Chapter 13: Dawn Photos

"No," I said. "Your sister started it in a mailroom in July."

He didn't blink.

"My sister runs a department," he said. "You run a dorm room with a broken door."

"Then come see it. Bring the press."

Behind him, an officer pulled another jacket off the rack and flipped the collar.

Two blue X's.

He dropped it in a plastic evidence bag.

Hunter's father watched the bag go into the box.

"Ten days," he said. "Enjoy the applause."

He turned and walked away across the lawn.

Hunter and Patrice followed him without a word.

Hunter didn't look back.

Patrice did, once, over her shoulder, and smiled at Maddie.

Maddie stopped smiling.

That night my door still had a splintered frame and no lock.

Facilities said Monday.

"You're not sleeping in there," Will said.

"I've slept in worse."

"Name one place."

"A youth hostel in Lyon with a man who sang in his sleep."

"That's not worse. That's a story." He picked up my bag. "I have a couch. It has one spring that stabs you, and I'll tell you which one."

Maddie leaned in her own doorway with her arms crossed.

"Go," she said. "I'll push my dresser against my door like a pioneer woman."

"Come with us."

"And watch you two make eyes over a stabby couch? Hard pass."

Will lived over a laundromat on the far edge of campus.

The stairs smelled like dryer sheets.

His apartment was one room and a kitchen the size of a phone booth.

There were law books stacked on every flat surface, and one framed photo on the wall.

A woman in a factory smock, laughing, holding up a man's shirt by the shoulders.

"That's her," he said. "Last day at the mill. She made them take the picture."

He put a pillow and a quilt on the couch.

He showed me the spring that stabbed.

Then he stood in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets.

"So," he said.

"So."

"I'm going to go stand in my kitchen and think about torts."

"Will."

"Very boring torts. Slip and fall."

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