8
Aegan Cash’s secrets had secrets of their own
“What?”
Artie wiped her nose and went back into her room, this time leaving the door open.
She headed straight for her bed. I expected her to sit or throw herself down on it before bursting into tears like a Disney princess.
But by now, it was clear there were no princesses in this story, and no one would get their happily-ever-after.
Artie lifted up the mattress and grabbed something from under it. When I realized it was a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, I looked at her, stunned.
“Do you smoke?” I asked, surprised because, honestly, from day one, Artie had seemed like a good girl who stayed out of trouble. Now she was pulling cigarettes out from under her bed?
My suspicions that there was more to her than what she let people see had just been confirmed.
“When I’m stressing out over exams,” she sighed as she lit one, “or things . . . like that.”
She took a drag as if that was all she needed, then sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard with her knees drawn to her chest. I walked over to sit on the edge expectantly, anxious to hear what she had to say.
“Well?” I encouraged her to tell me. “What should I know?”
She didn’t say anything right away. She stared off into space for a minute, her eyes watery, and then, as if she’d already made up her mind, she looked at me, no longer resembling the fearful, nervous girl I was used to.
She looked like someone who’d had the weight of the world on her shoulders and was finally free, and it was clear she was ready to open up about something she hadn’t shared with anyone else.
“Have you ever heard of Eli Denvers?” she asked.
I thought about it.
“I remember what Dash said, that the Denverses are one of the influential families who make annual donations to Tagus,” I replied. “But I don’t know who Eli is.”
“She studied here last year, and she was Aegan’s girlfriend,” she said. “The official girlfriend, the one he’d known since high school, the one who didn’t have to put up with the ninety-day rule.”
When I heard this, I was gobsmacked.
I couldn’t imagine Aegan in a serious relationship. Firstly, what girl had the patience—and the lack of dignity—required to love that troglodyte? And secondly, was that troglodyte even capable of loving anyone back?
“Okay, what happened?” I asked, now really curious. “Because I would’ve seen or at least head about her by now.”
Artie exhaled smoke before answering me.
“What happened was, one day, Eli disappeared.”
“From Tagus?” I asked, confused.
“From everywhere.”
“Did her parents pull her out of here or . . . ?”
“No, she just didn’t show up to class one day, and nobody has laid eyes on her since.”
Artie studied my reaction. She could see I was stunned after such an unexpected revelation. In that moment, I wondered if fate had just slammed something in my face that couldn’t be mere coincidence, something like a sign that said, You didn’t see this coming, did you?
A flood of questions ran through my mind.
“Nobody knows where she went?”
She shook her head. “No, it was all really strange.” I could see she wasn’t really comfortable talking about this.
“One day Eli was walking around campus holding Aegan’s hand and the next she was gone.
Then, a week later, her social media profiles were gone.
All her active profiles had been deleted.
If you look now, there’s no sign of Eli Denvers since last year.
Her family’s still around, but there’s nothing about her. ”
I didn’t try to hide my confusion. “That’s so strange,” I admitted.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “But it seemed like nobody thought so, because it was forgotten a few days later. As is usual here, a juicier bit of gossip started going around, so people moved on.”
I stood up from the bed with an expression that said, Wait a minute.
“But what if she went to another university or moved to another country?” I considered aloud. “Sometimes people leave without—”
“No way,” she interrupted me. “I looked into it.”
“You looked into it?” I blurted out, stunned, and only because I was so surprised that someone as fearful as Artie had done something like that.
“Yeah, because . . .”
Her lips tightened, pausing as if unsure about sharing the bombshell, as though an inner voice was telling her to shut up. But, fucking hell, she couldn’t just leave me hanging like that.
“What?” I said, trying to get her to keep going.
Artie pursed her lips and silently shook her head, showing her distress.
Impatient, I stepped in front of her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and looked straight into her eyes.
I tried to look supportive and understanding; I wanted her to know that by confiding in me, our relationship as roommates had reached a new stage.
“What, Artie?” I insisted. “Spit it out.”
She let out a loud sigh, her expression a mix of concern and courage. “I think Aegan made her disappear,” she whispered.
Holy Mother of Christ! Was this really happening? Had Artie really just said that? My heart started racing; a mix of thrill, terror, surprise, and confusion hit me like a slap in the face.
“That’s a really serious accusation,” I said. Artie nodded ruefully and took another anxious drag of her cigarette, so she didn’t start crying again.
“I know, I know, but it’s just that . . .”
Then she told me everything.
One day last year, she’d left campus with a guy.
They went to a hotel restaurant outside Tagus.
Just before going inside, Artie saw Aegan leaving the hotel with a girl she’d never seen before.
Leaving a hotel with someone might not seem suspicious, but seeing them kiss proved they weren’t there just to talk.
The day before that was the last time Eli was seen around campus.
She didn’t show up to her classes. She’d vanished from Tagus and was nowhere to be seen again.
“Well, I’m not surprised that Aegan cheated on her,” I admitted, “because, like, can you imagine him being faithful? I can’t. Maybe she left after realizing she’d been cheated on.”
“Maybe she could’ve left Tagus because of that, but vanishing into thin air?
” Artie stressed. “It’s one thing to leave because you’re angry.
It’s another thing to delete all your social media when your family are all basically socialites.
And then they never even talk about her? As if . . . she’s dead.”
Dead. The word sent a shiver down my spine.
The room, which smelled of cigarette smoke, fell silent.
Artie was taking drag after drag, gripped by fear and doubt.
I could see she was still wrestling with her emotions and could break down at any moment, which was okay, because I was certain she had more to say.
And the thought of there being more to this intriguing Eli bombshell was sending my adrenaline through the roof.
It was wrong, but I needed to hear the rest. We weren’t going anywhere until she told me everything.
I pressed.
“But there’s no evidence of Aegan doing something to her . . .” I shrugged. “So, the only logical explanation is that she left in a rage when she found out that he’d cheated on her, right?”
Artie’s fingers trembled around the cigarette as she took another deep drag.
“Or is there more to it?” I cautiously asked her.
She hesitated, frightened. I placed a hand on her leg to reassure her.
“You can trust me,” I added. “You know I’ll never side with them. Besides, when it comes to secrets, believe me when I say that I’m great at keeping them.”
After a long silence, she angrily put her cigarette out in the ashtray on the bedside table. Again, she seemed determined. She stood up from the bed and lifted the mattress. Fucking hell, how many things did she stash in there? This time she brought out something different: a USB key.
I was a little unsure where she was going with this, but I waited as she grabbed her laptop from the bedside table, turned it on, and stuck in the device.
“I’ll show you a video,” she said. “It’s a video from a CCTV camera installed in the Tagus library, but not the current library that everybody knows; it’s from the old library, which was closed last year to regular students and reserved only for teachers, administrative staff, and council members.”
After searching for the file, Artie asked me to sit down with her to go through the footage. I watched, so intrigued that I couldn’t stop tapping my foot on the floor.
The footage came on in color, but it was grainy and blurry.
It showed a row of tables with outdated computers and a printer.
There was a girl sitting in front of one of the computers.
She had long, curly reddish hair. You couldn’t really see her facial features beyond the heart-shaped face, small nose, and full lips.
I suspected Dash would’ve said that she was a “caramel-skinned goddess.” However, what caught my attention was her expression; she seemed really nervous.
She clicked the mouse anxiously for a minute, then got up from her chair and rushed over to the printer.
She waited for the printer to spit out a sheet, then ran to her chair, did something on the computer, and grabbed her backpack.
She threw it over her shoulder, quickly, while looking all around. And then she was out of there.
Artie closed the video window and removed the USB key.
“That was Eli the day before she went missing,” she said, now looking at me with trepidation. “Did you spot anything important?”
“Well, she looked scared, nervously printed something out, and then took off,” I summarized. I looked at Artie, no doubt a hint of confusion on my face. “Where did you get it?”
She scratched the back of her neck.