“He wanted to join,” I tell Teddy, “and no matter what I said—no matter how many sarcastic remarks I made about dress-alike Ken dolls and sharing a brain, I couldn’t convince him otherwise. So he pledged.” I close my eyes. “Fast-forward six weeks later after seeing him maybe twice when we used to see each other every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and I’m woken up by a banging on my bedroom door.” Craig still had a key to my apartment, let himself in, and wanted to sleep on the floor in my room. “He was shaking, smelled awful, and wouldn’t tell me what was going on. The next morning, he was up before dawn, mumbled something about not getting caught, and I didn’t see him again for another month.” I chew my bottom lip. “When I did see him—across the street, laughing with a pair of Ken dolls—he acted like he didn’t recognize me. And when I marched over to him, he pretended like that night had never happened and, oh right, he had to go—sorry, chapter meeting. His friends must have thought he broke up with me or something, because I could hear them consoling him, telling him not to worry, that there’d be way hotter bitches at their party that night.” I shake my head. Even now, the betrayal stings. “After that,” I sigh, “I never spoke to him again. So yeah,” I say, not meeting Teddy’s eyes, “I’ve seen fraternities change nice guys into assholes, and I think this time, they might have changed one into a murderer.”

We’re both silent for a while, and I wonder if Teddy—who grew up surrounded by sisters who adored him and a mom who insisted on nightly family dinners—could ever understand what it means to lose a friend like that. The silences and loneliness of an only child, the way they stretched and cocooned around you. Craig was the only person who made me feel like I wasn’t alone. And a fraternity took him from me. And so I know for all their promises of brotherhood and loyalty they’re thieves and liars—stealing other people’s brothers and abandoning them when it counts.

“And there’s the fact they had Jay’s laptop,” I add, grasping onto a more professional reason for my suspicions. “There’s a good possibility whatever was on there has been erased.”

His look says there could be any number of things the brothers didn’t want us to find. And none may be related to Jay’s death.

“Dara’s on it now. She’ll let us know.” He pauses. I think he’ll ask more about Craig or tell me to keep my personal biases in check, but he doesn’t. “Tripp said there’s a memorial this afternoon. If we leave now, we might make it.”