Free The Night Villa by Carol Goodman Page B

away from campus while little Agnes Hancock from Sweetwater, who watched her ex-boyfriend shoot himself, braves the campus. I click on the reply box and write: “I was just going out for a walk. I’ll drop by to pick them up.” And then, before I can change my mind, I grab my keys and go.

I know where Agnes lives because I’ve seen her get off the shuttle and walk up her front walk many times. It’s a large old yellow Victorian that, if the number of bicycles sprawled on the front lawn is any indication, houses about a dozen students. A young man with sun-streaked blond hair greets me at the door wearing skimpy cutoff shorts and no shirt. He eyes me warily when I ask for Agnes.
    “Are you one of her professors?”
    “Yes, I’m Dr. Chase.”
    “Do you have ID?”
    “Sam Tyler!” Agnes’s voice calls from upstairs. “Would you please lighten up on the security detail?” Agnes appears on the stairs wearing UT sweats and a voluminous sweatshirt that dwarf her tiny frame. UT’s burnt orange isn’t a flattering color for anyone, but Agnes could have pulled it off a month ago. Now it accentuates her pallor and the dark rings under her eyes. Her once glossy blond hair is done up in two lank braids, one of which she’s nervously snaking around her fingers.
    “Yeah, well, I’ll be down here in the living room.” Sam squints at me as if memorizing my face for later identification in a lineup and then retreats to a large messy room just off the foyer and sprawls on a couch. Although he picks up a remote and turns on the TV, his eyes stay glued to us until we turn to head up the stairs.
    Agnes rolls her eyes at me. “You’d better come up to my room,” she says. “Or the boys will be hovering all over us.”
    As I follow her upstairs I see what she means. On each floor of the four-story house doors open and scruffy heads peer out, accompanied by blasting rock music and the smell of gym socks, stale beer, and corn chips.
    “Are you the only girl in the house?” I ask when we reach the top floor and I’ve caught my breath from the steep climb.
    “Yeah, I know it’s weird. I was in a sorority up until the beginning of this year, but then I kind of fell out with some of the girls…well, you know how girls can be…”
    I nod even though Agnes can’t see me. I can well imagine that Agnes’s looks might have attracted enmity from her sorority sisters.
    “It was too late to get housing in the dorms, so Sam said I should move in here. I’ve known him since high school and he’s always been like a big brother to me.” Agnes opens the door and waves me into a small room. Every inch of the walls is covered with photos of young people—in prom dresses and tuxes, or bathing suits and floppy hats under beach umbrellas, or huddled together in front of historic monuments. “The guys have all been really great,” Agnes says, sitting down on her bed, which is covered with a Little Mermaid quilt. “Especially Sam. When I moved in he had put up all these pictures.”
    “It’s sweet,” I say, taking the desk chair. The only other chair in the room is a bean bag that looks as if it might swallow me whole. “You need friends in times like these.” I wince at the triteness of the sentiment, but Agnes is nodding eagerly as though I’ve said something terribly original. “It’s made the biggest difference. I don’t know if I could have come back otherwise. I was so afraid that everyone would blame me for what happened. My friends all warned me not to get involved with Dale from the beginning.”
    When she talks about her friends, her eyes rove over the pictures on the walls and I find myself doing the same. I recognize Sam in a number of them—often with his arm around Agnes, the two of them mugging for the camera—but there’s not a single one with Dale Henry. Then I notice that Agnes’s hair is shorter in the pictures—chin-length in some, or just grazing her shoulders—and that she’s about fifteen pounds