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She leaned over the counter toward me, face grave. "The poor thing bled to death. She had her throat cut."

Chapter Twenty

I ALMOST ASKED, "Are you serious?" But let's face it: that probably wasn't the kind of thing she would joke about, especially considering how grave her face looked. Other questions popped into my head, but I held back on those as well. They weren't that weird, but I didn't want to draw attention to myself by showing unusual interest in a grisly murder. Instead, I simply thanked Mrs. Dawson for her help with the letter and returned to East Campus.

Mrs. Weathers was at her desk when I entered the dorm. I brought her the letter, which she read over twice before tucking it away in her filing cabinet. "All right," she said. "Just make sure your sister signs in and out each time."

"I will, ma'am. Thank you." I hesitated, torn over whether to go or ask the questions Mrs. Dawson's information had triggered. I decided to stay. "Mrs. Weathers... ever since Jill disappeared, I just keep thinking about that girl you told me about. The one who died. I keep thinking that could've been Jill." Mrs. Dawson's face softened. "Jill's fine. I shouldn't have told you that. I didn't mean to scare you."

"Is it true that girl's throat was slit?"

"Yes." She shook her head sadly. "Terrible. Simply terrible. I don't know who does that kind of thing."

"Did they ever find out why it happened? I mean, was there anything unusual about her?"

"Unusual? No, not really. I mean, she was a lovely girl. Smart, pretty, popular. A good - no, great - athlete. Had friends, a boyfriend. But nothing that would especially make her stand out as a target. Of course, people who do awful things like that probably don't need a reason."

"True," I murmured.

I walked up to my room, wishing Mrs. Weathers had elaborated a little more on how pretty Kelly was. What I really wanted to know was if Kelly had been Moroi. If she had, I'd hoped Mrs. Weathers might comment on how tall or pale she was. By both Clarence's and the Alchemists' accounts, no Moroi on record had lived in the Palm Springs area. That didn't mean someone couldn't slip through the cracks, however. I'd have to find the answer myself. If Kelly had been Moroi, then we had three young Moroi women killed in the same way in southern California within a relatively short time span. Clarence might argue for his vampire hunter theory, but to me, this pattern screamed Strigoi.

Jill was in our room, serving out her house arrest. The more time passed, the less angry I felt toward her. Having the feeding issue fixed helped. I would've been a lot more upset if we'd been unable to get her off campus.

"What's wrong?" she asked me, looking up from her laptop.

"Why do you think anything's wrong?"

She smiled. "You've got that look. It's this tiny frown you get between your eyebrows when you're trying to figure something out."

I shook my head. "It's nothing."

"You know," she said, "maybe all these responsibilities you have wouldn't be as bad if you talked them out and got help from other people."

"It's not quite like that. It's just something I'm trying to puzzle out."

"Tell me," she entreated. "You can trust me."

It wasn't a matter of trust. It was a matter of unnecessarily worrying Jill. Mrs. Weathers had feared she would scare me, but if someone was killing Moroi girls, I wasn't in danger. Looking at Jill and her unwavering gaze, I decided if she could handle living with the knowledge that her own people were trying to kill her, she could handle this. I gave her a brief summary of what I knew.

"You don't know if Kelly was Moroi, though," she said, once I'd finished.

"No. That's the crucial piece here." I sat cross-legged on my bed with my own laptop. "I'm going to check our records and local newspapers to see if I can find a picture of her. All I learned from Mrs. Weathers is that Kelly was a star athlete."

"Which may mean she's not Moroi," said Jill. "I mean, look at how terrible I perform in this sun. What happens if she's not? You've got a lot of theories hinging on her being Moroi. But what if she was human? What then? Can we ignore it? It could still be the same person... but what would it mean if the murderer had killed two Moroi and one