held mine. How it felt to love someone and then lose them.

I shake my head wordlessly.

I’m not looking for peace.

Amy shuffles into the task room with an armful of folders and frowns like I’m missing my hall pass. I glance at Teddy’s desk, but Oliver ushers me into interview room B.

There, huddled in a corner of the couch, sits Ryan Bennett.

He moans when he sees me and draws his knees into his chest.

And then I know. I know why he wouldn’t look at me earlier. Know why he hid behind his father, why he was scared. Just like I know why he’s here now, why Oliver brought me in, and why Ryan has a large red welt covering his forearm.

Oliver stands in the doorway.

“I kept thinking about those burns,” he says quietly, “and how scared he was. Something didn’t add up.” He crosses his arms and frowns at Ryan. “After the interviews, Teddy and I followed him to the Kap-O house. His dad dropped him off on the street without so much as a wave, and Ryan went straight to the parking lot and pulled a gas can out of his car trunk.”