down into the ravine, ready to take the fall. All he had to say was, “I’m talking to you now, aren’t I?” And he almost did.
You did, he now thought, lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, tossing a squeeze ball in the air. You did.
But at the last instant he’d stepped back.
“Yeah, I spoke with her,” he said. “It was kind of weird. But we spoke and it was cool. We never said anything about it, though.”
“And you’re OK with that?”
“Yeah, as I said, it was what it was.”
How would she have reacted? Would she have been upset? Would she have believed him?
“Why are you telling me this now?” she probably would have asked. And he would’ve had to say that with everything that had happened he thought it would be too much; it would have been overwhelming. “And what do you think it is now?” he imagined her retort.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers aloud, tossing the squeeze ball in the air. “I’m sorry.”
And just then he hears a knock on his door. He catches the ball and holds it in front of his face, his fist clenched.
“Who is it?” he asks tersely, concerned it’s Watkins or the police. Who’s worse at this point, he doesn’t know.
“It’s Gwen,” the muffled voice comes through the door.
Gwen? What’s she doing here?
He gets up from the bed, and opening the door, attempts a suave greeting: “To what do I owe the—”
But his voice trails off when he sees she’s not alone. A man, an older man, is standing a little behind her to her left. His face looks very familiar. And then he realizes why.
34/ MISSING MINUTES
May 11, 2007—4:58 p.m.
WHEN COGAN ARRIVES AT MEYER LIBRARY, THE FORMER UNDERGRADUATE library that students still refer to by its old tongue-in-cheek acronym UgLy (the cement and glass building is neither attractive nor particularly comfortable to study in, but it does stay open 24/7), Gwen Dayton is already there, waiting for him at the top of the steps, dressed in white jeans and a blue Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirt, as tall and lanky as he remembers her, an easy spot. Understandably, she sounded a bit apprehensive on the phone, which is probably why she now has an unexpected escort, a girl whose no-nonsense attitude and firm handshake makes him think future FBI agent. Gwen introduces her as Kathy Jorgenson.
The awkward greeting behind them, they set off for fraternity row, a cluster of eight or nine houses spread out across three separate streets that appear on the map as a U placed on its left side. Periodically glancing backward to make sure he isn’t being followed, he listens to Gwen tell him what she’d already told Carolyn: the party that night had been at a frat that had been at one time the school’s admissions office. Thus, its nickname: Rejection House.
The frat prides itself on being eclectic and has a reputation of drawing an attractive roster of guys, many of whom don’t take the Greek concept too seriously and benefit from the “bad boy” mystique of having the word “rejection” incorporated into the description of their brotherhood. Out in front of the white house, on the well-manicured lawn, a couple of members are throwing a Frisbee, daring a black Labrador, who’s dashing back and forth between them, to intercept their passes.
“Hey, Tom,” Gwen says to the one on the right. “Have you seen Mark?”
“I haven’t,” says Tom, a wiry guy with short, curly hair, his eyes covered with wrap-around sunglasses. “But he might be up there.”
Mark Weiss, the frat president and Gwen’s boyfriend, isn’t there. Gwen knew he wouldn’t be there because she’d talked to him earlier that day and he said he wasn’t going to be there. Which is why she’d chosen this time to give him the tour he’d asked for.
“We’ll make this quick,” she says, leading them up the stairs. “There isn’t much to see anyway.”
There really isn’t.
“She was sitting there,” Gwen says, pointing to a spot on the floor. “She was propped up against that wall, right next to the radiator.”
They’re standing in the middle of the third-floor bathroom, which has an old, slightly rundown, institutional vibe to it, though it’s surprisingly clean and free of the faint scent of stale beer that greeted them on the ground floor. There’s two of everything. Two urinals, two stalls, two showers, two sinks, even two windows, one of which is open, drawing in a light but steady breeze of warm spring air.
Gwen sets the scene,