Chapter One — Everybody Loves Elliot
ELLIOT
Everybody loved Elliot Mercer. This was not something Elliot thought about often because thinking about being liked seemed like the sort of thing people did when they weren't. Popularity became embarrassing the moment someone admitted wanting it, and Elliot had spent enough time around people who manufactured personalities for approval to understand that desperation had a smell.
It lived in laughter that came half a second too quickly, compliments delivered too eagerly, stories exaggerated for whichever audience happened to be listening.
People could tell when someone wanted something from them.
Elliot had discovered years ago that the easiest way to make people like you was to convince them you wanted nothing at all.
“Mercer.”
He turned at the sound of his name and nearly walked directly into a girl carrying three coffees.
“Shit.”
Elliot caught the cardboard tray before it tipped. The girl gasped. One plastic lid popped loose, releasing a ribbon of steam between them, but nothing spilled.
“Holy fuck.”
Elliot laughed and steadied the tray with both hands. “Good morning to you too.”
“I'm so sorry.”
“You're apologizing because I almost murdered your coffee?”
“You came out of nowhere.”
“I was walking in a straight line.”
“So was I.”
“That does complicate things.”
She laughed. Elliot recognized her after another second. Sophie something. Sophomore. Political science, maybe. They'd met at a student-government fundraiser the previous semester. She'd been wearing silver earrings shaped like little stars that night.
“Sophie, right?”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“Okay, that's creepy.”
“Remembering your name?”
“We've spoken once.”
“Twice.”
She stared at him. Elliot smiled.
“The fundraiser and Professor Ellison's election panel.”
“Oh my God.”
“You asked him whether compulsory voting would actually increase political literacy or just increase random voting.”
Sophie looked genuinely offended now.
“How the fuck do you remember that?”
Elliot shrugged and handed the coffees back.
“Good question.” She laughed again. People usually did.
Bellweather University moved around them in its usual Monday-morning rush.
Students crossed Hawthorne Quad in every direction, some dressed as though they'd been awake for hours and others wearing sweatpants, hoodies, and the unmistakable expression of people who had discovered consciousness against their will.
Bicycle tires whispered over brick pathways still damp from the morning frost. Somewhere behind the humanities building, a groundskeeper attacked fallen leaves with a blower loud enough to make conversation briefly impossible whenever he turned toward the quad.
October had transformed the campus. The ivy climbing Whitmore Hall had gone dark red.
Maples burned orange around the library steps.
Leaves covered the grass despite the grounds crew's increasingly hopeless attempts to remove them, and the old brick buildings looked particularly pleased with themselves beneath a pale blue sky.
Bellweather was beautiful in autumn. The university made sure everybody knew it.
Photographers had been crawling around campus for the last two weeks collecting images for brochures.
Smiling students beneath orange trees. Smiling students carrying books.
Smiling students drinking coffee beside buildings constructed before their great-grandparents were born.
Bellweather sold tradition almost as aggressively as it sold education.
At sixty-eight thousand dollars a year, Elliot supposed it should sell something.
“Are you going to Langley's thing tonight?” Sophie asked.
“What thing?”
“See? You don't remember everything.”
“That wasn't an answer.”
“The departmental mixer.”
Elliot grimaced.
“Exactly.”
“I have class until six.”
“So?”
“So afterward I'm going home and pretending I don't know anyone.”
“You?”
“Occasionally.”
“I don't believe you.”
“That hurts.”
Sophie adjusted the coffees against her chest. “Come. It'll be fun.”
“It absolutely will not.”
“You'll know everyone.”
“That is exactly why it won't be fun.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Be boring.”
“Planning on it.”
“See you, Elliot.”
“Later.”
She disappeared into the crowd. Elliot continued toward Whitmore Hall.
Three people greeted him before he reached the steps.
He knew two of their names. The third called him Eli.
Elliot didn't correct him. He held the door for a professor balancing a laptop bag and an armful of papers, returned a freshman's dropped student ID before she realized she'd lost it, and stopped long enough to answer a question from someone in his statistics seminar about an assignment Elliot had also forgotten existed until that exact moment.
By the time he reached the second floor, he had four minutes before class.
His phone vibrated. Elliot pulled it from his coat.
RONAN: You left your charger.
Elliot smiled.
ELLIOT: tragedy
The typing bubble appeared immediately.
RONAN: Don't ask me to bring it.
ELLIOT: wasn't going to
RONAN: Liar.
Elliot leaned against the wall outside the classroom.
ELLIOT: you know me so well
The bubble appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
RONAN: Unfortunately.
Elliot's smile widened.
“What's that face?”
He locked his phone. Claire Bennett stood beside him holding a paper cup with ELLIOT written across it in thick black marker. He looked at the cup. Then at her.
“You stole my coffee.”
“I bought your coffee.”
“You bought yourself my coffee.”
“You weren't here.”
“I am standing here.”
“You weren't here seven minutes ago.”
Claire handed him the cup. Elliot accepted it.
“Thank you.”
“Vanilla latte. Extra shot.”
“I forgive you.”
“You're welcome.”
Claire had been Elliot's closest friend since their second week at Bellweather, when she'd sat beside him during freshman orientation because every other chair was occupied and informed him within three minutes that the entire event felt like a cult induction.
She had not become more tactful with age.
Her dark brown hair was twisted into a loose knot today, held together by what appeared to be a pencil.
She wore a massive gray Bellweather sweatshirt over black leggings and had sunglasses pushed onto her head despite being indoors. She looked exhausted.
“You look terrible,” Elliot said.
“I hate you.”
“Late night?”
“Studying.”
“That's disgusting.”
“Some of us don't retain entire textbooks after looking at them once.”
“Neither do I.”
“Shut up.”
They entered the classroom together. Professor Adler's Abnormal Psychology seminar met in one of Whitmore's smaller lecture rooms, which meant twenty-six students had been given forty seats and somehow still managed to sit directly beside one another.
Elliot took his usual place near the center.
Claire dropped into the chair beside him.
“Did you hear about Mason?”
Elliot stopped removing his notebook from his bag. Only for a fraction of a second.
“What about him?”
“Mason Kerr.”
“I know who Mason is.”
“Apparently he disappeared.”
Elliot looked at her. Claire's expression had changed. The exhaustion remained, but something uneasy sat beneath it now.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“Nobody can find him.”
“When?”
“Saturday.”
Elliot frowned.
“I saw him Saturday.”
Claire turned toward him.
“You did?”
“At the party.”
“So did half the university.”
“Then I'm probably not particularly helpful.”
“He never went home.”
Professor Adler entered at the front of the room. Conversation around them gradually quieted. Elliot lowered his voice.
“How do you know?”
“Lena told me. Tyler reported him missing yesterday. His parents came to Bellweather last night.”
Something unpleasant moved across Claire's face.
“His mom's apparently losing her shit.”
Elliot looked down at his coffee. A small crescent of foam clung to the opening in the lid.
“Maybe he went somewhere.”
“Without his phone?”
Elliot looked back at her.
“They found it?”
Claire nodded.
“Saint Augustine's Park.”
For a moment, the classroom seemed unusually quiet. Elliot blinked.
“That's weird.”
“Yeah.”
Professor Adler cleared his throat. Claire faced forward.
Elliot did the same. His phone vibrated against his thigh.
He ignored it. Professor Adler began talking about diagnostic frameworks, but Elliot found himself staring through the tall windows overlooking Hawthorne Quad.
Students moved below. Hundreds of them. Tiny from this height.
Bellweather continuing exactly as it had Friday.
Exactly as it would tomorrow. His phone vibrated again. Claire glanced at his pocket.
“You gonna get that?”
“No.”
“That might be your boyfriend.”
Elliot looked at her. Claire smirked.
“Sorry. Your mysterious secret lover.”
“Maybe I have six.”
“Please. You don't have the emotional availability for one.”
Elliot smiled.
“If only you knew.”
Claire's eyes narrowed playfully.
“Someday I'm figuring out who it is.”
“No, you're not.”
“That sounded like a challenge.”
“It was a statement.”
Professor Adler looked toward them.
“Mr. Mercer?”
Elliot straightened.
“Yes?”
“Would you like to contribute?”
Several students laughed. Elliot smiled apologetically.
“To which part?”
“The distinction between antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy.”
Claire covered her mouth. Elliot glanced at her. Then at Professor Adler.
“Psychopathy isn't a formal DSM diagnosis.
ASPD focuses primarily on observable patterns of behavior, repeated disregard for other people's rights, deceitfulness, impulsivity, aggression, irresponsibility. Psychopathy is usually conceptualized more broadly and includes interpersonal and affective traits. Superficial charm, manipulativeness, shallow affect, lack of remorse.”
Professor Adler nodded.
“And does everyone diagnosed with ASPD exhibit psychopathic traits?”
“No.”
“Does every psychopath commit violent crime?”
“No.”
“Why does popular culture struggle with that distinction?”