“But Elise, or Lisa, wasn’t a student, right?” Coyle asked. “She had a job as a graphic artist?”

“Yeah,” Kira said. “She was, like, twenty-four. I think she wanted to be a student but didn’t have any money. She was auditing a class at night or something.”

“What else can you tell me about her?”

“I don’t know,” Molly said. “We didn’t really hang. She was at work all day, and we were in classes at night. And she wasn’t, you know, like us.”

“How was she?”

“She was older,” Kira said. “Dated older guys. In the beginning, we tried doing things together, clubbing, stuff like that, but it was super-awkward.”

“In what way?”

“She didn’t want to talk about the stuff we talked about. And we’re drinking, like, Bud Light, and she’s ordering twelve-dollar mojitos.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Sunday night,” Molly said. “She was in her room. We didn’t talk.”

“When she didn’t come home Monday night, it wasn’t unusual?”

“Happened all the time.”

“She didn’t say where she was going?”

The girls shook their heads.

“Did she have a car?”

“Yeah, a Corolla,” Kira said. “She always drove it to work.”

Molly lowered her head and leaned forward. “Are you really a murder detective?”

“Homicide, yes,” Coyle said. “Why?”

“I don’t know, no offense, but you don’t look like the ones on TV. They look different, more…tight.”

“Tight?”

“Yeah, something like that. The clothes and the hair. You’re more—”

“Loose?” Coyle offered.

“Yeah, I mean, no offense or anything. You’re okay and all.”

Looking up, Coyle saw Bailey smiling at him.

“Did Lisa have a boyfriend?” Coyle asked.

“A boyfriend?” Molly laughed. She trimmed her ash on the edge of a coffee mug. “Lisa was, you know…outgoing. Guys thought she was hot.”

“Did you meet any of them?”

“Not really. They never came here.”

“Do you know if there was one she dated more than the others?”

“I don’t think she ever had just one,” Kira said. “Anyway, all we saw was their cars. A couple weeks ago she got picked up out front by a guy in a Lexus. I mean, the guys we go out with can barely afford a car.”

Coyle looked at his notepad. “What about three friends who might have been together with her—a white guy, an Asian, a Hispanic? Ring any bells?”

The girls shook their heads.

“So you don’t know her boyfriends? I thought that was the kind of stuff roommates talked about.”

“Not Lisa,” Kira said. “At least not that way.”

“What way was it?” Coyle asked.

“I don’t know—it’s weird talking about her now, after she’s…gone.” The girls looked at each other.

“What is it?”

“Lisa had this thing about guys and sex,” Molly said. “She was, like, really into it.”