Chapter 21: The Second Report

The van was back on the quad by six.

Dad's lawyers had pulled it out of the tow yard in an afternoon, and the sign on its side was freshly scrubbed.

HALSEY NIGHT TABLE. NOBODY PAYS. NOBODY OWES.

Dustin ladled soup with a dishtowel on his shoulder.

I stood at the window with my stitched hand held up out of the way, passing bowls with the good one.

The line stretched to the library steps, and half of it was students in coats and hats.

I knew some of their faces.

A few of them had filmed me in this same square, with Brynn's handprint on my cheek.

A girl in a red scarf took a bowl from me and looked at her shoes.

"I'm sorry about the video," she said. "I put it up."

"Eat the soup," I said. "It's hot."

She smiled, stunned, and moved on.

Brynn worked beside me with a ladle in each hand and her hair in a messy knot.

She had come straight from a lecture.

She hadn't gone back to the suite since the party.

"Don't look now," she murmured.

I looked.

Across the quad, in the light of the lamp posts, came three figures.

Two campus officers I knew, and between them a man in a gray suit with his hands unfettered and his chin lifted.

Caleb.

He was talking, gently, to the older officer.

Behind them came a tired man in a brown coat, the detective who had written down my statement in short sentences.

The line fell quiet as they reached the van.

"There," Caleb said. "That's the man. Dustin Ashgrove. And the girl."