The possibility hit me like a wrecking ball: suicide. I felt like I had fallen off the windowsill, straight through the glass and down into cold air. If this killer had never been anything but invisible, if Lexie had been the core of the case all along, maybe it was because there had never been a killer at all: she was all there was. In that split second I saw it as clearly as if it were unfolding on the dark lawn below me, in all its slow sickening horror. The others putting away the cards and stretching, Where’s Lexie got to? And then the worry winding tighter and tighter, till finally they put on coats and went out into the night to look for her, torches, rain gusting hard, Lexie! Lex! The four of them crammed in the wrecked cottage, gasping for breath. Shaking hands feeling for a pulse, pressing harder; moving her into shelter and laying her out so gently, reaching for the knife, fumbling in her pockets for some note, some explanation, some word. Maybe-Jesus-maybe they had even found one.

A moment later, of course, my head cleared, my breath came back and I knew that was rubbish. It would explain a lot-Rafe’s snit fit, Daniel’s suspicions, Justin’s nerves, the moved body, the searched pockets-and we’ve all heard about cases where people staged everything from improbable accidents through murders, rather than let their loved ones be branded as suicides. But I couldn’t think of a single reason why they would have left her there all night for someone else to find, and anyway women generally don’t commit suicide by knifing themselves in the chest. And, above all that, there was the immovable fact that Lexie-even if whatever went down in March had somehow wrecked all this for her, this house, these friends, this life-was about the last person in the world who would have killed herself. Suicides are people who can’t see any other way out. From what we had learned, Lexie had had no trouble finding escape routes when she wanted them.

Downstairs Abby was humming to herself; Justin sneezed, a chain of small fastidious yelps; someone slammed a drawer. I was in bed and halfway asleep when I realized: I had forgotten all about ringing Sam.

8

God, that first week. Even thinking about it I want to bite into it like the world’s brightest red apple. In the middle of an all-out murder investigation, while Sam worked his way painstakingly through various shades of scumbag and Frank tried to explain our situation to the FBI without coming across like a lunatic, there was nothing I was supposed to be doing except living Lexie’s life. It gave me a gleeful, lazy, daring feeling right down to my toes, like mitching off school when it’s the best day of spring and you know your class has to dissect frogs.

On Tuesday I went back to college. In spite of the vast number of new opportunities to fuck up, I was looking forward to it. I loved Trinity, the first time round. It still has its centuries of graceful gray stone, red brick, cobblestones; you can feel the layers on layers of lost students streaming through Front Square beside you, feel the print of you being added to the air, archived, saved. If someone hadn’t decided to drive me out of college, I might have turned into an eternal student like these four. Instead-and probably because of that same person-I turned into a cop. I liked the thought that this had brought me full circle, back to reclaim the place I’d lost. It felt like a strange, delayed victory, something salvaged against ridiculous odds.

“You should probably know,” Abby said, in the car, “the rumor mill’s been going mental. Apparently it was a major coke deal gone wrong, also an illegal immigrant-you married him for money and then started blackmailing him-also an abusive ex-boyfriend who just got out of jail for beating you up. Brace yourself.”

“Also, I assume,” Daniel said, maneuvering past an Explorer that was blocking two lanes, “all of us, singly or in various combinations and for various motives. No one’s said so to our faces, of course, but the inference is inevitable. ” He swung into the entrance of the Trinity car park and held up his ID for the security guard. “If people ask questions, what are you going to tell them?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” I said. “I was thinking about saying I’m the lost heir to some throne and a rival faction came after me, but I couldn’t decide which throne. Do I look like a Romanov?”

“Definitely,” said Rafe. “They were a bunch of chinless weirdos. Go for that.”

“Be nice to me or I’ll tell everyone you came after me with a cleaver in a drug-fueled rage.”

“It’s not funny,” said Justin. He hadn’t brought his car-I got the sense they all wanted to stick close together, just now-so he was in the back with me and Rafe, rubbing flecks of dirt off the windowpane and wiping his fingers on his handkerchief.