“No. But Steve told a couple of his friends, and it got around. He thought she might be doing stuff with someone else. Someone from another school, maybe.”

“What did you think?”

Mia bites her bottom lip. “Like I said, Kate was very private. She had this charming persona she could turn on, and most people bought into it. But that was just the mask she used to get through life. Deep down, she was somebody else.”

“Who was she?”

“I’m not sure. All I know is that she was way too sophisticated for Steve. Maybe for any guy our age.”

I look hard into Mia’s eyes, but I see no hidden meaning there. “What made her so sophisticated?”

“Her time in England. After her parents got divorced, she went over to London and lived with her dad for a while. She went to an exclusive school over there for three years during junior high. In the end it didn’t work out for her to stay, but when she got back here, she was way ahead of the rest of us. She was pretty intimidating with that English accent.”

“I can’t imagine you being intimidated.”

“Oh, I was. But last year I started catching up with her. And this year I passed her in every subject. I feel guilty saying it now, but I felt pretty good about that.”

Some of Drew’s words are coming back to me. “You play tennis, don’t you?”

“I’m on the team. I’m not as good as Kate. She was a machine. She won state in singles last year, and she was on her way to doing it again this year.”

“Didn’t Kate play competitive tennis with Ellen Elliott?”

“Hell, yes. They won the state open in city league tennis.”

“What do you think about Ellen?”

Mia’s eyes flicker with interest. “Are you asking for the official line, or what I really think?”

“What you really think.”

“She’s a cast-iron bitch.”

“Really?”

“Definitely. Very cold, very manipulative. How she treats you depends totally on who your parents are.”