Page 6 of The Killer She Knew

But university police had only managed to find one. Well, other than Alice Dietz.

“I can’t believe Alice is dead.” Jeana Gray’s perfectly shaped eyebrows met over a pair of dark brown eyes as she sniffled into a soaked tissue from the edge of her mattress. Once-tamed hair escaped the ponytail at the back of the young woman’s head in frizzy wisps, accentuating the warm orange undertones of her black skin. A thick sweater hid a willowy frame. Dressed to repress. Schedules, calendars, and a printed syllabus on her desk said Jeana was the kind of student who colored inside the lines, followed the rules, and wouldn’t dare make the first move with a guy she might find attractive. An overachiever of the highest order. “I knew something was wrong. Alice wouldn’t just stop showing up, no matter how upset she was.”

“You’re the one who filed the missing persons report on Monday morning?” Leigh asked.

Jeana nodded, taking another swipe at her nose.

“How long have you and Ms. Dietz known each other?” The length of the roommates’ relationship would help Leigh understand how well Jeana could interpret their victim’s behaviors and moods leading up to her death. Leigh studied the personal effects of three distinct areas of the dorm.

Jeana had taken up position on her own bed, decorated with cutouts of books, a sticker showcasing a pink bubble font spelling “Word Nerd,” and a book thrown haphazardly at the end of the thin mattress. The other two spaces weren’t as organized. Clothes bunched on one bed. Highlighters and textbooks thrown across the other. There were few personal touches, but it could have something to do with the way the university assigned campus housing. Students never kept their dorm more than a year, relegated to moving from one building to the next at the start of each academic year.

“We don’t. I mean, not really.” Jeana sat straighter as if she had to remind herself about posture. “We were both assigned this room at the start of the semester. So, about six weeks, but we were becoming friends. Me, Alice, and Tamra. We hung out, got dinner together, and watched movies. Talked about guys and classes whenever we happened to be in the dorm at the same time, stuff like that.”

Leigh directed her gaze to Marshal Ford, who’d hung back by the door, all too willing to let her take the lead. For a federal agent, he was remarkably aware of his presence when faced with a female witness. None of the overbearing, competitive alpha-male bullshit she’d faced from previous male colleagues too many times to count.

“Tamra Hopkins, the third roommate,” Ford said.

“Let’s check in with campus police on Tamra’s whereabouts. Pull her out of class if necessary.” She didn’t wait for Ford’s acknowledgment, trusting that he would follow through as he left quietly. Leigh crossed deeper into the room, memorizing everything she could about the space. It was the little things that shaped a victim’s life. The brands they preferred told her a lot about financial mindset and likely debts. The type of devices they used determined whether their data was backed up to the cloud automatically. Personal photos and contacts established close relationships and potential leads. “Jeana, in the time you’ve known Alice, have you noticed anything unusual in her routines? Were you aware of any problems she was having in her personal or academic life?”

“Nothing she told me about, but as I said, we were just recently starting to get to know each other. As for her routines, I can’t say if she really had any. At least, not outside of showing up for her classes. She didn’t have a job. I don’t know how she was paying for school. Honestly, Alice was the kind of person who played everything by ear. Kind of impulsive. It was one ofthe things we argued about the most. Especially when we had plans to meet up, and she’d just not show up. And now she’s gone.” A fresh wave of tears pooled in Jeana’s eyes. “She was… moody at first. Like being here was some kind of punishment. It took a while before she made an effort to talk to me and Tamra, and even then, she liked her privacy. Looking at her, you get this cheerleader vibe and think she’s gonna be bubbly and insist on making best friend bracelets, but I got the feeling she wasn’t the kind of person interested in keeping in touch after graduation, you know?”

She did know. Had been that person herself. It’d been necessary. To protect her brother. But now, Leigh found herself inventorying the relationships in her life. Her father had spent the past twenty years behind bars, her brother couldn’t admit his real identity without putting Leigh in the law’s crosshairs, and her best friend was currently serving life without parole in Alabama. And Ava… Leigh didn’t know how to be a mom. Least of all to a teen who wanted nothing to do with her, fought to run away any chance she got, and rarely said more than two words in a conversation. Nothing close to the relationship she’d had with her own mother.

Expectations: the real happiness killer.

“And which bunk is Alice’s?” Leigh pointed to the one closest.

Jeana nodded. “That one with the clothes piled on it.”

“When was the last time you saw Alice?” She visually searched the closet without touching anything.

“Saturday night.” Three full days.

Leigh picked through a couple of T-shirts and a pair of jeans. Sliding her hand into the pants pockets, she pulled a tube of Chapstick free and dropped it on the bed. No phone. No laptop. No backpack. The only personal effects on Alice’s body had been her wallet and keys. Without them, it would’ve taken DNA, fingerprints, and dentals to identify her remains and wastedprecious hours. A few high-end cosmetics were scattered across the nearest dresser. Good quality and well-used. The clothing, too, spoke of quality over quantity. Alice Dietz invested in key pieces. “Did you talk? Get a sense of her mood or where she planned on spending her time yesterday?”

“I know she had class at nine,” Jeana said. “But we weren’t exactly on speaking terms.”

She’d come back to that.

“All right. What about anyone new in her life?” Leigh gave up on sifting through the items on the bed and moved on to the dresser stacked underneath the bunk. “Boyfriend, girlfriend?”

Jeana shook her head. “Not that she told us, but I got the impression she was seeing someone she didn’t want me and Tamra to know about.”

She searched the top dresser drawer, then moved on to the second. Nothing but underwear, bras, pajamas, and everyday essentials. Then again, people tended to get creative when it came to secrets they never wanted uncovered. Leigh noted the air returns and vents throughout the room. As of now, they had nothing to tell them what kind of woman ended up at the wrong end of a syringe of arsenic and cyanide. Nothing obvious to mark Alice Dietz as a victim. “What gave you that idea?”

Hesitation etched deep into Jeana’s features. Burdened with betrayal for telling investigators this much. “She’d get messages in the middle of the night. Slip out after Tamra and I were already in bed. I’m not sure she realized I knew. She never said anything about it.”

Ford slipped back through the door. Quiet. Reserved. Waiting.

“Do you know where she was going so late?” Instinct had Leigh ending her search prematurely. In her experience, everyone had secrets, but there was nothing here. At least nothing she would’ve left lying around with two roommatesto find. No journal detailing the victim’s life or raving over a secret affair. RAs patrolled the floors late into the night. Most universities, but more so the University of New Hampshire, enacted curfews for their students. Of course, there were always ways around them. She’d found a few herself during her years here. Had Alice done the same? Where had she been going in the middle of the night?

“No.” Jeana seemed to curl in on herself, wrapping her arms around her middle with the tissue still clutched tight. “I asked. It didn’t end well. That’s why we weren’t talking.”

“Tell me more about that.” Leigh flicked a glance to Ford.

“She got all defensive. Told me to mind my business,” Jeana said. “That was about a week ago.”

“What about close friends who she might confide in or people in her program? Could she have been sneaking out or seeing one of them?”

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