"So he didn't come on to you at all?"

Jean forced a smile. "Not until I was ready to go to bed the first night."

"What happened then?"

"It was after nine when we got to his place. We sort of settled in and talked for an hour. Just stuff. Psychology and how hard grad school is and what were our first impressions of the city. When Cara went into the bathroom to take a shower, Selim came over to the couch I was sitting on and like, well, he tried to hook up with me."

"Tell Alex exactly what he did," Mercer said, coaxing the facts we needed out of her as he had done earlier in the day.

Jean was a well-built young woman, almost as tall as I am at five-foot-ten, but much stockier. "I was tired from the long bus ride, and kind of leaning back with my head against a pillow. Selim reached over and tried to kiss me-right on the mouth-while he was fumbling to get his hand on my chest."

"What did you do?"

"I just pushed him away and stood up. I asked him to give me the telephone book so I could find a hotel to stay in."

"How did he react to that?"

"He was very apologetic, Ms. Cooper. He told me how sorry he was, that he had misinterpreted my body language. He pleaded with me not to tell Cara. He told me that in his country-"

"His country?" I asked.

"Selim's from Turkey. He said that back home, if anybody did that to his sister, he'd be pilloried in the town square."

He'd be short one hand and castrated, too, no doubt. "So you stayed?"

"He was a perfect gentleman from that point on. He was just testing me, I guess. It's happened to me before. Maybe that's why I thought I could handle the situation."

"And Cara?"

"You'll have to ask her about that," Jean said, blushing perceptibly.

Mercer had already told me that Selim Sengor hit on Cara, too, after Jean fell asleep the first night.