“Yes?” Phoebe said.
“I’m Blair Usher,” the girl replied.
Phoebe had to fight to hide her surprise. So no need to stalk her after all, she thought.
“Ah,” Phoebe said. “Nice to meet you.” She wondered if she was standing face to face with someone who’d snuck into her home.
“You keep leaving me messages,” the girl said, almost petulantly. “Can I help you with something?”
“Yes, you can,” Phoebe said. “I’m part of a team doing an internal investigation into Lily Mack’s death, and I’d like to ask you a few questions. Actually, I was going to grab a bite before the memorial. Can I treat you to a burger or a salad?”
“I have plans right now,” Blair said. “Sorry.” She didn’t sound very sorry.
“Which way are you headed?” Phoebe asked.
“Why?” Blair demanded. She seemed wary but at the same time utterly confident. Certain animals in the wild are like that, Phoebe thought. Big cats, for instance.
“Just wondering,” Phoebe said.
“That way,” Blair said, pointing east with her chin. “Off campus.”
“Me too,” Phoebe said. “I’ll walk with you for a bit, then.”
Blair hesitated for a moment, and Phoebe was sure the girl was about to say she’d misspoken, that she was really headed north or west or anyplace other than where Phoebe was going. But Blair finally shrugged a shoulder. “Whatever,” she said.
As they started to walk, Phoebe studied Blair from the side. She had to be one of the most attractive girls on campus, and she dressed as if she knew it. She was wearing skintight jeans, knee-high black suede boots, and a black coat nipped in at the waist with a flared skirt. Wrapped twice around her neck was a pink cashmere scarf. An It girl, just as Stockton had said. To her right Phoebe saw some of the touch football players pause and look, staring right through Phoebe at Blair.
“I’m sure the police have already asked you,” Phoebe said. “But do you have any thoughts on what might have happened to Lily?”
“None whatsoever,” Blair said. “I hadn’t spent any time with her lately.”
“But there was a chance you were going to see her that night, right? Her roommate said Lily had told her she might stay at your place.”
“No,” Blair said firmly, “Lily was never going to stay at my place that night. At the very beginning of the term she used to stay over sometimes. She’d gotten totally screwed in her living situation when her boyfriend took off, so we’d let her crash on our couch. But that was weeks ago.”
So either Lily had lied to her roommate or Blair was lying now, Phoebe thought.
“Why do you think she told her roommate that, then?” Phoebe asked.
Blair paused on the cement path and turned to face Phoebe. “Maybe,” she said softly, in a fake conspiratorial tone, “she didn’t want her roommate to know what she was really planning to do that night.”
“When you were seeing more of Lily, was she ever blue or depressed?”
“If she was, she never let on to me. Of course, I’m sure she wasn’t pleased when her boyfriend bolted. He left without even saying good-bye.” There was a hint of glee in the last statement, as if she thought Lily had gotten what she deserved. Phoebe told herself not to react.
“Had you heard whether she was dating someone new lately?”
“Dating someone?”
Oh, that’s right, Phoebe thought. No one in college dated anymore.
“I mean seeing someone. Or hooking up. Her roommate mentioned that she thought Lily had started to see a new guy. Any ideas who that could be?”
A look crossed Blair’s face, and then it was gone almost instantly, like the ripple made by a breeze across a puddle of water. But Phoebe had caught it: a micro expression of disapproval, perhaps even anger. Have I pricked a nerve? Phoebe wondered.
“Nope,” Blair said. “No clue.”
They were getting close to the eastern gate, and Phoebe guessed she only had a minute or two more.
“So you and Lily had drifted apart,” Phoebe said. “Did you two have some kind of falling out?”
“Why would you think that?” Blair asked.
“Because that’s often the case when people stop being friends.”
Blair stopped and turned to Phoebe, holding her eyes. “I guess as a famous biographer, you know all about what makes people tick,” she said smugly.
Phoebe smiled at her. “Sometimes it’s just common sense,” she said.
“Well, to be perfectly honest, Lily turned out to be someone who wasn’t trustworthy. I decided it was better to keep my distance.”
“What did she do that upset you?”
“I probably shouldn’t say. It wouldn’t be nice—with her being dead and everything.”
They had just passed through the east gate, and Blair stopped on the sidewalk. She would make certain, of course, that she went the opposite way that Phoebe did.
Phoebe decided to go for broke. “Lily didn’t join the Sixes, did she?” she asked. “Is that what upset you?”
The girl clearly hadn’t expected Phoebe to go there, and, caught off guard, she looked briefly away. Phoebe could tell Blair’s mind was racing, trying to figure out how to play it. The girl looked back at Phoebe.
“The Sixes?” she asked slyly. “I’m not following.” Her tone suggested she was up for a little game.
“It’s a secret society of girls here,” Phoebe said. “Though it’s hardly much of a secret anymore. I would have thought you’d heard of them.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Blair said, and briefly touched the tip of her tongue to her pillowy upper lip. “There have been a few rumors about them.”
“And what exactly have you heard?” Phoebe asked.
“Nothing really very specific,” Blair said, staring straight at Phoebe. “Just that they’re very, very powerful.”
Phoebe’s heart skipped. The last comment hadn’t just been part of the game. It had been a threat, of course. I’m being warned off, Phoebe thought anxiously, just like I was years ago.
“Is there anything else?” Blair asked. “I really have to go.”
“No,” Phoebe said. “Thank you for your time.”
Phoebe turned toward Bridge Street, and behind her, she heard Blair walk briskly off in the opposite direction, her boots tapping hard against the sidewalk.
As soon as she was at Berta’s, Phoebe ordered a glass of wine. She had envisioned a quiet hour by herself, a chance to unwind, but she felt totally on edge. Phoebe had no doubt now that the Sixes existed, and that Blair was in the thick of it. There was something truly unsettling about the girl.
By the time Phoebe finally headed back to campus, it was dark and she was later than she’d planned to be. Reaching the plaza, she saw that a huge crowd of students and faculty was already milling around. Many of the students held candles, cupping the wildly flickering flames with their hands. Phoebe’s eyes scanned the crowd. Far off to the left, she spotted Pete Tobias talking to a bunch of students, obviously coaxing information from them like a con artist. She headed to the opposite side of the plaza, aiming to steer as clear of him as possible.
Toward the edge of the crowd, a long rectangular table had been set up to sell coffee, and Phoebe bought a cup. Just ahead of her she spotted Craig Ball weaving through the crowd. She realized he had never gotten back to her.
A few minutes later, Tom Stockton opened the service and introduced Glenda. Her remarks weren’t long, but they were sincere and moving. “The way we can remember Lily,” she told the crowd, “is to take pieces of her spirit into our own lives.”