Gavin seems to relax a little. “Oh, that’s right,” he said. “You like those pretty-boy types. Jordan Cartwright. Mr. Easy Street.”

Cooper has dropped his hand. He is staring at Gavin with an expression of mingled amusement and derision. “Well, Heather,” he says. “Delightful as it’s been meeting one of your infant charges, I think I’ll be going now.”

“Hey!” Gavin looks insulted. “Who you calling an infant?”

Cooper barely acknowledges Gavin’s presence, saying only, “I’ll see you at home,” to me, with a wink, then turning to leave.

“‘See you at home’?” Gavin is staring daggers at Cooper’s departing back. “You guys live together? I thought you said he wasn’t your boyfriend!”

“He’s my landlord,” I say. “And he’s right. You are an infant. Ready to go? Or do you want to stop by the liquor store on the way back to the hall so you can buy a bottle of Jäger-meister and finish off the job?”

“Woman,” Gavin says, shaking his head, “why you gots to be that way? Always up in my business?”

“Gavin.” I’m rolling my eyes. “Seriously. I’ll call your parents… .”

He drops the gangbanger act at once.

“Don’t,” he says, the goatee drooping. “My mom’ll kill me.”

I sigh and take his arm. “Come on, then. Let’s get you home, before it starts snowing. Did you get a note from the doctor, to excuse you from class?”

He scowls. “They won’t give notes for alcohol poisoning.”

“Poor baby,” I say cheerfully. “Maybe this will teach you a lesson.”

“Woman,” Gavin explodes again, “I don’t need you to tell me how to act!”

And we walk out into the cold together, bickering like a brother and sister. At least,I think that’s how we sound.

Little do I know Gavin thinks something entirely different.

The rest of the day does not exactly fly by. It’s amazing, in fact, how slowly time can pass when all you want to do is go home.

At least, when I get back to Fischer Hall from the hospital, the deed has been done—Lindsay’s family has been notified of her death… which means it’s okay for us to start telling the building staff and residents about what happened to her.

But this, as I’d suspected, does not exactly make things any better. Reactions upon being told the truth—that the cafeteria is closed because of the discovery of a cheerleader’s severed head there, and not a gas leak—vary from stunned astonishment to giggling, crying, and even some gagging.

But it isn’t like we can keep the truth from them… especially when it hits the local all-news television station, New York One, which Tina, the student desk worker, very conscientiously runs to come tell us when she sees it on the television set in the lobby, then turns up as high as she can when we hurry to join her:

“The New York College campus was shocked today by a gruesome discovery at one of their dormitories, Fischer Residence Hall,” the news anchorperson says, in an urgent voice, as behind him flashes a shot of the exterior of Fischer Hall, New York College banners fluttering in the wind from twin poles over the front door—at which we’ve posted extra security, to keep out thrill-seekers and the press, who are all clustered in the chess circle across the street, annoying the die-hard chess fans who’ve braved the cold to come out and play.

“Some may recall last fall’s slayings of two young women in this very same dormitory,” the reporter intones, “a tragedy that has led some on campus to refer to the building as Death Dorm.”

I glance at Tom when the announcer says this. He presses his lips together, but otherwise says nothing. Poor guy. His first professional gig out of grad school, and it has to be at Death Dorm. I mean, residence hall.

“This morning, Fischer Hall cafeteria workers arrived at work to make another grisly discovery: a human head in a pot on the school stove.”

This is met by a collective “EW!” by Tina and most of the rest of the students—not to mention a few administrators—gathered in the lobby to watch the broadcast. Tom actually groans and drops his face in his hands in anguish. Pete, the security officer, doesn’t look too happy, either.

“The head has been positively identified by grieving family members as belonging to New York College sophomore and varsity cheerleader Lindsay Combs,” the reporter goes on, as a photo of Lindsay fills the screen. It’s the photo that was taken the night she was crowned Homecoming Queen. Her smile is as dazzling as the tiara in her honey-colored hair. She’s dressed in white satin and holding a dozen red roses in her arms. Someone outside the frame of the photo had flung an arm around her shoulders and the tiara had tipped rakishly over one of Lindsay’s unnaturally green eyes. I seriously don’t understand why she thought this was a good look.

“According to witnesses, Lindsay was last seen yesterday evening. She left her room at approximately seven o’clock in the evening, telling her roommate she was going to a party. She never returned.”

This much we already knew. Cheryl had come by the office in tears earlier, heartbroken over what had befallen her friend—and roommate… a roommate she’d never even gotten a chance to swap midnight giggles or shots of Southern Comfort with, since Lindsay had been dead before Cheryl ever even moved in.

Lindsay’s original roommate, Ann, had taken the news a little less hysterically, and had been able to give the police their only lead… the one about the party. Of course, relations between Ann and Lindsay apparently not having been the best, the girl hadn’t been able to tell Detective Canavan WHICH party Lindsay had been going to… and Cheryl, incoherent with sobs, hadn’t been much help in that department, either. In fact, Tom had had one of the RAs escort Cheryl to Counseling Services, where she’s hopefully getting the help she needs to cope with her grief… and the fact that she’s pretty much guaranteed a single room for the rest of the year.

Of course, Cheryl is the one person on campus who didn’t want one.

“How Lindsay ended up in the Fischer Hall cafeteria kitchen is a mystery that has authorities here baffled,” the reporter goes on. The shot shifts to one of New York College President Phillip Allington standing at a podium in the library lobby, Detective Canavan looking rumpled and cranky at his side. Coach Andrews, for some reason, is standing on the president’s other side, managing to look calm, but at the same time somewhat confused. But then, that’s how a lot of athletic coaches look, I’ve noticed, as I’ve flipped past ESPN.

The anchorman’s voice goes on, “A spokesperson from the New York City Police Department insists that even though no arrests have been made, the police have several suspects and are following more than a dozen leads. There is, college President Phillip Allington assured the academic community at a press conference earlier this afternoon, no need for alarm.”

Footage from the press conference begins to run.

“We would like to take this opportunity,” President Allington says woodenly, obviously reading from something that he’d had someone else write for him earlier in the day, “to reassure our students, and the public in general, that the law enforcement officials in this city are using every measure available to us to track down this vicious criminal. At the same time, we’d like to urge our students to take extra safety precautions until Lindsay’s killer is apprehended. Although it is the goal of our residence halls to foster a feeling of community—which is why we call them residence halls and not dormitories—it’s important for students to keep their doors locked. Do not allow strangers into your room or into any campus building. While the police believe this senseless crime to be, at this time, an isolated act of random violence, we cannot stress enough the necessity of exercising caution until the individual responsible is brought to justice… .”