Denton drove straight past Blake street, with all of its nearly identical row houses. At one time, the small homes were owned by Milton and used for faculty housing. They were still called teachers' cottages by the locals. It was easy to see all the way down the leafless tree lined street, but the clock tower he was looking for was hidden by the Ames Library. The bland postwar structure practically formed a wall along the border of the campus. The houses on Keats and Hardy were larger. Built back when Bexhill was thriving, they mostly had three stories, sometimes four because of a turret in their architecture. The town and its wealth had declined in the '60s and '70s, and now these once great homes were shabby and teaming with students. Some had been bought up by fraternities and sororities, but most had been chopped up into cheap apartments.

As he drove up and down the streets, Denton considered getting out and searching by foot, but it seemed unlikely he would be able to enact his plan; the brown bricks of the monstrous Ames building blocked any possible view of Mansfield Hall and its tower, from street level.

Turning onto Shakespeare, he spotted a parked squad car. Behind it was a sedan Denton knew well. It was usually seen in his next-door neighbor's driveway.

There were still two hours until his first class started. On any normal Monday, Denton would have lingered at home with a couple of cups of coffee, and finished his grading or caught up on the psychology journals piling up on his desk. But coffee wasn't needed that morning. He had been awake for two hours before the alarm went off, his mind turning over the scant details of the mysterious English student and the dead deliveryman. Was their obsession with eights the only thing they had in common?

After discovering the eights in the project, Denton had made it a goal to identify the subject. He poured over the pictures again, pulling up city and campus maps off of the internet. As the futility of the task began to build, Denton considered emailing Kaling and just asking him directly who his subject was.

But what reason could he give for needing to know? The whole point of the assignment was that it was anonymous. Telling Stephen that after seeing the photos, he feared for the woman's life, posed a distinct problem: tenure or not, it would go badly for him if some student started spreading it around campus that he was unstable. What would Foley do, if a rumor reached his ears about him having paranoid delusions? Especially if there was an email for proof? Denton didn't even want to think about the fallout. Suspension? Counseling? Long heart-to-hearts with Simon Foley? Nothing good, that was for certain.

So he persisted and tried to reason out the answer himself.

In the end, he'd gotten lucky. Two of the pictures in the document showed the room's window and in the distance was the Mansfield Hall clock tower. The view of it was at an angle, and the clock's face looked off in a different direction. Using the maps, he narrowed down the apartment's location to the area southeast of campus. There were lots of student housing in that direction and a third or fourth floor window should have an unobstructed view of the side of the tower. Denton began developing an elaborate strategy to identify the correct building by searching the area, using printouts of the photos and the maps as reference. He was meditating on this plan when

Linda came into the den.

The sky had grown dark and the room along with it. The rain streamed down the windows, blurring out the night beyond. Linda switched on the lamp by the door. The sharp click and the sudden light hastened his pulse. He stared up at her with shock and guilt written on his face.

"It's 5:30." Her tone was undemanding, even sweet, but the implication was clear: he should have started on dinner by now. It was his turn to cook, and he was getting off easy with a roast chicken. But he was late getting it in the oven.

"Just shutting down now." He closed Kaling's project and his browser with all of the maps, and left the computer to idle and go into sleep mode.

He moved quickly to meet her at the bottom of the two steps leading from the laundry room. His only thought was to get to her, before she decided to walk over to the desk to see what he was working on. "How's the progress?" he asked her.

"Okay." She hesitated. "It still looks like a barn though."

She had been working on a series of interpretive painting of local landmarks for a show in January. Her latest piece was of Gutman House, a large Victorian manor built in 1884. One of the most striking homes in town; it was most notable for its distinctive red, almost rust colored paint. This was what had led to Linda's problem. With that color and her broad, dramatic style, the house ended up looking like a barn, straight out of Old MacDonald. It didn't help that it had a cupola that resembled a silo, no matter how she reworked it.

Denton hugged her and gave her a simple, familiar kiss. He smelt the oil paint and turpentine on her. The aroma just failed to mask the lilac of her soap. The combination was the smell he most associated with her. It was her perfume. "I'm sure you'll get it."

"Either that or I'll just have to find some farm in the area with a red barn and say it's that."

The memory gave Denton a moment of comfort and reassurance. Linda standing there with her cute pout and ready quip made him feel that everything that was right in the world and it helped dispel the dread that was permeating the morning air. He took a deep breath, and left the security of his Mercedes. When he had started searching for the girl, he had no idea what he'd turn up, but the police already being there was perhaps the thing he feared most.

He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his sport jacket and jogged across the street. The rain had finally stopped sometime in the middle of the night. The morning was bright with sunshine, but the air had grown cold and wintery.

When he reached the sidewalk, he stopped and looked up at the three story Georgian. Which window belonged to her? he wondered. He had a feeling it was going to be only too easy to find out. He feared yellow police tape would lead him straight to it.

A queasy knot took hold in his stomach, and he entered the door with "140" stenciled on the glass. Standing on the other side of the locked security door was Officer McClorry. Denton remembered him from the Grimshaw scene. He knocked on the glass and said loudly, "I need to speak with Detective Stahl."

The officer opened the door. "He's up on the third."

Denton raced up the stairs and was breathing heavy by the time he reached the top. Bill was heading toward him, down a short hallway with a second patrolman. When he saw Denton, he frowned. Clearly written on his face was the thought: what the fuck?

"Go on ahead. I'll be down in a minute," Bill told the officer. And then he stared at Denton, waiting for him to explain himself.

"What are you doing here?" Denton's anxiety made him almost wish that Bill wouldn't answer.

"Police business. And you?"

His fear switched to irritation, like train changing tracks. It was definite and swift, powered by an engine of strong emotion. Why was Bill being coy, while people were dying? A few days ago, it had been Bill that had called him. He had been the one asked to consult on the murder as a personal favor. Now Denton had been demoted to the role of pesky busybody. Ordinarily, he would have accepted the shift in status and just felt foolish about being there. But at that moment, all he could picture was another body in the morgue, and an empty apartment just down the hall—horribly, only feet from where he stood. He blurted out, "There were eights inside the girl's apartment. Wasn't there?"

"What the hell?" Bill's face distorted. His eyes went wide as his lips twisted into a baffled expression, but he soon recovered himself and sounded tired and bored. "What is it you know, Dent?"

"She was the subject of a project a student of mine submitted. He took pictures of her room. I saw the eights there." Unintentionally, he mimicked Bill's staccato delivery of the facts.

"I came here to check it out for myself. Make sure I wasn't imagining things before I called you. Oh god, is she dead? Shit, I should have called you yesterday." The annoyance in his voice melted into a piteous tone, as he began to see that his hesitation and petty fears had helped this to happen.

"Whoa, whoa. Calm down." Bill placed his hand on his shoulder. It was meant to be reassuring, but there was something practiced about the gesture that made it impart no comfort. It seemed like just something he did whenever he had to deal with a hysterical witness.

Denton took a half step back and the hand slipped off.

"No one's dead." Then Bill said in low voice, so he wouldn't be overheard, "Missing girl. Roommate last saw her Friday evening. Thought she was with her boyfriend, until this morning, when he called looking for her. She probably just went home to Mommy and Daddy. Happens all the time."

"But there are eights. I need to see her apartment."

"No you don't. You need to go home or go to class. Do what you would normally do. Let us handle this."

"Just let me talk to the roommate for one minute." He pointed with an uncertain finger down the hall at her door, whichever one it was.

"Couldn't. Even if I wanted to." Bill started heading down the stairs. "She's at the station giving her statement."

"Then you ask her?"

Bill stopped and looked up at Denton, who was leaning over the banister. A half smile on his face said, okay, I'll bite. "Ask what?"

"When did she first notice her roommate's personality change?"