Chapter 27
Officer Oates snapped a set of cuffs around Vero’s wrists and marched her down the hallway.
I followed close behind them, checking my phone as I hurried to catch up.
Where the hell was Cam, and why hadn’t he checked his messages?
And why hadn’t all these drunk people left the party and gone home?
The answer to that question became clear as I followed Officer Oates and Vero outside.
There was a single unmarked police car parked at the foot of the driveway.
“You want to tell me why you’re not at home?” Officer Oates escorted Vero roughly through the gawking crowd in the front yard. Blue lights flashed in the front grille of Oates’s car, making the house look even more like a rave than it had before.
“I had an essential errand to run.”
Officer Oates stirred the air with a finger. “Does this place look like Wednesday night confession to you?”
“Give it a few hours. I’m betting everyone here will have plenty to confess once they’ve sobered up a little.” Vero winced as Oates shoved her a little too hard, propelling her faster down the driveway.
“How is it you were in your mother’s house fifteen minutes ago, and then suddenly, like magic, your GPS beacon disappears and you pop up at a frat party?”
“No idea,” Vero said. “Maybe I was drugged at my wild pizza party. One minute I was there, and then suddenly I was here. And that’s the god’s honest truth.”
“Are you suggesting I send you for a drug test?”
Vero clamped her mouth shut.
Officer Oates jerked her to a stop in front of her car. She knelt and lifted Vero’s pant leg, tipping her head to get a better look at the ankle monitor. She glared up at Vero like she wanted to wring her neck. “It’s soaking wet.”
“I fell in the pool.”
“Was that before or after you were drugged by a group of senior citizens and forced to attend a kegger?”
“Very funny.”
“You think I’m enjoying this?” Officer Oates raised her voice, getting up in Vero’s face.
“Nothing about this is funny, Ms. Ramirez. Being on house arrest is a privilege, and you blew it. All you had to do was stay home, watch some TV, and wait for your trial date. You could have gone to court, done your time, scored an early release for good behavior, and put your one stupid mistake behind you. Instead, you went and racked up a few more charges. Tampering with your monitor is also a crime, Ms. Ramirez.”
“I wasn’t tampering! Those water incidents were both accidents.”
“Those accidents are going to cost you.”
“I already paid for two monitors. I’m not paying for another one,” Vero said stubbornly.
“You won’t need another one. Not where you’re going.”
“Where am I going?”
“You violated your house arrest. You’ll spend tonight in lockup. Tomorrow you’ll meet with the judge. After that, you’ll be transferred to the county jail until your court date comes up.”
“No! Wait!” Vero dug in her heels as Officer Oates nudged her around the hood of the car. “You don’t understand. I cannot go to jail tonight!”
“Don’t panic!” I called out to Vero as Officer Oates deposited her into the back seat. “I’ll call your mother—”
“Do not call my mother! She’ll completely freak out!”
I watched, frustrated and helpless, as Officer Oates buckled her in. Vero wasn’t the one who belonged in the back of that police car, but I had no way to prove it. And sharing the pieces of the puzzle we had managed to find would only make Vero sound guiltier.
“Call Ramón—” she managed to say before Officer Oates slammed the door.
Officer Oates got into the front seat, one leg still out of the car as she made a call to Dispatch.
I didn’t recognize the local codes, but I heard enough to get the gist. “… Noise violations … serving minors … underage drinking…” This party was about to be busted.
More police would be called in, citations would be issued, arrests would be made, and the entire place would probably be searched.
I ran back to the house, scurrying around the side of it to retrieve the sopping-wet transmitter belt from under the bathroom window. I held it close to my body, concealing it from view as I hurried back to the Eggplant, relieved to find the Lincoln right where I’d left it.
I paused when I saw the back end of the car bounce.
It was moving, the chassis squeaking as it rocked gently up and down.
The tinted windows were fogged, the interior too dark to make out. The disco ball was on, spraying iridescent colors over the glass. I stood beside the driver’s side door, my eyes growing wide when I heard Zoey’s breathy voice over the low music playing in the car.
“Am I doing it right?”
“That’s right,” Cam said eagerly. “You’ve got it. See, you’re a natural!” The car bounced a little faster. Zoey giggled as the bouncing picked up speed. “Eaaaaasy,” he warned her, “it’s sensitive.”
“Too much?” she asked through a gasp.
“No. Go as hard and fast as you want.” The squeaking got louder. The back end of the Lincoln caught a little air. Zoey laughed. Cam let out a whoop.
That’s it! My patience was fried. Vero was being arrested, Cam and Zoey were both underage, a slew of cops was going to be there any minute, and we didn’t have time for the two of them to be caught in flagrante in Mrs. Haggerty’s hooptie.
I banged on the window. “Cam! Zoey!”
The window cranked down a few inches. Zoey sat behind the giant steering wheel, her finger poised over the hydraulic controls.
Cam was in the passenger seat, both hands braced on the dashboard as the car continued to bob.
I blinked, surprised to see Arnold sitting between them and even more shocked to find they both had their clothes on.
“Turn off the damn disco light! The party’s being busted, and the cops are on their way.”
Zoey paled.
Cam reached across the dashboard and pushed a button. The disco light turned off, and the back end of the Lincoln dropped with a final bounce. I climbed into the back seat.
“Where’s Vero?” Zoey asked, frantically using her sleeve to clear the fog from the windshield.
“In the back of that police car.” I pointed out Officer Oates’s sedan. “Vero fell in the pool. The transmitter on her belt must have died before her ankle monitor did. That must be how Oates knew she was here. Didn’t you see my texts?”
Cam dug his phone from his back pocket. He winced as he read my messages. “Shit! Please tell me the cops didn’t find my spoofer.”
I shook my head and tossed the belt into his lap. “Nobody saw it. We heard Oates coming. We had just enough time to throw the belt out the window before anyone … Oh!”
I felt the tension slacken in my face as something clicked in my brain.
Cam turned around to stare at me. “Mrs. D? Are you okay?”
“That’s it,” I murmured. The answer to the mystery had been right under our noses all along. Or more accurately, out the window. I stared across the road at the frat house, remembering our conversation with Mia in the bathroom during the party, right before we’d thrown the belt outside.
Suddenly, I knew who had stolen the money. And I knew how they did it. I just needed proof.
My pulse raced. “I need to talk to Vero. Right now!”
“Whatever you need to say to her, you’d better do it quick, Mrs. D.”
Officer Oates set her microphone back in its mount and started her engine. My only chance of keeping Vero out of jail was to prove someone else stole the money, and I couldn’t do that without her help. “I can’t talk to her in front of the police. I need some way to get her away from the car.”
“I’ve got you, Mrs. D.” Cam slung the transmitter belt over his shoulder.
“Zoey, stay with the Eggplant. Keep the engine running. Be ready to get the hell out of here as soon as I come back. If I don’t make it, I’ll meet you at the gas station at the end of the street. ” His door opened with a screech.
“Cameron! What are you doing?” I shouted after him.
Zoey grinned as she watched him sprint across the lawn and duck around the back of the frat house. “I have absolutely no idea.”
A moment later, a figure appeared on a small second-floor balcony above the front door.
Cam stood by the railing, backlit by the house lights.
A lumpy shadow distorted his silhouette, but it was definitely him.
He gulped down the contents of a red plastic cup and tossed it over the side.
I watched in horror as he spread open his jacket.
The transmitter belt was buckled around his waist, the duct-taped battery packs on full display.
He shouted down at the people on the lawn.
“Listen up, assholes! I have a list of demands!” A collective gasp rose from the crowd.
“I want an orange Slushy and six Quarter Pounders with Cheese. And no onions!” Cam demanded.
“If I see so much as one damn onion in my food, someone is going to pay, and it will not be my dog. Do you understand?”
Someone shouted, “Everybody run! He’s wearing a bomb!”
A wave of screaming, panicked partygoers ran for their cars. People inside the house started fleeing for the exits, a stampede building as they fought to get out.
Officer Oates thew open her car door and dropped to one knee, shielding herself behind her vehicle as she reached for her service weapon.
She spotted Cam on the balcony and sprung to action.
She fought her way upstream through the onslaught of inebriated, screaming college students as they poured out of the front door.
Cam caught sight of her as she made a beeline toward the house.
He stumbled back. “Screw the cheeseburgers! I’m out!
” He vaulted over the railing and landed on all fours in the grass.
He took off like a shot, his long legs pumping as he disappeared around the side of the house.
Officer Oates’s car sat less than a hundred feet away from me. Its front door was still flung open wide, a ribbon of pale exhaust unspooling from its tailpipe.
“Find Cam and get yourselves out of here,” I told Zoey.
“What about you?” she asked as I scrambled out of the back seat.
“Don’t wait for me. Just go!” I made a run for Officer Oates’s car. The Eggplant roared behind me, tires smoking as Zoey peeled down the road.
I got into the driver’s seat of the police car and slammed the door.
Vero’s face was gobsmacked in the rearview mirror. “Finn? What the hell are you doing?”
“Nothing you wouldn’t do for me,” I said, buckling my seat belt. “I know who stole the money, and it wasn’t who we thought. I can prove it, but I can’t do it alone, so you’re coming with me.”
“Are you crazy?” she cried. “Stealing a police car is a felony!”
“I’m not stealing it. I’m just moving it.”
“That’s not how this is going to look in court, Finlay!”
“I know! That’s exactly the point! I didn’t break into the car.
I didn’t have to. The key was already in it.
All I had to do was let myself in while everyone else was distracted and move the vehicle someplace else.
” It was exactly how the thief had gotten into Vero’s room and moved the cash.
They hadn’t broken into her room in the dead of night.
They’d done it with a key, in broad daylight, while everyone was too busy panicking to notice.
“Have you stopped to think how you’re going to explain this to Nick? You are crossing a line you can’t come back from!”
I paused as I considered everything I had already trusted him with this week. He knew how hard it had been for me to walk away from my house, to leave my kids. I knew he would do anything to protect them, because I would do anything to protect my family, too.
“I’m going to tell him the truth. Nick knows there are things about my life that come with the territory.
My children, their tantrums, the preschool pickup line, and nosy neighborhood moms …
it all comes with the territory. You know what else comes with the territory?
You, Vero! Because you are my family, and we’re a package deal, and Nick will either be okay with what I’ve done or he won’t, but I am not leaving this party without you, so unless you want me to sling you over my shoulder and carry you out of here, we’re taking the car! ”
“Well, since you put it that way.”
I shifted into reverse and stomped on the gas.