The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(257)

                “Did anyone see you, once you got back to campus?”

                “Not after Brandon dropped us off. I went down to the bathroom just before bed to brush my teeth, but there was nobody there or in the halls.”

                “Tell me about the picnic,” I said.

                She looked out the window for a minute before responding. “Well, you know about the fight beforehand. I never touched her freaking iPod—I have my own freaking iPod, everybody here has a freaking iPod!—but Katie just made up her mind I’d swiped it and practically chewed my head off. After you got her calmed down, though, she came back to the room and flopped down on her bed and picked up Bennington and hugged him—and her iPod was under the stupid bear, right where she’d left it. She apologized, but I think maybe she thought I really had taken it, but then I changed my mind when she was down in your room and put it back. Anyway, we didn’t hang out at the picnic—she was talking to Brandon, and I was with Blair and Ethan on the other side of the living room. Professor Farmer gave us our papers back around 10:15 or so, and what I remember is that Katie left soon after that. She was upset about her grade, I think. That was the last time I saw her.”

                I got up from Katie’s bed and looked at her desk. Her laptop was there, open and on, but there was no term paper in sight. In the second drawer, I found her “Gender” notebook—but the paper wasn’t there, either.



                             “You didn’t see her here at the dorm?” I was still poking around, trying to find the paper or some other sign that she’d been back to her room after the picnic.

                “No,” she said. “I didn’t. And I didn’t see her paper, either, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

                I sighed. “Okay, Dee. Thanks. I—I’m going to take her bear with me for tonight, okay? I’ll bring it back in the morning, if her parents want it.”

                “Okay,” she said, walking me to the door. I was halfway back to my room before I heard her say my name. I turned around.

                “I really am sorry, Max,” she said.

                * * * *

                After talking to Dee, I really just needed to lie down and gather my thoughts, and that’s what I was doing when someone knocked on my door. I rose unsteadily and opened up to find a distraught Gavin inches from my face. Gavin was the preppiest person on the hall, male or female, and owned enough Polo shirts to make Ralph Lauren jealous. Today he was wearing a black Polo over khakis. Mourning attire.

                “Can I come in?” he said. “I need to talk to someone—you knew Katie best and I—well, you know—I just need to talk.”

                I nodded and let him into my room. He sat in the beanbag chair across from my bed and tried not to cry.

                I handed him a tissue and sat on the edge of my bed, uncomfortable with his emotion but knowing I needed to talk to him, too.

                “Remember,” he said at last, “what I told you, you know, about what happened yesterday afternoon?”

                I frowned. The last thing I wanted to think about was that he had asked Katie out.

                “No, listen,” he continued, “what if it’s my fault that she—well, that she—died?”



                             I leaned forward. “Gavin,” I said, “it’s not your fault unless you killed her. Did you kill her?”