Sarah, seated next to Jordan, can’t take her eyes off him. She keeps asking him searching questions about the music industry, the same ones she’d asked me when she’d first met me. Like, had he felt like a sellout when he’d done that Pepsi ad? And hadn’t he felt that performing at the Super Bowl halftime show had been degrading to his calling as a musician? And what about that calling? Did it bother him that he knew how to sing, but not how to play a single instrument? Didn’t that, in a way, mean that he wasn’t a musician at all, but merely a mouthpiece through which Cartwright Records could deliver their message of corporate greed?

By the time the lights go down, and the hall president, Greg, gets up to welcome everyone, I’m feeling a little sorry for Jordan.

Then the first act comes on, a trio of girls lip-synching Christina’s latest, with choreography and everything. With the lights down, I’m able to scan the audience without looking too obvious.

There are a lot of students there. Nearly every seat is filled, and the cafeteria can hold four hundred. Plus there are people lining the back of the room, hooting and applauding and, in general, acting like eighteen-year-olds away from home for the first time. Beside me, Jordan is staring at the Christina wannabes, his clipboard clutched tightly in his hands. For someone who’s been shanghaied into the job, he seems to be taking it way seriously.

Or maybe he’s only acting interested in order to keep Sarah from asking him any more questions.

The first act comes to a hip-grinding stop, and a quartet of boys leaps into the spotlight. Heavy bass begins to shake the cafeteria walls—they’re performing “Bye Bye Bye” by ’N Sync—and I feel pity for Fischer Hall’s neighbors, one of which is an Episcopalian church.

The boys throw themselves into their act. They have the choreography down pat—so much so I practically wet my pants, I’m laughing so hard.

I notice Jordan isn’t laughing at all. He doesn’t seem to understand that the boys are making fun of boy bands. He is carefully scoring them on originality and how well they know the lyrics.

Seriously.

Glancing over my clipboard as I score the boys’ act—I give them mostly fives out of ten, since they don’t have costumes—I notice a tall man wander into the dining hall, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his khakis.

At first I think it’s President Allington. But the president never wears khakis, preferring, as I think I’ve mentioned before, white Dockers. The newcomer is entirely too well-dressed to be the school’s president.

When he moves into a shaft of light that spills from the Coke machine, however, I realize that it’s Christopher Allington, the president’s son. So my confusion is understandable.

It isn’t unusual for Christopher to drop by. I mean, even though he has his own place at the law school dorm, his parents do live upstairs. He’d probably come over to visit them, then stopped in the café to see what all the noise was about.

But when he moves toward a group of students leaning against a far wall and begins chatting casually to them, I start to wonder. What is Christopher doing here, exactly? He’s a law student, not an undergrad.

Pete had told me that when the Allingtons first arrived from the college somewhere in Indiana where President Allington had worked before, there’d been a big hush-up over the fact that Christopher hadn’t scored high enough on his LSATs to get into New York College. Apparently his father had pulled some major strings, and gotten him in anyway.

But then, with an alcoholic mother and a father who wears tank tops in public, the poor kid probably doesn’t have much in the way of gifts from the Allington gene pool anyway, and needed the extra help.

’N Sync pounds to a finish, and then an Elvis impersonator gives it a go. During his rendition of “Viva Las Vegas,” for want of anything better to do, I watch Christopher Allington mingle. He works his way through the crowd until he’s settled himself in a chair behind a whole row of girls. They’re all freshmen—you can tell by their giggly awkwardness. They aren’t quite in the New York College groove yet, as their unpierced faces and undyed hair and Gap clothing prove. One of them, a bit more sophisticated than the rest, turns in her seat and begins talking to Christopher, who leans forward to hear her better. The girl sitting next to her resolutely refuses to join in the conversation, keeping her face forward.

But you can tell she’s eavesdropping like anything.

Elvis finishes to respectable applause, and then Marnie Villa Delgado—yes, Elizabeth Kellogg’s roommate—takes the stage. Everyone gives her an extra hand. I try not to let myself think that the ovation is for having scored herself a single room for the rest of the semester.

Marnie, wearing a long blond wig and a pair of low-ride jeans, bows politely. Then she launches into a song that sounds vaguely familiar. I can’t place it, at first. All I know is that it’s a song I don’t like very much…

And then it hits me. “Sugar Rush.” Marnie is giving her all to the song that had made mine a household name… thirteen years ago. And only if that household contained a pre-adolescent girl.

Jordan, beside me, guffaws. Some of the students who know about my past laugh along with him. Marnie herself even gives me a sly look while she mouths the line, “Don’t tell me stay on my diet/You have simply got to try it.”

I smile and try not to look as uncomfortable as I feel. It helps to look back at Christopher, instead. He’s still chatting up the girls in the row ahead of him. He has finally attracted the attention of the shy girl, who, while not pretty, has a more interesting face than her more vivacious companion. She has turned in her seat and is timidly smiling at Christopher, hugging her knees to her chest and pushing back wayward tendrils of reddish hair.

Up front, Marnie is tossing her blond wig—not to mention her hips—around in a manner that the crowd seems to find hilarious, and which I can only hope is not supposed to be an accurate imitation of me.

And that’s when it hits me—out of the blue—that Christopher Allington could be Mark.

Or Todd.

You’re a tornado

Blowing through my heart

You’re a tornado

Can’t finish what you start

You wreck everything

In your path

Think you’ll have

The very last laugh

You’re a tornado

And you’re blowing

Me Away

“Tornado”

Performed by Heather Wells

Composed by Dietz/Ryder

From the album Staking Out Your Heart

Cartwright Records

I guess you can say my blood went cold.

Okay, it didn’t really. But it does feel kind of like someone has spilled some really cold Diet Coke down my back, or something.

All of a sudden, my palms are so sweaty I can hardly hold on to the clipboard. My heart starts hammering unsteadily, the way it had that time I’d sung those songs I’d written myself for Jordan’s dad, and he’d laughed at me.

Christopher Allington? Christopher Allington? No way!

Except…

Except that Christopher Allington has complete access to Fischer Hall. He never has to be signed in or out, and he has the authority to order someone to let him into the director’s office whenever he wants. I know because one time the RAs were complaining about how there was never any paper left in the copier on Monday morning and Rachel said that was because Christopher Allington always has one of the maintenance men key him into our office Sunday night so that he can copy his friends’ class notes.

So he could have perused Rachel’s files at his leisure, combing them for likely victims, girls who’ll fall easily under his persuasion, girls without much experience, whom he could seduce.

And then he set out to meet them, starting up innocuous conversations and introducing himself under a fake name… all so that he could get laid without a lot of fuss. It’s like he has his own little harem of willing fresh women to choose from!

My God. It’s diabolical. It’s ingenious. It’s…

Totally far-fetched. Cooper would totally scoff at the idea.

But Cooper isn’t here…

And Christopher Allingtonis way charming. Over six feet tall, with kind of longish blond hair that he wears feathered back, he has the boyish good looks of… well, a guy from a boy band. What freshman girl wouldn’t be flattered by his attentions… so flattered that she’d have sex with him on a comparatively short acquaintance? My God, he’s cute, older, sophisticated… Any eighteen-year-old girl would go ga-ga over him. Any twenty-eight — year-old girl would go ga-ga over him. The guy is fine.

But why did he kill them? Scoring babes is one thing, but killing them afterward? Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose? If they’re dead, you can’t score with them again.

More importantly,how did he kill them? I mean, I know how—if, indeed, they were being killed—but how was he managing to push full-grown women down an elevator shaft when, undoubtedly, they’d be struggling against him? Drugs? But wouldn’t the coroner’s office have found some evidence of that?

My face feels hot. I fan it with my clipboard, turning my attention back toward Marnie. She’s just winding up for her big finish, which involves hip gyrations the likes of which I haven’t seen since Shakira’s last performance on the MTV Music Video Awards. She definitely isn’t imitating me. I’ve always been a rotten dancer, the despair of every choreographer I’ve ever met. I had difficulties, as they liked to point out, detaching my brain from my body, and just letting go.

Marnie pulls some kind of Carly Patterson back handspring thingie that ends in a set of splits and has the entire cafeteria on their feet, cheering. I rise to my feet as well… then start toward her. Lakeisha may have gone home, but Marnie’s still here, and might be able to confirm whether or not her roommate had ever hooked up with Christopher Allington.

But Jordan grabs me by the arm before I’ve gone two steps.

“Where are you going?” he asks worriedly. “You aren’t trying to sneak out of here before we’ve had our talk, are you, Heather?”

Jordan smells of Drakkar Noir, which is distracting. He’d worn Carolina Herrera for Men when he’d been with me, so clearly the Drakkar Noir is courtesy of Tania.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I say, patting him reassuringly on the arm—his very buff arm. He’s been bulking up for his next tour, and it shows. In a good way. “I promise.”

“Heather,” Jordan begins, but I won’t let him finish.

“I promise,” I say. “When this thing is over, we’ll have a nice, long chat.”

Jordan looks placated.

“All right,” he says. “Good.”

I see Marnie cross to the side of the dining hall where all the other acts have gathered to await the decision of the judges, and while the next group sets up for their performance, I hurry over to her.

Marnie has pulled off her blond wig and is wiping sweat from beneath her eyes. She smiles when she sees me approach.

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