“No,” Michael says slowly. “I’m not telling you anything other than that I found it on a chair in the study room. Anyone might have used it between then and now.”

“So other people had Jay’s password?”

He shrugs.

“And where were you yesterday morning?”

“Here,” Michael says, gesturing upward. “With about fifteen other brothers, eating breakfast.”

I glance at Teddy. It should be easy enough to verify.

“You can ask them,” Michael adds, unnecessarily.

I take a deep breath and walk back into Jay’s room.

From his window, there’s a view of Milledge: cars with their windows open, hands in the breeze, students swinging backpacks, laughing on the sidewalk. They’re all so buoyant, these young people. Not a thought of age or time, except when they’ll be twenty-one and whether or not they’ll be late for class. I sigh and spin around the room. But that’s not quite right either. There’s more going on than drinking and parties and the occasional schoolwork. I want to paint them with the same brush, all these shiny young faces, but the details are important. The dream girls and missing laptop. The dirty mattress encroaching on the tidy one. The stress of being in a new place with new people and new rules. The fraternity code. And between all these fine lines, unspoken expectations, and wires running between bedrooms, there’s one that lights the fuse. We just have to follow it backward to find the right one: the reason someone wanted Jay Kemp dead.

Twenty minutes later, we’re back at the station, checking messages and sorting through documents that have piled up in our absence.

My desk is just how I like it, jotted notes on Post-its pasted to the wall, my lamp, and the top of my keyboard like a serial killer in the movies. Candy wrappers litter the floor—I would say they’re all Teddy’s, but the Starbursts are definitely mine. There’s a rotting apple crammed in the bottom drawer—last week’s failed attempt to eat healthy. Truman is a firm believer that cleanliness is near godliness, so I chuck the apple, half of it brown and soft, toward the bin and hit the wall instead.

“Haven’t lost your basketball skills, I see,” Teddy says behind me as I get up grudgingly to put the thing in the trash.