Chapter 26 #2
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look kind of old to be an undergrad,” one of the girls said. Her eyelids looked heavy, and her words came out slurred.
“I’m not,” I said, trying not to think too hard about which of my features had given away my age.
I wasn’t foolish enough to assume I could pass for a pledge, but I still got carded when I bought wine at the grocery store, and I had let myself believe (maybe a few years too long) that a good bottle of moisturizer had been enough to pull it off.
“I’m a grad assistant,” I said, thinking on my feet.
They nodded as if this all made sense. Or maybe they were just too tipsy to care.
“Are you a grad student?” I asked Mia.
She shook her head. “I got my BS last year. I’m a teacher—AP English at Washington Academy,” she said.
If Mia had landed a teaching job right out of college, I didn’t imagine her gambling exploits had made it onto her CV.
Which probably meant she hadn’t suffered much of a punishment beyond being stripped of her leadership post and performing community service with the rest of her chapter.
“Wow, that’s lucky. It’s a tough job market out there,” I said, trying to make conversation.
“It helped that my fiancé’s father sits on the board of the school.
They’re pretty big donors.” The diamond on her fourth finger gave a brief flash as she sipped her drink with a self-deprecating shrug.
I couldn’t tell if Mia’s confession was a humble brag or if she was genuinely embarrassed to admit as much.
No wonder Ben had been so concerned with his fiancée’s reputation.
I didn’t imagine it would look good for him—or his wealthy parents—if Mia’s past mistakes were to be brought to light.
I wondered how much he really knew about where she had gone that night. And exactly whom he was protecting by not telling anyone about it.
But how was I going to get her alone so Vero and I could ask her? I couldn’t sit here all night making small talk while I waited for her to decide she needed to pee. Maybe I could encourage her to seek out a bathroom a little faster.
I stared at her pointedly until she couldn’t ignore me any longer.
I smiled awkwardly while discreetly tapping my front teeth, the universal symbol for you have something stuck between them.
Mia’s lips closed. She pressed her mouth shut tight, covering it with her palm as she stood and set down her cup.
“I’m going to the bathroom. Don’t let anyone near my drink.
” She wound her way out from behind the coffee table and slipped off into the crowd.
I waited half a second before excusing myself, too, firing off a fast text to Mitch’s phone as I followed Mia through the bustling party and down the hall.
Finlay: She’s on her way to you.
Mitch: It’s about damn time. I don’t know how much longer I can stand it in here. Some freshman just lost his lunch.
Mia took one look at the line and headed straight to the front of it.
“Sorry, pledge, it’s an emergency.” She brushed the baby-faced frat boy aside as a sickly-looking freshman tumbled out of the bathroom.
Mia wedged herself through the open door before anyone behind her could object.
There was definitely a pecking order in this place, and Mia was clearly sitting at the top of it.
I shoved my foot in the door before she could close it. Fighting to hold it open, I called over my shoulder, “Sorry, everyone, toilet’s jammed. Try the one upstairs.” The people waiting behind me shouted and groaned as I forced myself inside and locked the door.
“Get out! I was in here first!” Mia cried, looking at me as if I’d lost my mind.
Probably because I had. It was the only logical explanation for why I had just cornered this woman in a frat house bathroom.
The shower curtain screeched behind her, and Vero climbed out of the tub.
Mia gasped. “Veronica! What are you doing here? Have you lost your mind?”
“I might have answered that differently twenty minutes ago. Now I’m not so sure.
” Vero waved away the stench that lingered in the room.
“You and I need to talk. Sit,” she said, slapping the toilet lid closed.
Mia made a face when Vero pushed her down onto it.
“Why did you lie to Celeste and the cops about where you were the night the money went missing?”
Mia looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Mia. I already talked to Ava. I know you left the party that night and you used Ava’s key card to get into the house.”
“Fine!” She threw up her hands. “You’ve got me, Veronica. I borrowed her key card and got a ride home from the party.”
“A ride with Theo.”
“Yes, a ride home with Theo! I don’t know what you’re so upset about. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“If it wasn’t a big deal, why didn’t you tell anyone?”
Mia’s lip curled with contempt. “By the time Celeste and the police dug in and started asking us where we all were that night, you were already gone, and so was the money, so don’t look at me like I’m the one who’s suspicious!”
“Forget Celeste and the police! We were supposed to be sisters! What ever happened to KG’s before D’s? You left the party with the guy I was sleeping with, and you didn’t think you should at least tell me?”
“Look,” Mia said, the color rising in her cheeks.
“Ben and I got in an argument during the party. I told him you and I had a fight about the money, and I thought maybe you were right—that we should get it out of the house and deposit it into an account. He kept telling me it was a bad idea—that any bank was going to want to know where we’d come up with all that cash.
He was terrified I’d get caught. He told me if you didn’t want to hold the cash in your room, he would hold it for us at his house until after graduation.
I told him I didn’t think their frat house was secure enough.
He got mad and accused me of not trusting his friends.
We got in a huge fight, and I stormed out.
I wanted to go home, but I’d left my wallet in his room, so I found Ava, and she let me borrow her key card.
I was going to take an Uber home, but then I saw Theo getting into his car, and I asked him for a ride.
Ben didn’t want me to tell anyone about it because he was afraid of how it might look to the police. ”
“Like you could have gone back to the sorority house in the middle of the night, when you knew I wasn’t home, so you could take the money and give it to your boyfriend’s buddies to hide for you.”
“I didn’t,” Mia insisted, looking Vero straight in the eyes. “I went straight to my room and I went to sleep.”
Vero didn’t look convinced. “Did Theo come inside the house with you?”
Mia flinched as if Vero had slapped her in the face. “No, I didn’t take Theo inside! Everyone knew you two were seeing each other! What kind of friend do you think I am?”
“The kind that kept her mouth shut about what really happened that night and then let everyone think I was guilty.”
“The money went missing from your room, Veronica. It wasn’t exactly a stretch.”
“Where was Theo going when he left the party?” I asked.
Mia turned to me, vexed, as if she’d just remembered I was there. “I didn’t ask, and Theo didn’t say.”
“So you have no idea where he went after he dropped you off?”
“I don’t know! I was upset, and I’d had a lot to drink. He might have said something about meeting up with Jackson.”
Vero and I exchanged a glance. Where would he and Jackson have been going at two thirty in the morning? No stores or even bars would have been open at that hour.
“And you’re sure Theo didn’t follow you into the house when he dropped you off?” Vero asked.
“I’m sure. He didn’t even shut off the car.
He dropped me off out front and he was gone before I made it into the building.
It looked like he was in a hurry. Next thing I knew, it was ten in the morning and Ava was banging on my door.
She barged in with my wallet and my coat, still wearing the clothes she’d worn to the party the night before.
She said her cousin had just given her a ride back to campus and when they pulled up to the house, a bunch of campus police were parked out front.
She said Celeste stopped her in the hallway as soon as she’d walked in the door and told her to round up all the board members for an emergency meeting.
“Ava was completely freaking out. She said she’d knocked on your door, but you didn’t answer.
The two of us pulled ourselves together and went downstairs, and that’s when Celeste told us they knew all about the poker nights.
That pledge Emory Willingham—remember him?
He was the freshman who lost, like, thirty grand in one night—he spilled everything to his parents, and his dad reported us.
Celeste called us all downstairs. She asked us how much money we had made from the poker nights and where we were keeping it.
We had to tell her. By that point, we had no choice.
She said the consequences would only be worse if we refused to cooperate. ”
“What happened then?” I asked.
“Ava cracked.” Mia turned back to Vero. “She told them about the backpack in your closet. Celeste took her master key and went to search your room. When she came out, she said the money wasn’t there.
I told her it had to be; I had seen it in your closet the night before when you and I were arguing about what to do with it.
She asked if any of us knew where you had spent the night, but none of us could say for sure after everyone left the party—”
“Wait a minute,” Vero said, her focus sharpening. “Say that again.”
“What part?”
“You said we fought about the money … but I wasn’t the only one you fought with about the money that night. You said Ben wanted it out of the house, too.”
“That’s not the same thing,” Mia argued.