I found it in the November 3 issue. Mr. Allan had left his position as a first-year math teacher after one semester to pursue a graduate degree, and he hoped to be back in a couple of years, better able to serve the students of Crestwood.

Yeah, right.

I was about to close the tab when a familiar—and horrifying—place name caught my attention from the short mention just below Allan’s article.

Our thoughts and prayers are with senior honor student Farrah Combs, who was admitted to Lakeside Hospital last week. Get well soon, Farrah!

What the editor of the Crestwood Observer obviously didn’t know—if she had, the mention probably never would have run in their paper—was that Lakeside wasn’t a regular hospital. It was a mental health facility, attached to Arlington Memorial. The very same mental health facility—psych ward, to the uninformed—where I’d spent a week of my life, a year and a half earlier.

Lakeside was only fifteen miles away. Maybe Farrah Combs—assuming she was still there, and marginally coherent—could tell me something about Mr. Allan. And whether or not any of her fellow students had gotten pregnant or died while he was teaching there.

But I couldn’t tell Sabine my idea, because she’d insist on tagging along, and I was not taking a living nightmare into a mental health facility.

I glanced at the onscreen clock before closing my laptop and was relieved to realize it was almost six o’clock. “Okay…” I stood and slid my computer back into the bag. “I’m gonna find something to eat and you’re going to go home.”

“Why?” Sabine said, physically resisting as I tried to guide her toward the door. “We’re on a tight schedule here, Kaylee. I thought you wanted to nail this bastard.”

“I do. Figuratively. But I can’t think when I’m hungry, so why don’t you go home and go online and see if you can find any more of Beck’s former employers.”

“I don’t have internet at home.”

“Then go to the library. Sometimes people fall asleep there—I’m sure that’s an untapped market for you. We can exchange information in the morning.”

“What information are you gonna have?” she demanded, as I pulled the front door open and pushed her half-empty soda can into her hand.

I scrambled for another well-meaning lie until my gaze settled on an obviously amused Alec, and the answer slid into place. “Alec’s going to help me come up with a plan B for getting rid of Mr. Beck, in case murder starts to look a bit extreme.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” Sabine insisted, eyes narrowed at me now from the front porch.

“Well, just in case. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then I closed the door in her face.

Alec laughed out loud. “What wasthat all about?”

“You have to take the direct approach with Sabine—she doesn’t understand subtlety.” I peeked through the blinds until her car drove away, then I turned to Alec. “Your turn. How’d you get here, anyway?”

He crossed both arms over his chest and suddenly embodied the immovable object. “I took the bus.”

“Good. I think there’s another one at six-fifteen. You need change?”

Alec frowned. “I’m gainfully employed, Kaylee. And I’m not leaving. I promised your dad I’d stay with you.”

“I don’t need a babysitter, Alec.”

“I know. But your dad’s afraid that whatever’s supposed to kill you could hit early and leave you lingering on the brink of death for the next few days. And he’s pretty determined not to let that happen.”

“Then he should be at home, not out chasing possibilities that don’t exist.”

“You can’t rationalize with grief and denial, Kaylee.”

“I’m trying to rationalize with you. I have something important to do, and I need you to go home.”

Alec dropped into my dad’s recliner, and I knew with one glance that he wasn’t going to be moved until he was damn well ready. “If this is about Nash…you’re as grown as you’re gonna get and it’s not my place to tell you what not to do with your boyfriend. You two can go back there and close the door and make the whole damn planet quake for all I care. I’ll even wear earplugs, if you think it’s gonna get loud, but—”

“No! This has nothing to do with Nash.” In fact, if I told him, he’d try to talk me out of it. I sighed and sat on the edge of the coffee table. “I swear, I’ll kill you if you tell my dad, but…I’m going to sneak into Lakeside and talk to Farrah Combs. And I need to be back before Nash comes over, so you have to go!”

“You’re gonna sneak into Lakeside? I thought you hated that place.”

“I do.” With a fierce and glorious passion. “But that’s my best chance of finding the bodies in Beck’s closet, and I am not going to die without knowing he’s no threat to Emma, or anyone else at school.”

“Fine. I’ll go with you.”

“You can’t. It’ll be hard enough to get myself in, and bringing you will only double our chances of getting caught.”

He shifted in the chair and it groaned beneath his weight. “How are you going to get in?”

I stared at my hands in my lap, avoiding his gaze. “I have an idea, but it only works for one person. Me.”

“Please tell me you’re not going to get yourself committed.”