He shrugged. "Don't, okay? The MILF shit's getting pretty bad."
"Don't say ‘shit.' "
"Mom."
She nodded, a tacit understanding. Jeremy ambled away, his brand-new sixty-dollar book bag dragging in the grass. When Faith was sixteen and lugging her one-year-old son around on her hip, she had blushed furiously when people had referred to him as her little brother. At the age of twenty-five, she would bristle angrily when men assumed that her son's age had a direct correlation to her level of wantonness. By thirty, she had become comfortable enough with her past to own up to it. Everyone made mistakes, and the truth was that she loved her son. Life had certainly not been easy, but having him with her made all the gawking and disapproval worthwhile.
Unfortunately, this peace had been quickly shattered when, during freshman orientation last month, Jeremy's new dormmate had taken one look at Faith and said, "Dude, your girlfriend is hot."
Will pointed to the red brick building opposite Glenn Hall. "This is Towers?"
"Yes," she said, leading him across the empty quad. "When I spoke with Martinez, the dean of student relations, he told me that Adam's dormmate is named Harold Nestor, but Nestor hasn't shown up for classes yet. Martinez said there was some sort of family situation-a sick parent, he thought. It's doubtful whether or not the kid will still attend."
"Does Nestor have a key to the room?"
"No. The kid hasn't even picked up his housing packet yet. As far as Martinez knows, Nestor has never even met Adam."
"Let's confirm that," Will said. "Does anyone else have a key to the room?"
"Campus security has a passkey, I would imagine. They don't really have house masters here-student government runs everything and they haven't had elections yet."
Will tried the front door to the building, but it wouldn't open.
Faith pointed to the large red sign warning students not to let strangers into the dorm. She had forgotten about this part. "You need a security card to get in."
"Right." He pressed his face to the glass, checking the lobby. "Empty."
"Adam didn't have a security card in his wallet." She glanced back at the quad, hoping for a wandering student who could help out, but the field was empty. "I guess we'll have to wait for Martinez and the lawyers after all."
Will had his hands in his pockets as he stared at the many signs on the door. In addition to the red one, there was a blue plaque that had instructions for the handicapped to press the plate on the wall to engage the automatic door as well as a laminated piece of green notebook paper advising students of numbers to call in cases of nonemergencies.
Will stared straight ahead, brow furrowed in concentration, as if he could open the door with his mind.
Faith had given up trying to figure him out since the urine incident. She walked over to the building intercom system, which contained a directory of all the student names. Someone had taped a handwritten note over the buzzers that read, "BROKEN!! DO NOT TOUCH!!" Out of curiosity, she scanned the names. Humphrey, A. was beside the number 310.
Will stood beside her. She thought he was reading the names until he asked, "What's a MILF?"
She felt herself blush. "That was a private conversation."
"Sorry."
He reached for the directory and she pointed out, "It's broken."
He gave her an awkward half-smile. "I can see that." He pressed the blue handicap plate below the directory. There was a buzz, then an audible click as a lock released and the front door groaned open.
She waited for a well-earned sarcastic comment. All he did was indicate that she should go into the building ahead of him.
The lobby was empty, but the smell of young men was overpowering. Faith didn't know what happened to boys between the ages of fifteen and twenty, but whatever it was made them smell like gym socks and Tiger Balm. How on earth she had never noticed this when she was a teenager herself was one of life's great mysteries.
"Cameras," Will said, pointing them out. "What was the room number again?"
"Three-ten."
He headed for the stairs and Faith followed. The way Will moved made her think he was probably a runner. That would certainly explain why he seemed to have less body fat than a greyhound. Faith quickened her step to follow him, but by the time she reached the top floor, Will was already trying the key in the lock, using the plastic bag to keep his prints off the metal.
He opened the door, but didn't go in. Instead, he walked down the hallway. Three-ten was conveniently located next to the kitchen and across from the bathrooms. Will knocked on the door to 311. He waited, but there was no answer. He went down the hall and tried the next door.
Faith turned her attention to Adam's room, hearing distant knocks as Will tried each closed door. Like Jeremy's, the room was around fifteen feet by eleven, basically the size of a prison cell. A bed was on either side with desks at their respective ends. There was a wardrobe and closet for each student. Only one bed had sheets, but the other had a pillow on the end opposite the television. It looked as if Adam had been using both sides of the room in the hopes that Harold Nestor would never show up.
Will said, "Nobody seems to be home right now."
She checked her watch. "Give it about twenty minutes. What do you want me to do?"
"My gloves are in my jacket. Do you have an extra pair?"
Faith shook her head. She had long ago gotten out of the habit of carrying a purse on the job and the one pair of gloves she normally kept in her front pocket had been used at the Campano crime scene. "I have a box in my trunk. I can-"
"I'll get it," he said, patting his pockets, a gesture that was quickly becoming familiar. "I left my phone in the pocket, too. I'm batting a thousand today."
She handed him the keys. "I'll make sure no one touches anything."
He sprinted back down the hall toward the stairs.
Faith decided she might as well see what they were up against. She walked over to the first desk, which was overflowing with scraps of paper, used textbooks, mechanical pencils and a small pile of magazines. They were all back issues of Get Out, which seemed to specialize in hiking. The other desk held what would be considered college necessities: an LCD television, a PlayStation console, several games and a stack of DVDs with handwritten labels. She recognized the titles of some recent Hollywood blockbusters as well as several that were simply labeled "porn" with stars to indicate, she supposed, their level of pornography.
One of the desk drawers was partially open, and Faith used a pencil from the other desk to pry it the rest of the way. Inside was a Playboy magazine, two foil-wrapped condoms and a stack of well-thumbed baseball trading cards. The juxtaposition made Faith sad. Adam Humphrey would forever be caught in the stages between being a boy and being a man.
She knelt down. Nothing was taped under the Formica desktop or shoved between the drawers. Faith checked the other desk, too. She saw the corners of a plastic bag hanging down. She craned her neck, holding back her hair as she went in for a closer look.
Adam Humphrey probably wasn't the only boy at Tech who had a bag of pot taped under his desk. Hell, he probably wasn't the only boy on this floor who had one.
She stood back up, scanning the room-the Radiohead poster on the wall, the dirty socks and sneakers bunched in the corner, the stack of graphic novels by the bed. His mother must have been feeling indulgent when she let him pick out the black throw rug on the floor and the matching bedspread and sheets.
Faith imagined what it would be like for the Humphreys to pack up their son's meager belongings and take them back to Oregon. Was this all that they would have left of their son? Worse for Faith, who would have to tell them that their child was gone? Will had assigned the Kayla Alexander notification to Leo. Was he going to put Faith in the unenviable position of telling the Humphreys that their son had been murdered?