It took hours for the cops to unearth and remove Rose’s remains.

Katie didn’t stick around to watch. Glimpsing what was left of Rose Tatum had made her sick. She wished she hadn’t gone into the woods with Mark to watch them dig. What had happened to Rose was real. It wasn’t a joke. A girl was dead, and whoever had murdered her could still be lurking around campus.

When she’d seen enough, Katie had grabbed her book bag from Mark and fled the woods. She wasn’t even aware that he’d followed until he caught up to her near the creek. When he touched her, Katie flinched, and she saw the hurt in his eyes as he let his hand fall away.

“I didn’t do it,” he said, but it sounded so hollow this time. Like even he wasn’t sure he believed it.

“How’d she get your medallion?” Katie asked. “If you had nothing to do with her, why was she wearing it?”

“I don’t know.”

Katie felt like screaming. “You have to do better than that. You have to remember! I’ve seen a dozen Lifetime movies where people get hypnotized and recover lost memories. Maybe you should try that. You have to do something. We’ll never know what really happened that night if you keep drawing a blank!”

Mark flinched. His bruised face looked so pained. “At least she’s not missing anymore,” he said grimly. “We know that much now, don’t we?”

Then he walked off, and Katie stood there for a long time, staring down at her muddy shoes.

Was finding Rose really a good thing? She had a sinking feeling that the cops were going to drag Mark back in for another round of questioning. What if they arrested him this time and threw him in jail? What if they stopped looking for anyone else? What if they didn’t need to keep looking?

The whole world felt totally scrambled.

It was like one of those awful thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles her dad had loved putting together. “Bonding time,” he’d called it, but for Katie it felt more like torture. Often they’d spent a whole weekend on a single puzzle. They would find the border pieces first and then move inward, doing small portions until those connected into something bigger. And when they’d finally stuck in that last piece (which had usually fallen to the floor and required a search on hands and knees), her dad would always say, “Whoever thought all those tiny bits of nothing would end up looking like that?” That being a truly dazzling photograph of a rain forest or the Taj Mahal or a villa in Tuscany.

Only Katie didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle yet. She couldn’t even find the borders. So how was she supposed to figure out the whole picture?

Leave it to the police, it’s their job, a tiny voice instructed. But Katie didn’t like feeling helpless. She had to do something. If she focused on small things, things she could do, that would be a start.

First, she had to deal with her unfinished business with Tessa.

She looked for her roommate, but Tessa wasn’t anywhere near the barricades. By then, only a few dozen students remained. Katie’s gaze drifted away from the creek toward the greenhouse, and she saw a solitary boy staring in her direction. He had his hands in his jacket pockets, the collar turned up. He gave her a long, hard look before he turned and headed off.

Steve Getty.

Katie shivered, staring at his retreating back. Had he really drugged Mark the night of the party? Had he done something to Rose? Or was it just that he was such an ass it made him easy to blame?

“I know what you’re thinking,” a voice said from behind her. “But if you’re going after Steve, you’d better be careful.”

Katie turned to find Joelle Needham standing a few feet away.

“He may act like an obnoxious puppy, but he’s the wolf that ate Red Riding Hood’s grandma.”

What did Joelle think she was going to do? Run after Steve and accuse him of murder in front of everyone on campus?

“I wasn’t going to—” Katie started to say.

“Snoop around?” Joelle finished for her. “So you don’t want to clear Mark?”

Katie pursed her lips. Of course she wanted proof that Mark was innocent! She wanted that more than anything. “I just want to find the truth,” she said.

“Ah, the truth.” Joelle came closer, and Katie saw what looked like a bruise on her jaw beneath her carefully applied concealer. “Some people around here will do anything to keep the truth from getting out.”

“Joelle, if you know something—if Steve hurt you—you need to talk,” Katie said. “You should tell the headmaster. If no one ever speaks, he’ll keep doing it. Maybe not at Whitney but at whatever college he goes to—”

“I can’t,” Joelle cut her off. “I just can’t.”

Katie glanced at the mark on Joelle’s jaw. “Did he hit you?”

Joelle touched the spot and shook her head. “I was attacked by my blow-dryer,” she said. “Really,” she added when Katie squinted at her. “I swear to God, if Steve hit me, I’d hit him back.”

Then what was holding her back? Katie wondered. Did Steve have pictures or video? “Is he blackmailing you?”

Joelle clammed up.

“You can’t let it go.” Katie’s dad had kept a big secret about losing all their money and then he’d killed himself because of it. “Some secrets need to be told.”

“Not this one. Not by me,” Joelle said, and blindly bumped into Katie as she hurried past.

Katie held her arm like she’d been stung. What had just happened? Joelle was warning her off Steve? Why did Mark’s ex care what she did? Joelle didn’t even like her. Everyone was acting so bizarre. She thought of a poem by Emily Dickinson that she’d had to memorize this semester:

Much Madness is divinest Sense

To a discerning Eye

Much Sense — the starkest Madness —

’Tis the Majority

In this, as all, prevail —

Assent — and you are sane —

Demur — you’re straightaway dangerous —

And handled with a Chain—

If you thought you were mad, then you were probably sane. If you thought you were sane and everyone agreed, you probably weren’t. And if you stood up for yourself against the crowd, you were dangerous.

Katie definitely felt like she was losing it these days. She hoped that meant she wasn’t really nuts, at least according to Emily.

With a sigh, she started up the hill toward campus. On the way, she reached for her phone to text Tessa where r u, and something fell out of her pocket. A folded slip of paper settled on the grass. She stopped and picked it up. Two lines were printed across the sheet:

PHILLIPS EXETER, PHILLIPS ANDOVER, ST. PAUL’S, WESTMINSTER. WHAT DO THEY ALL HAVE IN COMMON?

Had Joelle stuck the paper in Katie’s pocket when she’d bumped into her? Was Mark’s ex actually trying to help? The four names on the list were all private prep schools, Katie knew, very much like Whitney.

He may act like an obnoxious puppy, but he’s the wolf that ate Red Riding Hood’s grandma.

Had Steve Getty gone to Phillips Exeter, Phillips Andover, St. Paul’s, and Westminster before Whitney? Katie had heard that Whitney was the fifth school he’d attended, so that would fit. Why had Steve transferred in the middle of his senior year? That wasn’t normal. Nobody wanted to switch schools so close to graduation. Had he done something awful that made the four other schools kick him out?

Maybe Joelle wasn’t talking outright, but she was talking. Katie didn’t know exactly what had happened between Joelle and Steve, but she was certain of one thing: Steve Getty was involved in this mess with Rose Tatum up to his eyeballs. He’d known her before the party. He’d snuck her onto campus and used her in those pictures with Mark. Katie felt sure he had something to do with her disappearance. Maybe he’d even killed her.

Katie had tried Googling Steve’s name and had only found interviews with his ambassador dad or hockey stats. Nothing about why he couldn’t seem to stay put. If Katie was going to learn anything more, she had to look at Steve’s academic records. Or at least get someone to look at them for her.

Bea Lively volunteered in the Student Affairs Office, mostly working with leaders of various groups on campus. She’d helped set up the poetry slam in January, which was when they’d gotten to be friends. If anyone could take a peek at a student’s records without hacking, it would be Bea. Katie figured it was worth a shot.

So she headed straight for the administration building and Student Affairs. When she walked through the door, the phones were trilling, and a pair of gray-haired women behind the counter seemed to be scrambling to keep up. They didn’t even glance at Katie when she approached. But Katie didn’t need them.

“Bea?”

A tall girl with bright orange braids hanging down the back of her burgundy blazer was putting up event notices on the bulletin board. Bea turned her freckled face toward Katie. “Hey,” she said, giving a little wave. She had a wrist full of handmade bracelets, yellow tights under her burgundy-and-black plaid skirt, and brown clogs. Bea was not a slave to fashion.

“Have you got a sec?” Katie asked.

“Hang on, okay?” Bea finished pressing pushpins into a flyer, then walked over to Katie. “How’re you doing? I heard they found that missing girl. The phones are going bonkers. I had to take a break.”

“That’s kind of why I’m here.” Katie looked over at the women behind the counter. They were busy answering calls and didn’t seem to be listening, but Katie didn’t want to take any chances. She drew Bea toward a pair of chairs against the far wall.

Above them, a framed poster of a broadly smiling girl and boy hovered. Bold black letters screamed WHITNEY ACADEMY IS THE PLACE TO BE!

Yeah, Katie thought, it was the place to be if you liked sharing the campus with a psycho killer.

“What’s up?” Bea asked. “You’re not here to get your transcript forwarded, are you? I know your mom wants you to leave, but they’ll catch the guy soon, I’m sure they will, and graduation’s coming up so fast.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Phew.”

“I need you to do something for me.”

“You look so serious.” Bea wrinkled her forehead. “So is the favor illegal or immoral?”

“A little of both,” Katie said, and wet her lips. “Can you look at someone’s records for me?”

“Like, their grades?”

Katie shook her head. “Like why they left their other schools.”

“Who are we talking about?” Bea pulled a braid forward and twisted it.

Katie kept her voice low. “Steve Getty.”

Bea dropped the braid. “The ambassador’s son?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d he do? Besides thinking he’s God’s gift to women, I mean.”

Katie didn’t know a way to put it nicely. “I think he might have date-raped someone.”

“For real?” Bea looked horrified. “Why would Whitney let him in if they knew? Screw that”—she waved a hand in the air—“why isn’t he in jail?”

“Maybe the school didn’t know. Maybe Steve’s dad kept everyone quiet,” Katie replied, thinking of something Tessa had said.

People get away with stuff all the time around here. And if their parents can’t buy them out of it, they just yank them from school and they start all over again somewhere else.

Steve Getty’s dad was high-profile enough to pull plenty of strings and quietly pass out hush money.

“I’m toast if I get caught, but I’ll do my best,” Bea said, and her gaze shifted toward the women behind the counter. “Student volunteers aren’t supposed to handle transcripts. But if the phones keep ringing nonstop, I can probably get to the computer in back for a few minutes alone.”

“Please try,” Katie begged. Her phone buzzed, but she ignored it. “I think Steve might have had something to do with Rose Tatum.”

“The dead girl?” Bea said, and got quiet for a moment. “But everyone’s saying Mark was the last one—”

“I know what they’re saying,” Katie cut her off. She’d begun having doubts of her own, and it sickened her. “What if everyone’s wrong?”

Bea’s eyes filled with pity. “But, Katie, what if they’re right?”

“Call me if you find out anything,” she said, and grabbed her book bag.

As Katie walked out the door, her phone buzzed again. She left it in her pocket till she was outside. She took a deep breath of spring air and glanced around from the top of the building steps. A police cruiser rolled slowly past and then another. Her pulse picked up. She couldn’t help wondering if they were going to arrest Mark.

A couple of students walked by, staring at her, and Katie scooted over to a pillar, tucking her shoulder against the column to check her messages. The most recent two were from Tessa, and the words nearly made Katie’s heart stop:

You’re right. I have a secret, the first text said. And the second, Come to dr c’s now & I will tell you all I know.