She said, “Plastic doesn’t absorb. The line wouldn’t be thin like that. It would come off in sheets.”

“Sheets.”

Sara leaned down and checked the bed. “Fitted sheet, top sheet.”

“Blanket?” Will asked. The kid had been freezing cold. It didn’t make sense that he’d go to bed without a blanket.

Sara opened the closet door. “Nothing.” She started on the drawers. “I think you’re right. It must have been something absorbent that—”

Will walked down the hallway to the bathroom. The lights were off, but he found the switch by the door. The fluorescents flickered overhead. Green light bounced off the blue tiles. Will had never lived in a dorm, but he’d shared a communal bathroom with fifteen other boys until he was eighteen years old. They were all the same: sinks in the front, showers in the back, toilets on the side.

He found a wadded-up blanket in the first stall. Blood coated the blue cotton, making it stiff as cardboard.

Sara came up behind him.

He told her, “Simple.”

WILL LOOKED FOR the house with the swing set that marked the turn on Taylor Drive. Though the route was familiar, he was loath to take it. Searching Allison Spooner’s room was a necessary chore, but Will’s instincts told him that Jason Howell’s dorm room held more promising leads. Unfortunately, Will wasn’t a crime scene technician. He didn’t have the credentials or equipment to process such a complicated scene. He would have to wait for Charlie Reed and his team to drive over from the Central GBI lab. Two students were already dead and Will had no idea what was motivating the killer. Time was definitely not on his side.

Still, there were procedures to be followed. He had dropped by the station to pick up the warrant to search the Braham house. While he was there, he’d sent Faith the list Marty Harris had printed out of all the students in the dorm. She didn’t have time to do all the background checks, but she was going to get started on them now and send the rest of the list to Amanda’s secretary before she went to the hospital.

The police station had been oddly quiet. Will guessed they were all either on the street or at the hospital with Brad Stephens, who was still in a medically induced coma. Still, something was going on. The patrolmen milling around the desks hadn’t glared at Will with the expected hatred. Marla Simms had handed him the fax without having to be asked. Even Larry Knox had stared at the floor as he walked to the coffee machine to refill his cup.

There were two cars parked in front of the Braham house. One was a police cruiser. The other was a four-door Ford pickup. Will parked behind the truck. Exhaust drifted up from the tailpipe. He could see two figures in the cab. Lena Adams was in the passenger seat. A man was behind the wheel. His window was down, even though the rain hadn’t let up. He held a cigarette in his hand.

Will went to the driver’s side. His hair was plastered to his head. He was freezing. His socks were still soaking wet.

Lena made the introductions. “Gordon, this is the agent from Atlanta I told you about. Will Trent.”

Will shot her a glance that he hoped conveyed his intense level of irritation. Lena was being investigated for her part in Tommy’s death. She had no business talking to his father. “Mr. Braham, I’m so sorry to be meeting you under these circumstances.”

Gordon held the cigarette to his mouth. He was crying openly, tears streaming down his face. “Get in.”

Will climbed into the back seat. There were a couple of fast-food bags on the floor. Work orders with the Georgia Power logo were stacked in an open briefcase on the seat opposite. Even with the open window, smoke hung in the air like a shroud.

Gordon stared ahead at the road. Raindrops popped against the hood of the truck. “I can’t believe my boy would do any of this. It’s not in his nature to be hurtful.”

Will knew there was no use wasting time with kindness. “Can you tell me what you know about Allison?”

He took another hit off the cigarette. “Paid her rent on time. Kept the house clean. I gave her a discount for doing the laundry, looking after Tommy.”

“Did he need looking out for?”

Gordon glanced at Lena. “He knows, right?”

Will answered, “I know that he was slow, Mr. Braham. I also know that he held down several jobs and was well respected in town.”

The man looked down at his hands. His shoulders shook. “He did, sir. He worked real hard.”

“Tell me about Allison.”

Gordon’s composure came back slowly, but his shoulders were still slumped. When he moved the cigarette to his mouth, it looked as if his hands were weighted down. “Was she raped?”

“No, sir. There were no signs of that.”

He let out a ragged, relieved breath. “Tommy had a crush on her.”

“Did she feel the same way?”

He shook his head. “No. And he knew it. I taught him early on to be careful around girls. Look but don’t touch. He never had any trouble. Girls saw him like a puppy dog. They didn’t see that he was a man.” He repeated himself, “He was a man.”

Will gave him some time before asking, “Allison was living in the house?”

He lit a new cigarette off the old one. Will could feel the smoke clinging to his wet hair and clothes. He made an effort not to cough.

Gordon said, “She rented the garage at first. I didn’t want to let her. That’s no place for a girl to be living. She started talking about discrimination, said she had lived in worse, so I told her fine. I figured she’d move out in a month.”

“How long had she been renting from you?”

“Almost a year. She didn’t want to live in the dorm. Said all the girls there were boy crazy, staying up too late. She knew how to flirt to get what she wanted, though. Had Tommy wrapped around her little finger.”

Will didn’t address the tone of blame in the father’s voice. “She wasn’t living in the garage, though.”

He didn’t answer immediately. “That was Tommy. He said it wasn’t right for her to be out there when it was so cold, having to run back and forth to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night. He changed rooms with her. I didn’t know until after the fact.” He blew out a dark plume of smoke that wreathed around his head. “I told you, she had him wrapped around her finger. I should’ve put my foot down, paid more attention to what was going on.” He inhaled sharply, fighting his emotions. “I knew he had a crush on her, but he’d had crushes before. He liked the attention she was giving him. He didn’t have a lot of friends.”

Will knew he couldn’t tell the man details about an active case, especially one that could result in a nasty lawsuit. But he felt for the father, wished he could give him some words of comfort about his son. Instead, he asked, “Did you spend much time at home?”

“Not much. Mostly, I’m at my girlfriend’s house. Tommy didn’t know, but we were planning on getting married in the spring.” He exhaled sharply. “I was gonna ask him to be my best man once I got back from Florida.”

Will gave the man a few minutes to collect himself. “Did you know Allison’s boyfriend?”

“Jay. James.”

Will guessed, “Jason?”