I never went to college, of course—until now—but I can’t see either of my parents expressing the slightest interest in coming to visit me if I’d gone, unless somehow I’d been earning money for them on campus. Then I’m sure they’d both have come to visit me a lot, maybe even as often as Kaileigh’s mom and dad.
Scanning the sheet from the night Jasmine died, I see that she signed in no one. No guests—at least from outside the building.
“Pete,” I ask, looking up from the log, “does our VIR get special sign-in privileges? I can’t find any trace of his signature on these logs, but Julio tells me he’s been partying every night.”
“He don’t got any special privileges with me,” Pete says, his gaze still on the monitor. “I don’t know about any of the other guards. On the other hand—”
He crooks a finger at me. I circle around to the back of the desk. He’s found the footage I’m looking for, and all for the price of a few tacos.
There, on the grainy black-and-white video surveillance tape, are a number of young people walking down the fifteenth-floor hallway toward room 1512—Prince Rashid’s room. They look happy and smiling.
And many of them are extremely familiar.
“Wait a minute,” I say, stunned by what I’m seeing. “What night is this?”
Pete squints at the numbers on the bottom of the screen. “Monday. No, wait. Tuesday. Yeah, Tuesday. Night before last.”
The night Jasmine died.
12
New York College Alcohol Policy
Residents of New York College residence halls are required to abide by all New York State and New York College regulations regarding the use of alcohol. These rules specify that persons under twenty-one years of age are prohibited from possessing and/or consuming any alcoholic beverage while on New York College property.
In residence halls, persons under the age of twenty-one are in violation of the New York College alcohol policy if found to be in the presence of alcohol. Any resident over the age of twenty-one found to have given and/or purchased alcohol for residents under the age of twenty-one will also be found in violation of that policy, and subject to appropriate sanctions and/or punitive action.
No,” Lisa says. Her face has turned slightly green, as if the burrito she had for breakfast is coming back up. “It isn’t possible.”
“It’s right there on the monitor,” I say. “You can go down to Pete’s desk and see for yourself.”
“Oh,” Lisa says, swallowing hard. “I believe you. It’s just that—”
“Or Gavin can tell you about it. Can’t you, Gavin?”
I turn to Gavin, whom I’ve dragged to the hall director’s office, hanging a “Closed—Back in Five Minutes” sign on the front desk, and another one that says please knock! on the door to our office, which I’ve closed and locked so we won’t be disturbed, though it’s doubtful any residents will drop by so early in the morning.
Parents, on the other hand, are another story.
Gavin’s sitting in a chair across from Lisa’s, looking miserable. And not only because he’s been hauled into his boss’s office before ten in the morning, wearing only the Goofy slippers his mother gave him, a moth-eaten New York College T-shirt, and a pair of plaid flannel pajama bottoms, but because he’s been caught in a lie he can’t get out of.
Only he doesn’t consider it a lie.
“I told you before, I ain’t no narc,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. His protest, however, sounds weak.
“Gavin,” I say. “I am seconds—literally seconds—away from calling Detective Canavan down at the Sixth Precinct, and you know how disappointed he was in you the last time he was in this office. Do you really want to go through that again?”
Gavin looks sullenly down at his floppy-eared slippers. “No, ma’am.”
“Then tell Lisa what you know about all the RAs being so sick.”
“It wasn’t all of them,” he says, raising his tousle-haired head. “Mostly the new ones. Look, do I really have to—”
“Why were they sick, Gavin?” Lisa’s voice has gone cold as ice. “Are you saying it wasn’t the flu, like I had?”
“Uh, no, ma’am.” Gavin looks back down at his slippers. “They were just hungover.”
“Hungover?” Lisa’s eyes flare like firecrackers. “What do you mean they were hungover?”
“Because they’d been up partying all night in room fifteen-twelve with Sexy Sheikh,” Gavin explains. “I mean, Prince Rashid.”
Lisa’s face pales. She’s shaking her head the way Tricky does when he has a flea. No. No, no, no.
“It has to have been the same party Ameera was talking about,” I say to her. “Remember, I told you. She said Jasmine seemed fine during the party. It must have been a party at Prince Rashid’s. Jasmine’s on the tape. I saw her in the hallway, going into the prince’s room with the others.”
Lisa is still shaking her head, not because she doesn’t believe me, but because she’s so angry. I can see the tips of her ears turning red, a sure sign that she’s upset.
Silence fills Lisa’s small office. Outside the two wide windows that look onto the street, I can hear the rapid footsteps on the sidewalk of people who are late to work, and the sound of a car pulling into that rarest of all commodities in Manhattan—a parking spot.