There’s a lump under the pale covers of the twin bed on the left side of the wall. It stirs at the sound of our footsteps.

“Katie,” I say softly. “We need to ask you a few questions,” I pause, “about Jay Kemp.”

A gasping sound from beneath the covers, and then something that sounds suspiciously like “Who?”

“We need to talk to you about Jay.”

A muffled “I don’t know anyone named … Jay.”

I look back at Teddy in the doorway, and then at Trudy, who’s hovering just behind him in the hall.

“Katie,” I say patiently, “you’re this year’s dream girl. Don’t you know all the brothers at Kap-O?”

A movement that could be a nod or a head shake, I can’t tell.

“I know this is hard,” I say in my best bedside voice, “but I need you to sit up and talk to us.”

There’s a sigh as something unfurls beneath the blankets.

Katie doesn’t look anything like the bright-eyed, smiling girl framed in the Kap-O hallway. Her hair’s matted and pulled back into what yesterday might have been a ponytail but today is plastered in all directions around her neck. Her face is blotchy, the tip of her nose raw, and I suddenly understand the phrase “to cry your heart out.” She’s crumpled over on her bed like she’s got nothing left.

Teddy and I exchange glances.

Sometimes we’re cruel on purpose, slamming down photos of a man’s dead wife, gray skin, face bruised, lip split open, just to see his reaction, and especially if he has a history. But this, trying to talk to Katie, is going to require a delicate hand.

“Now let’s start again. Did you know Jay Kemp?”

A tiny, hoarse whisper. “Yes.”

“Where did you meet?”

Her eyes float around the room. “I don’t remember. Maybe at a party.” Voice scraped, low and raw.

Not love at first sight then.

“And when was this?”

A stir, thinking. “Around the beginning of the semester. There were a lot of socials…”

I wait, but she doesn’t say more.

“Okay, when did you start dating?”

A startled glance at me and then a small head shake. “We weren’t dating,” she says flatly. Her green eyes are glassy, and she draws her arms up around her knees and pulls them to her chest.

“Katie”—the nurse act is wearing on me, but I try to keep it out of my voice—“you’re not in trouble. We just need to know if Jay told you anything. If he was acting strange the last few weeks. Or if he said something to you about his brothers—maybe being mad at him.”

A twitch of her eyelid but then she resumes the empty stare, and when I wait, holding her gaze, she shakes her head.