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kept crying quietly, and Riley didn’t know what to do to make her feel better.
She half-wondered why she wasn’t crying herself.
Of course, she had cried in her own bed last night. But surely she hadn’t cried enough—not over something this terrible. Surely there was still more crying in store for her.
She sat picking at her breakfast as Trudy wiped her eyes and blew her nose and settled herself down a bit.
Trudy said, “Riley, the thing I keep wondering is why? Why Rhea, I mean? Was it something personal? Did somebody hate her enough to kill her? I don’t see how that’s even possible. Nobody hated Rhea. Why would anybody hate Rhea?”
Riley didn’t reply, but she’d been wondering the same thing. She also wondered whether the cops had found any answers yet.
Trudy continued, “And was it somebody we know who killed her? Is maybe one of us next? Riley, I’m scared.”
Again, Riley didn’t reply.
She felt sure, though, that Rhea had known her murderer. She didn’t know why she was sure—it wasn’t like she was a cop or knew anything really about criminals. But something in her gut told her that Rhea had known and trusted her killer—right up until it had been too late to save herself.
Trudy looked at Riley steadily, then said, “You don’t seem to be scared.”
Riley felt taken aback.
For the first time, it dawned on her …
No, I’m not scared.
She’d been feeling every other sort of awful emotion in the world—guilt, grief, shock—and yes, horror. But her horror was somehow different from fear for her own life. The horror she felt was for Rhea herself, horror at the awfulness of what had happened to her.
But Riley wasn’t afraid.
She wondered—was it because of what had happened to her mother all those years ago, the sound of that gunshot, the sight of all that blood, the incomprehensible loss she still struggled with even today?
Had the most terrible trauma she had ever suffered made her stronger than other people?
For some reason, she almost hoped not. It didn’t seem quite right to be strong like that, strong in ways that other people weren’t.
It just didn’t seem quite …
It took Riley a few seconds to think of the word.
Human.
She shivered just a little, then said to Trudy, “I’m heading back to the dorm. I really need to get some sleep. Want to come with me?”
Trudy shook her head.
“I just want to sit here for a while,” she said.
Riley got up from her chair and gave Trudy a quick hug. Then she emptied her breakfast tray and left the student union. It wasn’t a long walk back to the dorm, and she was relieved not to see any reporters along the way. When she got to the front door of the dorm, she paused for a moment. Now it occurred to her why Trudy hadn’t wanted to come back with her right now. She just wasn’t ready to face the dorm again.
As Riley stood at the door, she too felt weird about it. Of course, she’d spent the night there. She lived there.
But having spent some time outside, where a return to normality had been declared, was she ready to go back inside the building where Rhea had been killed?
She took a deep breath and walked on in through the front door.
At first she thought she felt OK. But as she continued into the hallway, the feeling of strangeness deepened. Riley felt as if she were walking and moving underwater. She headed straight to her own room and was about to open the door when her eyes were drawn toward the room farther down the hallway, the room that Rhea and Heather had shared.
She walked to it and saw that the door was shut and sealed off with police tape.
Riley stood there, suddenly feeling horribly curious.
What did it look like in there right now?
Had the room been cleaned up since she’d last seen it?
Or was Rhea’s blood still there?
Riley was seized by an awful temptation—to ignore that tape and open that door and walk right inside.
She knew better than to give in to that temptation. And of course the door would be locked.
But even so …
Why do I feel this way?
She stood there, trying to understand this mysterious urge. She began to realize—it had something to do with the killer himself.
She couldn’t help thinking …
If I open that door, I’ll be able to look into his mind.
It made no sense, of course.
And it was a truly terrifying idea—to look into an evil mind.
Why? she kept asking herself.
Why did she want to understand the killer?
Why on earth did she feel such unnatural curiosity?
For the first time since this whole terrible thing had happened, Riley suddenly felt really afraid …
… not for herself, but of herself.
CHAPTER SIX
The following Monday morning, Riley felt deeply uneasy as she slipped into her seat for her advanced psychology class.
It was, after all, the first class she’d attended since Rhea’s murder four days earlier.
It was also the class she’d been trying to study for before she and her friends had gone to the Centaur’s Den.
It was sparsely attended today—many students here at Lanton didn’t feel ready to get back to their studies just yet. Trudy was here too, but Riley knew that her roommate was also uncomfortable with this rush to get back to “normal.” The other students were all unusually quiet as they took their places.
The sight of Professor Brant Hayman coming into the room put Riley a bit more at ease. He was young and quite good-looking in a corduroy-clad academic sort of way. She remembered Trudy telling Rhea …
“Riley likes to impress Professor Hayman. She’s got a thing for him.”
Riley cringed at the memory.
She certainly didn’t want to think she had a “thing” for him.
It was just that she’d first studied with him back when she’d been a freshman. He hadn’t been a professor yet, just a graduate assistant. She’d thought even then he was a wonderful teacher—informative, enthusiastic, and sometimes entertaining.
Today, Dr. Hayman’s expression was serious as he put his briefcase on his desk and looked at the students. Riley realized that he was going to get right to the point.
He said, “Look, there’s an elephant in this room. We all know what it is. We need to clear the air. We need to discuss it openly.”
Riley held her breath. She felt sure she wasn’t going to like what was going to happen next.
Then Hayman said …
“Did anybody here know Rhea Thorson? Not just as an acquaintance, not just someone you’d sometimes run into on campus. Really well, I mean. As a friend.”
Riley cautiously put up her hand, and so did Trudy. Nobody else in the classroom did.
Hayman then asked, “What kinds of feelings have the two of you been going through since she was killed?”
Riley cringed a little.
It was, after all, the same question she had overheard those reporters asking Cassie and Gina on Friday. Riley had managed to avoid those reporters, but was she going to have to answer that question now?
She