CHAPTER FOUR

Riley sat down at the table in the kitchen, across from Chief Hintz. For a moment the chief just stared across at her, holding his pencil over a notepad. Riley wondered if she was supposed to say something.

She glanced up and saw that Officer Frisbie had positioned herself off to one side, leaning against a counter. The woman had a rather sour expression on her face, as if she wasn’t very happy with the interviews. Riley wondered if Frisbie was annoyed by the girls’ responses or by the way her boss had been asking questions.

Finally the chief said, “First of all, did the victim ever give you any reason to think she feared for her safety?”

Riley was jolted by that word …

Victim.

Why couldn’t he just refer to her as Rhea?

But she needed to answer his question.

Her mind raced back over recent conversations, but she only remembered innocuous exchanges like the one she and Trudy and Rhea had had earlier tonight about whether Riley was on the pill.

“No,” Riley said.

“Did anyone wish her ill? Was anyone angry with her recently?”

The very idea seemed odd to Riley. Rhea was—had been—so pleasant and amiable that Riley couldn’t imagine anyone being mad at her for more than a few minutes.

But she wondered …

Did I miss any signs?

And had the other girls told Hintz anything Riley herself didn’t know?

“No,” Riley said. “She got along with pretty much everybody—as far as I knew.”

Hintz paused for a moment.

Then he said, “Tell us what happened when you and your friends arrived at the Centaur’s Den.”

A rush of sensations came back to Riley—Rhea and Trudy physically pushing her through the door into the thick fog of cigarette smoke and the deafening music …

Did she need to get into all that?

No, surely Hintz only wanted to hear bare-boned facts.

She said, “Cassie and Heather and Gina headed straight to the bar. Trudy wanted me to dance with her and Rhea.”

Hintz was reviewing notes he’d taken from the other girls, who of course had told him what they’d known about Riley’s actions, including the fact that Riley had left them to go downstairs.

“But you didn’t dance with them,” he said.

“No,” Riley said.

“Why not?”

Riley was startled. Why could her reluctance to dance possibly matter, anyway?

Then she noticed Officer Frisbie giving her a sympathetic look and shaking her head. It seemed obvious now that the woman thought Hintz was being a bit of an asshole, but there really wasn’t anything she could do about it.

Riley said slowly and carefully, “I just … well, I wasn’t in much of a party mood. I’d been trying to study, and Rhea and Trudy had pretty much dragged me there. So I bought a glass of wine and headed on downstairs.”

“Alone?” Hintz asked.

“Yeah, alone. I sat down in a booth by myself.”

Hintz thumbed through his notes.

“So you didn’t talk to anyone else while you were at the Centaur’s Den?”

Riley thought for a moment, then said, “Well, Harry Rampling came over to my table …”

Hintz smiled a little at the mention of Harry’s name. Riley realized that, like most of the community, the chief probably thought pretty highly of the school’s quarterback.

He asked, “Did he sit down with you?”

“No,” Riley said. “I brushed him off.”

Hintz frowned with disapproval, apparently annoyed that any girl would have the poor judgment to reject a true hero like Harry Rampling. Riley was starting to feel a little exasperated. Why was her taste in guys any business of Hintz’s, anyway? What did it have to do with what had happened to Rhea?

Hintz asked, “Did you talk to anyone else?”

Riley gulped.

Yes, she had talked to someone else.

But was she going to get the guy in trouble by talking about him?

She said, “Um … a law student came over to my booth. He sat down with me and we talked for a while.”

“And then?” Hintz asked.

Riley shrugged.

“He said he had studying to do, and he left.”

Hintz was jotting down some notes.

“What was his name?” he asked.

Riley said, “Look, I don’t see why he’s important. He was just another guy at the Centaur’s Den. There’s no reason for you to think—”

“Just answer my question.”

Riley swallowed hard and said, “Ryan Paige.”

“Had you met him before?”

“No.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“No.”

Riley was momentarily glad that Ryan had managed to keep himself so mysterious, without giving her so much as his address or phone number. She saw no reason why she should be answering any questions about him at all, and she sure didn’t want to get him into any trouble. It seemed almost kind of stupid that Hintz was pushing her about it. And Riley could tell by how Officer Frisbie rolled her eyes that she felt the same way.

Hintz tapped his pencil eraser against the table and asked, “Did you see Rhea Thorson with anybody in particular at the Centaur’s Den? Aside from the friends you went with, I mean?”

Riley was starting to feel more frustrated than nervous.

Didn’t Hintz understand anything she’d been saying?

“No,” she said. “Like I said, I went off by myself. I didn’t see Rhea at all after that.”

Hintz kept tapping his eraser, looking at his notes.

He asked, “Does the name Rory Burdon mean anything to you?”

Riley thought quickly.

Rory …

Yes, the first name was familiar, anyway.

She said, “Rhea seemed to be kind of interested in him, I guess. I saw her dancing with him a few other times at the Centaur’s Den.”

“But not tonight?”

Riley fought down a sigh. She wanted to say …

How many times do I have to tell you, I didn’t see Rhea at all after I got there?

Instead, she simply said, “No.”

She figured Rory must have been there tonight as well, and that the other girls had told Hintz they’d seen Rhea hanging on him.

“What do you know about him?” Hintz asked.

Riley paused. What little she did know seemed too trivial to mention. Rory was a tall, skinny, awkward guy with thick glasses, and all the girls except Riley had teased Rhea for being interested in him.

She said, “Not much, except he lives off campus somewhere.”

She realized that Hintz was just staring at her again, as if he expected her to say something more.

Does Hintz consider him a suspect? she wondered.

Riley was sure that the chief was way off base if he did suspect Rory. The guy had struck her as shy and gentle, not the least bit aggressive.

She was about to say so to Hintz, but the police chief glanced down at the papers in front of him and moved on with his questions.

“When did you leave the Centaur’s Den?” he asked.

Riley made the best guess she could about the time—it had been pretty late.

Then Hintz said, “Did you see any of your friends before you left?”

Riley remembered the girls staggering down the stairs, and how Trudy had been carrying the pitcher of beer when she’d asked …

“Hey, Riley! Who was the cute guy?”

Riley said, “Trudy and Heather and Gina and Cassie all came downstairs. They said Rhea had already gone. That was when I left.”

As Hintz jotted down notes, Riley’s head started to fill with questions of her own. She remembered asking where Rhea was, and Trudy had said …

“I dunno. Where is Rhea?”

… and then Heather had said …

“Rhea went back to the dorm.”

Riley wondered—what did Heather or any of the other girls know about Rhea’s departure?

Did they know whether she had left the Centaur’s Den alone or not?

And what had they told Hintz about it?

Riley wished she could ask, but knew that she mustn’t.

“Did you leave the bar alone?” Hintz asked.

“Yeah,” Riley said.

“And you walked all the way back to the dorm alone?”

“Yeah.”

Hintz’s frown deepened as he glared at her.

“Are you sure that was wise? The school offers an escort service for crossing the campus at night. Why didn’t you call for it?”

Riley gulped. This seemed to her like the first really good question Hintz had asked so far.

She said, “I guess I always felt safe walking on campus at night. But now …”

Her voice faded.

Now things are really different, she thought.

Hintz frowned again.

“Well, I hope you use better judgment in the future. Especially when you’ve been drinking too much.”

Riley’s eyes widened.

“I only had one glass of wine,” she said.

Hintz squinted at her. She could tell by his expression that he thought she was lying. The other girls must have admitted to drinking a lot, and he assumed that Riley had as well.

She resented his attitude, but she quickly told herself that whatever Hintz thought of her didn’t matter right now. It would be stupid and petty of her to get pissed off about it.

Hintz kept jotting things down and said, “That will be all—for now. You must obey the same rules as everybody else in the dorm. Stay in your room tonight. Don’t plan on leaving the campus until you’re notified otherwise. We might want to ask you more questions soon.”

Riley was oddly startled.

Is that it? she wondered.

Was the interview really over?

Because she sure still had questions, even if Hintz didn’t.

One question in particular had been welling up in her mind ever since she had discovered Rhea’s body. She remembered stepping into Rhea’s dimly lit room and seeing her severed throat and her wide open eyes—but she hadn’t stopped to really look closely at her body.

In a halting voice, she said to Hintz …

“Could you tell me … do you know …”

She suddenly realized how hard it was going to be to even ask the question.

She continued, “Before she died … before she was killed … was Rhea …?”

She couldn’t bring herself to say the word …

Raped.

And from Hintz’s blank expression, Riley could tell that he really couldn’t figure out what she was trying to ask.

Fortunately, Officer Frisbie did understand.

She said, “I can’t say for sure—the medical examiner is still on his way here. But I don’t think she was sexually assaulted. It looked to me like her clothes weren’t disturbed during the attack.”

Breathing a little easier, Riley gave Frisbie a look of silent gratitude.

The woman nodded slightly, and Riley left the kitchen.

As Riley headed out of the common room, she found herself wondering yet again what the other girls had told Hintz—for example, whether Rhea had left the bar alone or not. Did they know anything about what had happened to Rhea that Riley didn’t know? After all, they’d been with her until she’d decided to leave.

As Riley walked down the hall, she saw that a couple of campus cops were standing outside Rhea’s room door, which was now taped off with crime scene tape. She shuddered at the thought that Rhea’s body was still in there, awaiting the arrival of the medical examiner. Riley found it hard to imagine anyone sleeping in that room ever again—but of course, it wouldn’t be vacant forever.

Riley opened the door to her room, which was dark inside except for some light spilling in from the hall. She saw Trudy turn over in her bed to face the wall.

She’s still awake, Riley thought.

Maybe now they could talk, and Riley could get some answers to her questions.

Riley closed the door and sat down on her own bed and said, “Trudy, I was wondering if maybe we could talk about our interviews.”

Still facing the wall, Trudy replied …

“We’re not supposed to talk about it.”

Riley was startled by the sharp, icy tone of Trudy’s voice.

“Trudy, I don’t think that’s true, at least not anymore. Hintz didn’t say anything like that to me.”

“Just go to sleep,” Trudy said.

Trudy’s words cut through Riley painfully. And suddenly, for the first time, Riley felt tears welling up in her eyes, and a sob rose up in her throat.

It was bad enough that Rhea had been brutally murdered.

Now her best friend was angry with her.

Riley got under the covers. Tears streaked down her face as something began to dawn on her …

Her life had been changed forever.

She couldn’t yet begin to imagine how.