9 #2
“Except at the club,” Dash suddenly remembered aloud. I glanced back and forth between them, frowning.
“Which club?”
Dash cocked his head in disbelief. “Haven’t you heard of the club?”
“Obviously not, since I’m asking.” Like, duh.
Apparently, the club has been around for years; it was where even the great-great-grandparents of today’s students used to hang out.
Something like a Hogwarts common room, only bigger—much bigger.
Ironically, it was an exclusive space within an exclusive space.
Only the Cash brothers and a handful of heirs from the most powerful families were allowed in.
The club had a Las Vegas–style ground rule: What happens in the club, stays in the club. So, apart from its members, nobody knew what went on there.
It was the perfect place to keep more secrets tucked away.
“Almost nobody can get in,” added Artie, who, until now, hadn’t said a word.
“And to gain access, you have to be either a permanent member or a temporary one. To become a permanent member, you need to be nominated by another member, and to become a temporary member, you need to be brought in by a member for at least a day.”
Interesting. Very interesting. The Cash brothers had a lair.
“So, if I want to become part of their inner circle, that’s the place where I need to be accepted?” I wanted to make sure.
Kiana and Dash nodded at the same time.
“I think you should break up with him in front of everyone at the founders’ anniversary fair,” Kiana suggested. “Everyone will be there. It’ll be the perfect time and place.”
“Damn, that’s right,” Dash exclaimed, struck by the sheer genius of the idea. “On the stage!”
Kiana nodded, eager to see this all go down.
“Getting up on a stage might be considered going too far,” she said, “but Aegan thrives on scandal and causing a stir.”
I’d heard Artie talk about the founders’ fair a few times. It sounded like a big deal.
“When is it?”
“In two months,” Kiana replied.
Okay, if I put in the effort, I’d have enough time. I just had to get down to business.
Step 1: Get accepted into the club. It sounds easy, doesn’t it?
But convincing Aegan to take me to the club wasn’t going to be nearly as easy as it sounded. No, no, no, my friends, it wasn’t.
I mentioned it to him for the first time the next day after class while we were riding in his car.
One irritating thing about Aegan was that he wouldn’t say where we were going because he thought that only he needed to know.
It was becoming increasingly clear that, while at first he just looked like a hot guy, he’d perfected his talent for being a complete asshole by being the eldest brother.
He was the architect of the Cash brothers’ feared reputation.
“So, where are we going?” I asked in my fake girlfriend voice, pretending that I was happy to be with him.
“To grab a bite to eat,” he decided, as usual. “Nothing spicy, of course.”
Hilarious. I certainly wasn’t up for anything spicy. My poor mouth had been left traumatized.
“Aren’t you supposed to be a gentleman?” I asked him. “Why don’t you ever ask me where I want to go?”
He forced a smile, his voice gentle as he spoke. “Where do you want to go, Derry?”
“How about that club you go to with your friends?”
In the same soft voice, he said, “No.”
This went on for four days. He’d show up in his car, beep the horn twenty times so I’d get a move on, then I’d get in, he’d drive, and we’d say no more than three words to each other the entire ride.
Surprisingly, the silences weren’t awkward.
We didn’t even want to talk to each other, and we each understood and accepted that fact.
When we reached wherever we were going, I’d very quickly get out of the car and, just to annoy him, I’d say goodbye with a “Thanks, sweetheart.” Aegan would with a hint of mischief and reply, “Anything for you, darling.”
When it came to the club, it was always “No, no and no.” It was obvious he didn’t want me to go, but Aegan didn’t know me in the slightest. Saying no just made me want to get into the club even more. Is there something you don’t want me to see, Aegan? Well, I’m going to find out what it is.
But first, I wanted to learn more about Eli, so I headed to the one place that might hold a clue: the old library.
You might be wondering how I got in, considering only student council members or group leaders are allowed in that library now. Well, remember when we were at the Bat-Fit and I asked Kiana what that weird key hanging around her neck was? She said it was a master key for special rooms in Tagus.
So, what did I have to do?
I could tell you that I borrowed it from her, but Kiana would’ve asked too many questions.
Nobody could know I was trying to uncover more about Eli’s disappearance, or I’d be in real danger.
So, I took it from her yesterday afternoon when I went to her apartment.
I’d figure out how to put it back in its place later.
I went to the library just after lunch. I had to cycle to the far end of the Tagus campus, to a building used almost exclusively by teachers.
As I walked through the doors, I realized that this library was very different from the one that was currently being used.
The old library was made of wood that had been polished over many years.
There were classic bookshelves everywhere and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
In the center were five rows of long tables, each lined with slightly outdated computers, and a printer area in one corner.
As part of my plan, I needed two things.
First, I needed to put my investigative skills into overdrive, skills sharpened by TV series like Criminal Minds, CSI, and Law & Order.
Second, I needed to check out a couple of YouTube tutorials.
Artie had seen Eli print something nervously before running off. So, I had to find out what she printed.
Since those computers and printers belonged to the faculty and administration, they probably had activity-tracking software installed. Maybe I could check the history from the day Eli printed something.
Of course, everything could already have been wiped. Would luck be on my side?
I sat down at one of the computers. The first thing I checked was the list of installed programs. I found one for print logs and opened it.
It let me see everything printed since the last time it was formatted.
I filtered by date: February 25. It took a while to load.
It took so long that I started moving my leg impatiently.
When the list finally appeared, there were six things printed that day.
Eureka! Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the printed files.
It showed the date, the format, whether the print job had failed or was successful, and which computer it had been sent from, along with the webpage linked to the file.
That’s exactly what I wanted. I was seriously thanking the YouTube tutorials for teaching me what to do because I had never been very tech-savvy.
Fully focused on my investigation, I started to open the links for that day’s print outs. Three were university pages, two were files that had been pulled from a USB, and the last printout had been made from a website:
Hmm . . . maybe . . .
Did Eli print a payment slip to rent a car the day before she disappeared?
If she’d gone somewhere, why did she need a rental car? I deduced (yeah, like Sherlock Holmes) that she didn’t want people to know where she was going, which led me to a troubling question: Why?
So, she hadn’t disappeared but instead left of her own accord.
Or at least that’s what it looked like . . .
“Hey, Jude Derry,” I suddenly heard.
When I saw the face suddenly pop up from behind the computer screen, I jumped in fright, let out a scream, and frantically tried to close all the windows I’d opened. I nearly fell out of my chair.
The cause of all this: Aleixandre Cash.
He laughed. I looked at him like he was crazy.
“What’s wrong with you?” I groaned, my voice still trembling and my heart pounding, thinking he might’ve seen something. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Aleixandre continued laughing at me like a little boy proud of his prank.
He rounded the table and jumped up and sat on the edge, next to my computer.
His jet-black hair was slicked back and, as always, his clothes were impeccable, unwrinkled, as if they had been taken straight out of a fashion magazine.
“In my defense, when I came in you were so focused on what you were doing that you didn’t see me,” he clarified once he managed to stop laughing.
I put a hand on my chest.
“Oh, fuck, my lung is going to pop out,” I sighed. He squinted slightly, with amused suspicion.
“Why did you get so scared?” he wanted to know. “Were you up to no good?”
I had only one option: lie.
“I was reading horror stories,” I said matter-of-factly, hoping my heart would stop racing.
“Yeah, right.” He nodded, making it clear he didn’t believe me.
I expected him to keep asking, but he just glanced at the expensive watch on his wrist and then toward the door, like he was waiting for someone.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
I expected an obnoxious Adrik- or Aegan-type response, but he answered straightforwardly.
“I’m meeting a girl who’s going to help me with some reports. She should be here any minute now.”
He didn’t even have a backpack or notebooks or a measly pen with him to do anything.
“Why don’t you meet up in the main library?”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and threw me a smile that seemed to say, I’ll do what I want.
“Do you want me to ask you the same?”
Smart. Very smart. Why was I using a library computer reserved exclusively for faculty and student council members? He was right to be suspicious.
“Well, I was just leaving,” I said.