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of that takes a lot of extra time and says something else about the crime.”
    â€œMaybe he’s just screwed up and likes to drug people,” Stefan muttered, his jaw working.
    â€œOr, maybe he wanted you unconscious for some reason. To make sure you were found after school started?” September posed, figuring Christopher Ballonni must have suffered a similar fate at the hands of whoever had tied him to the flagpole. A complete autopsy had been performed and there were traces of Rohypnol in the man’s system. She’d bet Stefan Harmak had been drugged with roofies, too.
    â€œHe just wanted to keep me down,” Stefan said. “He didn’t want me overpowering him, so he took care of that first.”
    â€œIt looks like he wanted to humiliate you,” September suggested.
    September might have bought Stefan’s theory more if her stepbrother was the kind of man who could physically scare someone, but he just didn’t come off that way. He undoubtedly had some strength, but there was something so Jack Sprat about him that she doubted any adult male armed with a stun gun would consider him such a threat as to drug him.
    There was definitely something else at play, and she also suspected Stefan was deliberately keeping whatever it was from her. Maybe he was embarrassed, or maybe he was just being his usual asshole self, but he knew something.
    She wanted to get a good look at the placard that had hung around Stefan’s neck when the crime techs were through with it. Since Ballonni’s placard read I MUST PAY FOR WHAT I’VE DONE , initially she and Gretchen had believed Ballonni must have been involved in a crime. They hadn’t discovered anything in the man’s past, however; Ballonni was a man who’d apparently been loved by his family and friends. The idea of suicide had been bandied about—an assisted suicide, given the zip-ties—but no one could believe Ballonni had been suicidal. He had a good job, a loving wife, a teenaged son who went hunting and fishing with him, a nice house with a low mortgage, credit card debt that was under control, and a social group with some good buddies.
    September realized she knew next to nothing about her stepbrother’s social life. “This attack seems personal.”
    â€œBastard singled me out,” Stefan muttered.
    â€œHe waited for you.” She thought that over. “I’d like to talk to someone you work with.”
    â€œNo!” Stefan practically gasped. “They can’t know. It’s too embarrassing.”
    â€œIt’s going to hit the news,” September pointed out.
    â€œOh, God. ” Stefan raked his fingers through his hair and Verna looked stricken.
    â€œWho do you hang out with at the school? Maybe I can start with them,” September suggested.
    â€œNobody. They’re all married, old women.” Stefan glared at her as if it were her fault. “It’s just a job.”
    â€œI’ll give Amy Lazenby a call,” September said. She’d met the principal of Twin Oaks earlier in the fall.
    â€œYou know her?” Stefan burst out, as if he couldn’t bear the thought. “Don’t talk to her. She’s a bitch.”
    September pointed out, “She’s going to hear about this, so I can give her a heads-up before it hits the news.”
    â€œThe news . . .” Stefan closed his eyes.
    â€œIt happened on school grounds,” September said patiently. Stefan acted like the whole incident could just be swept under the rug, but that wasn’t how these things worked.
    Wes asked him, “Who should we talk to?”
    â€œI don’t know. No one.” His chin dropped to his chest as if he were collapsing.
    â€œAren’t you people the ones who figure that out?” Verna demanded, looking Wes over.
    There wasn’t much more they were going to get out of him now, September determined, so she said, “All right,