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CHAPTER FIVE

The next morning Riley sat in the university auditorium along with other glum-looking students. Although the general campus mood was depressed, she had to wonder if everybody else there felt as miserable as she did. She thought that some of them looked more annoyed than saddened. A few seemed nervous, as though they were frightened by every movement around them.

How do we ever get over something like this? she wondered.

But of course, not everyone had been close to Rhea. Not everyone had even known her. They would surely be horrified at the thought of a murder on campus, but for many of them it wouldn’t be personal.

It was personal for Riley. She couldn’t shake off the horror that had hit her at the sight of Rhea’s …

She couldn’t bring herself to think the words she needed. She couldn’t yet think of her friend as a dead body, in spite of what she had seen last night.

The all-campus assembly today seemed completely disconnected from what had happened. It also seemed to be dragging on forever, making her feel even worse.

Chief Hintz had just finished giving a stern lecture about campus safety and promising the killer would soon be apprehended, and now Dean Trusler was going on and on about how to get things back to normal here at Lanton University.

Good luck with that, Riley thought.

Classes were canceled for today, Trusler said, but they would resume on Monday. He said he understood if some students might not feel ready to go back to classes so soon, and also if some of them might want to go home to be with their families for a few days, and the school’s counselors were ready to help everybody deal with this horrible trauma, and … and … and …

Riley tuned out and stifled a yawn as the dean rattled earnestly on, not saying anything useful as far as she was concerned. She’d barely slept at all last night. She had just drifted off to sleep when the medical examiner’s team had noisily arrived. Then she’d stood in her doorway watching in silent horror as the team carted away a sheet-covered form on a gurney.

Surely, she’d thought, that can’t be someone who was laughing and dancing hours ago. That can’t really be Rhea.

Riley hadn’t gone to sleep at all after that. She couldn’t help but envy Trudy, who seemed to have been out cold the whole night—probably, Riley guessed, from all the alcohol she had consumed earlier.

Early this morning the dorm resident assistant had announced this meeting over the intercom. Trudy had still been in bed when Riley left. When Riley had come to the assembly, she hadn’t seen Trudy anywhere in the auditorium.

Riley looked around now, but still didn’t spot her. Maybe she was still in bed.

She’s not missing much, Riley thought.

She also didn’t see Rhea’s roommate, Heather, anywhere. But Gina and Cassie were sitting a couple of rows ahead of her. They’d brushed past Riley on the way in to the meeting—apparently still mad at her for giving their names to the cops.

Last night Riley had understood why they might feel that way, but now it was starting to seem childish. It was also extremely hurtful. She wondered if her friendships were ever going to mend.

Right now, that “normal” the dean was talking about seemed gone forever.

At long last the meeting came to an end. As the students poured out of the building, reporters were waiting outside. Right away they descended on Gina and Cassie, asking them all kinds of questions. Riley guessed that they’d managed to find out who Rhea’s companions had been that night before her murder.

If so, they probably knew about Riley too. But so far they hadn’t spotted her. Maybe it was a lucky thing that Gina and Cassie had brushed Riley off this morning. Otherwise, she’d be right there with them, stuck answering impossible questions.

Riley quickened her step to avoid the reporters, wending her way among the other students. As she went, she could hear the reporters prodding Gina and Cassie over and over with the same question …

“How do you feel?”

Riley felt a tingle of anger.

What kind of question is that? she wondered.

What did they expect Gina and Cassie to say in reply?

Riley had no idea what she herself would say—except maybe to tell the reporters to leave her the hell alone.

She was still awash in confused and terrible feelings—numbing shock, lingering disbelief, gnawing horror, and so much else. The worst feeling of all was a kind of guilty relief that she hadn’t met Rhea’s fate.

How could she or her friends put any of that into words?

What business did anyone have asking them that, anyway?

Riley made her way to the cafeteria in the student union. She hadn’t had any breakfast yet, and was just starting to realize she was hungry. At the buffet she scooped up some bacon and eggs and poured herself some orange juice and coffee. Then she looked around for a place to sit.

Her eyes quickly fell on Trudy, who was sitting alone at a table, facing away from the others in the room and eating her own breakfast.

Riley gulped anxiously.

Did she dare try to join Trudy at the table?

Would Trudy even talk to her?

They hadn’t exchanged a single word since last night when Trudy had bitterly told Riley to go to sleep.

Riley summoned up her courage and maneuvered her way across the room to Trudy’s table. Without saying anything, she put her tray on the table and sat down beside her roommate.

For a few moments Trudy kept her head low, as if she didn’t notice Riley’s presence.

Finally, without looking at Riley, Trudy said, “I decided to skip the meeting. How was it?”

“It sucked,” Riley said. “I should have skipped it too.”

She thought for a moment, then added, “Heather wasn’t there either.”

“No,” Trudy said. “I hear her parents came this morning and took her straight home. I guess nobody knows when she’ll be coming back to school—or even if she’ll be coming back.”

Trudy finally looked at Riley and said, “Did you hear about what happened to Rory Burdon?”

Riley remembered how Hintz had asked her about Rory last night.

“No,” she said.

“The cops showed up at his apartment late last night pounding on his door. Rory had no idea what was going on. He didn’t even know what had happened to Rhea. He was scared to death he was going to get arrested, and he didn’t even know why. The cops questioned him until they eventually figured out that he wasn’t their guy, and then they left.”

Trudy shrugged slightly and added, “The poor guy. I shouldn’t have mentioned his name to that stupid police chief. But he just kept asking all these questions, I didn’t know what else to say.”

A silence fell between them. Riley found herself thinking about Ryan Paige, and how she’d mentioned his name to Hintz. Had the cops also paid Ryan a visit last night? It didn’t seem unlikely, but Riley hoped not.

Anyway, she felt relieved that Trudy was at least willing to talk to her. Maybe now Riley could explain.

She said slowly, “Trudy, when the cops first got there, that woman cop asked me what I knew, and I couldn’t lie about it. I had to say you’d been out last night with Rhea. I also had to tell her about Cassie and Gina and Heather.”

Trudy nodded. “I get it, Riley. You don’t need to explain. I understand. And I’m sorry … I’m sorry I treated you like …”

Suddenly Trudy was quietly sobbing, her tears falling freely into her breakfast tray.

She said, “Riley, was it my fault? What happened to Rhea, I mean?”

Riley could hardly believe her ears.

“What are you talking about, Trudy? Of course not. How could it be your fault?”

“Well, I was so stupid and drunk last night, and I wasn’t paying any attention to what was going on, and I don’t even remember when Rhea left the Centaur’s Den. The other girls said she left alone. Maybe if I …”

Trudy’s voice faded away, but Riley knew what she was leaving unsaid …

“… maybe if I’d just walked Rhea home.”

And Riley, too, felt a terrible pang of guilt.

After all, she might well ask herself the same question.

If she hadn’t gone off by herself at the Centaur’s Den, and if she’d been around when Rhea got ready to leave, and if she’d offered to walk Rhea home …

That word, if …

Riley had never imagined how awful a word could be.

Trudy kept crying quietly, and Riley didn’t know what to do to make her feel better.

She half-wondered why she wasn’t crying herself.

Of course, she had cried in her own bed last night. But surely she hadn’t cried enough—not over something this terrible. Surely there was still more crying in store for her.

She sat picking at her breakfast as Trudy wiped her eyes and blew her nose and settled herself down a bit.

Trudy said, “Riley, the thing I keep wondering is why? Why Rhea, I mean? Was it something personal? Did somebody hate her enough to kill her? I don’t see how that’s even possible. Nobody hated Rhea. Why would anybody hate Rhea?”

Riley didn’t reply, but she’d been wondering the same thing. She also wondered whether the cops had found any answers yet.

Trudy continued, “And was it somebody we know who killed her? Is maybe one of us next? Riley, I’m scared.”

Again, Riley didn’t reply.

She felt sure, though, that Rhea had known her murderer. She didn’t know why she was sure—it wasn’t like she was a cop or knew anything really about criminals. But something in her gut told her that Rhea had known and trusted her killer—right up until it had been too late to save herself.

Trudy looked at Riley steadily, then said, “You don’t seem to be scared.”

Riley felt taken aback.

For the first time, it dawned on her …

No, I’m not scared.

She’d been feeling every other sort of awful emotion in the world—guilt, grief, shock—and yes, horror. But her horror was somehow different from fear for her own life. The horror she felt was for Rhea herself, horror at the awfulness of what had happened to her.

But Riley wasn’t afraid.

She wondered—was it because of what had happened to her mother all those years ago, the sound of that gunshot, the sight of all that blood, the incomprehensible loss she still struggled with even today?

Had the most terrible trauma she had ever suffered made her stronger than other people?

For some reason, she almost hoped not. It didn’t seem quite right to be strong like that, strong in ways that other people weren’t.

It just didn’t seem quite …

It took Riley a few seconds to think of the word.

Human.

She shivered just a little, then said to Trudy, “I’m heading back to the dorm. I really need to get some sleep. Want to come with me?”

Trudy shook her head.

“I just want to sit here for a while,” she said.

Riley got up from her chair and gave Trudy a quick hug. Then she emptied her breakfast tray and left the student union. It wasn’t a long walk back to the dorm, and she was relieved not to see any reporters along the way. When she got to the front door of the dorm, she paused for a moment. Now it occurred to her why Trudy hadn’t wanted to come back with her right now. She just wasn’t ready to face the dorm again.

As Riley stood at the door, she too felt weird about it. Of course, she’d spent the night there. She lived there.

But having spent some time outside, where a return to normality had been declared, was she ready to go back inside the building where Rhea had been killed?

She took a deep breath and walked on in through the front door.

At first she thought she felt OK. But as she continued into the hallway, the feeling of strangeness deepened. Riley felt as if she were walking and moving underwater. She headed straight to her own room and was about to open the door when her eyes were drawn toward the room farther down the hallway, the room that Rhea and Heather had shared.

She walked to it and saw that the door was shut and sealed off with police tape.

Riley stood there, suddenly feeling horribly curious.

What did it look like in there right now?

Had the room been cleaned up since she’d last seen it?

Or was Rhea’s blood still there?

Riley was seized by an awful temptation—to ignore that tape and open that door and walk right inside.

She knew better than to give in to that temptation. And of course the door would be locked.

But even so …

Why do I feel this way?

She stood there, trying to understand this mysterious urge. She began to realize—it had something to do with the killer himself.

She couldn’t help thinking …

If I open that door, I’ll be able to look into his mind.

It made no sense, of course.

And it was a truly terrifying idea—to look into an evil mind.

Why? she kept asking herself.

Why did she want to understand the killer?

Why on earth did she feel such unnatural curiosity?

For the first time since this whole terrible thing had happened, Riley suddenly felt really afraid …

… not for herself, but of herself.

CHAPTER SIX

The following Monday morning, Riley felt deeply uneasy as she slipped into her seat for her advanced psychology class.

It was, after all, the first class she’d attended since Rhea’s murder four days earlier.

It was also the class she’d been trying to study for before she and her friends had gone to the Centaur’s Den.

It was sparsely attended today—many students here at Lanton didn’t feel ready to get back to their studies just yet. Trudy was here too, but Riley knew that her roommate was also uncomfortable with this rush to get back to “normal.” The other students were all unusually quiet as they took their places.

The sight of Professor Brant Hayman coming into the room put Riley a bit more at ease. He was young and quite good-looking in a corduroy-clad academic sort of way. She remembered Trudy telling Rhea …

“Riley likes to impress Professor Hayman. She’s got a thing for him.”

Riley cringed at the memory.

She certainly didn’t want to think she had a “thing” for him.

It was just that she’d first studied with him back when she’d been a freshman. He hadn’t been a professor yet, just a graduate assistant. She’d thought even then he was a wonderful teacher—informative, enthusiastic, and sometimes entertaining.

Today, Dr. Hayman’s expression was serious as he put his briefcase on his desk and looked at the students. Riley realized that he was going to get right to the point.

He said, “Look, there’s an elephant in this room. We all know what it is. We need to clear the air. We need to discuss it openly.”

Riley held her breath. She felt sure she wasn’t going to like what was going to happen next.

Then Hayman said …

“Did anybody here know Rhea Thorson? Not just as an acquaintance, not just someone you’d sometimes run into on campus. Really well, I mean. As a friend.”

Riley cautiously put up her hand, and so did Trudy. Nobody else in the classroom did.

Hayman then asked, “What kinds of feelings have the two of you been going through since she was killed?”

Riley cringed a little.

It was, after all, the same question she had overheard those reporters asking Cassie and Gina on Friday. Riley had managed to avoid those reporters, but was she going to have to answer that question now?

She reminded herself that this was a psychology class. They were here to deal with these kinds of questions.

And yet Riley wondered …

Where do I even begin?

She was relieved when Trudy spoke up.

“Guilty. I could have stopped it from happening. I was with her at the Centaur’s Den before it happened. I didn’t even notice when she left. If only I’d just walked her home …”

Trudy’s voice trailed off. Riley gathered up the nerve to speak.

“I feel the same way,” she said. “I went off to sit by myself when we all got to the Den, and I didn’t pay any attention to Rhea. Maybe if I had …”

Riley paused, then added, “So I feel guilty too. And something else. Selfish, I think. Because I wanted to be alone.”

Dr. Hayman nodded. With a sympathetic smile he said, “So neither of you walked Rhea home.”

After a pause, he added, “A sin of omission.”

The phrase startled Riley a little.

It seemed oddly ill-suited to what Riley and Trudy had failed to do. It sounded too benign, not nearly dire enough, hardly a matter of life and death.

But of course, it was true—as far as it went.

Hayman looked around at the rest of the class.

“What about the rest of you? Have you ever done—or failed to do—the same sort of thing in a similar situation? Have you ever, shall we say, let a female friend walk somewhere alone at night when you really ought to have walked her home? Or maybe just neglected to do something that might have been important to someone else’s safety? Not taken away somebody’s car keys when they’d had a drink too many? Ignored a situation that might have resulted in injury or even death?”

A confused murmur passed among the students.

Riley realized—it was really a tough question.

After all, if Rhea hadn’t been killed, neither Riley nor Trudy would have given their “sin of omission” a moment’s thought.

They’d have forgotten all about it.

It was hardly any surprise that at least some of the students found it hard to remember one way or the other. And the truth was, Riley herself couldn’t remember for sure about herself. Had there been other times when she’d neglected to look out for someone’s safety?

Might she have been responsible for the deaths of others—if it weren’t for sheer dumb luck?

After a few moments, several reluctant hands went up.

Then Hayman said, “What about the rest of you? How many of you just can’t remember for sure?”

Almost all the rest of the students raised their hands.

Hayman nodded and said, “OK, then. Most of you may well have made the same mistake at one time or another. So how many people here feel guilty for the way you acted or the thing you probably should have done but didn’t do?”

There was more confused muttering and even a few gasps.

“What?” Hayman asked. “None of you? Why not?”

One girl raised her hand and stammered, “Well … it was different because … I suppose because … nobody got killed, I guess.”

There was a general murmur of agreement.

Riley noticed that another man had stepped into the classroom. It was Dr. Dexter Zimmerman, the chairman of the Psychology Department. Zimmerman seemed to have been standing just outside the door listening to the discussion.

She’d had one class with him the semester before last—Social Psychology. He was an older, rumpled, kindly-looking man. Riley knew that Dr. Hayman looked up to him as a mentor—almost idolized him, actually. A lot of students did too.

Riley’s own feelings about Professor Zimmerman were more mixed. He’d been an inspiring teacher, but somehow she didn’t relate to him the way most others did. She wasn’t sure exactly why.

Hayman explained to the class, “I asked Dr. Zimmerman to stop by and take part in today’s discussion. He should really be able to help us out. He’s just about the most insightful guy I’ve ever known in my life.”

Zimmerman blushed and chuckled a little.

Hayman asked him, “So what do you make of what you just heard from my students?”

Zimmerman tilted his head and thought for a moment.

Then he said, “Well, at least some of your students seem to think there’s some kind of moral difference at work here. If you neglect to help someone and they get hurt or killed, it’s wrong—but it’s all right if there don’t happen to be any bad consequences. But I don’t see the distinction. The behaviors are identical. Different consequences don’t really change whether they’re right or wrong.”

A hush fell over the classroom as Zimmerman’s point started to sink in.

Hayman asked Zimmerman, “Does that mean that everybody here should be wracked with guilt right along with Riley and Trudy?”

Zimmerman shrugged.

“Maybe just the opposite. Does feeling guilty do anybody any good? Is it going to bring the young woman back? Maybe there are more appropriate things for all of us to be feeling right now.”

Zimmerman stepped in front of the desk and made eye contact with the students.

“Tell me, those of you who weren’t very close to Rhea. How are you feeling toward these two friends of hers right now—Riley and Trudy?”

The classroom was silent for a moment.

Then Riley was astonished to hear a few sobs break out in the classroom.

One girl said in a choked voice, “Oh, I just feel so awful for them.”

Another said, “Riley and Trudy, I wish you didn’t feel guilty. You shouldn’t. What happened to Rhea was terrible enough. I just can’t imagine the pain you’re feeling right now.”

Other students echoed their agreement.

Zimmerman gave the class an understanding smile.

He said, “I guess most of you know that my specialty is criminal pathology. My life’s work is about trying to understand a criminal’s mind. And for the last three days, I’ve been struggling to make sense of this crime. So far, I’m only really sure of one thing. This was personal. The killer knew Rhea and wanted her dead.”

Again, Riley struggled to comprehend the incomprehensible …

Someone hated Rhea enough to kill her?

Then Zimmerman added, “As awful as that sounds, I can assure you of one thing. He won’t kill again. Rhea was his target, no one else. And I’m confident the police will find him soon.”

He leaned against the edge of the desk and said, “I can tell you one other thing—wherever the killer is right now, whatever he’s doing, he’s not feeling what all of you seem to be feeling. He is incapable of sympathy for another person’s suffering—much less the actual empathy I sense in this room.”

He wrote down the words “sympathy” and “empathy” on the big whiteboard.

He asked, “Would anybody care to remind me of the difference between these two words?”

Riley was a bit surprised that Trudy raised her hand.

Trudy said, “Sympathy is when you care about what somebody else is feeling. Empathy is when you actually share somebody else’s feelings.”

Zimmerman nodded and jotted down Trudy’s definitions.

“Exactly,” he said. “So I suggest that all of us put aside our feelings of guilt. Focus instead on our capacity for empathy. It separates us from the world’s most terrible monsters. It’s precious—most of all at a time like now.”

Hayman seemed to be pleased with Zimmerman’s observations.

He said, “If it’s OK with everybody, I think we should cut today’s class short. It’s been pretty intense—but I hope it has been helpful. Just remember, you’re all processing some pretty powerful feelings right now—even those of you who weren’t very close to Rhea. Don’t expect the grief, shock, and horror to go away anytime soon. Let them run their course. They’re part of the healing process. And don’t be afraid to reach out to the school’s counselors for help. Or to each other. Or to me and Dr. Zimmerman.”

As the students got up from their desks to leave, Zimmerman called out …

“On your way out, give Riley and Trudy a hug. They could use it.”

For the first time during the class, Riley felt annoyed.

What makes him think I need a hug?

The truth was, hugs were the last things she wanted right now.

Suddenly she remembered—this was the thing that had turned her off about Dr. Zimmerman when she had taken a class with him. He was way too cuddly for her taste, and he was all touchy-feely about lots of things, and he liked to tell students to hug each other.

That seemed kind of weird for a psychologist who specialized in criminal pathology.

It also seemed odd for a man so big on empathy.

After all, how did he know whether she and Trudy wanted to be hugged or not? He hadn’t even bothered to ask.

How empathetic is that?

Riley couldn’t help think that the guy was a phony deep down.

Nevertheless, she stood there stoically while one student after another gave her a sympathetic hug. Some of them were crying. And she could see that Trudy didn’t mind this attention at all. Trudy kept smiling through her own tears with every hug.

Maybe it’s just me, Riley thought.

Was something wrong with her?

Maybe she didn’t have the same feelings as other people.

Soon all the hugging was over, and most of the students had left the room, including Trudy. So had Dr. Zimmerman.

Riley was glad to have a moment alone with Dr. Hayman. She walked up to him and said, “Thanks for the talk about guilt and responsibility. I really needed to hear that.”

He smiled at her and said, “Glad to be of help. I know this must be very hard for you.”

Riley lowered her head for a moment, gathering up her nerve to say something she really wanted to say.

Finally she said, “Dr. Hayman, you probably don’t remember, but I was in your Intro to Psych course back in my freshman year.”

“I remember,” he said.

Riley swallowed down her nervousness and said, “Well, I’ve always meant to tell you … you really inspired me to major in psychology.”

Hayman looked a bit startled now.

“Wow,” he said. “That’s really nice to hear. Thank you.”

They stood looking at each other for an awkward moment. Riley hoped she wasn’t making a fool of herself.

Finally Hayman said, “Look, I’ve been paying attention to you in class—the papers you write, the questions you ask, the ideas you share with everybody. You’ve got a good mind. And I’ve got a feeling … you’ve got questions about what happened to your friend that most of the other kids don’t think about—maybe don’t even want to think about.”

Riley gulped again. He was right, of course—almost uncannily right.

Now this is empathy, she thought.

She flashed back to the night of the murder, when she’d stood outside Rhea’s room wishing she could go inside, feeling as if she’d learn something important if she could only walk through that door at that very moment.

But that moment was gone. When Riley had finally been able to go inside, the room was all cleaned up, looking as if nothing had ever happened there.

She said slowly …

“I really want to understand … why. I really want to know …”

Her voice faded. Did she dare say tell Hayman—or anybody else—the truth?

That she wanted to understand the mind of the man who had murdered her friend?

That she almost wanted to empathize with him?

She was relieved when Hayman nodded, seeming to understand.

“I know just how you feel,” he said. “I used to feel the same way.”

He opened a desk drawer and took out a book and handed it to her.

“You can borrow this,” he said. “It’s a great place to start.”

The title of the book was Dark Minds: The Homicidal Personality Revealed.

Riley was startled to see that the author was Dr. Dexter Zimmerman himself.

Hayman said, “The man is a genius. You can’t begin to imagine the insights he reveals in this book. You’ve simply got to read it. It might change your life. It sure changed mine.”

Riley felt overwhelmed by Hayman’s gesture.

“Thank you,” she said meekly.

“Don’t mention it,” Hayman said with a smile.

Riley left the classroom and broke into a trot as she headed out of the building toward the library, eager to sit down with the book.

At the same time, she felt a twinge of apprehension.

“It might change your life,” Hayman had told her.

Would that be for the better, or for the worse?