Chapter 31
Vero and I crept around the back of the sorority house thirty minutes later. It was well after midnight, and most of the house was dark. A light was on in Zoey’s room, and I could just make out the murmur of voices through the glass.
I rapped softly on the window. Arnold started barking, and Cam shushed him as the shade pulled back. Zoey unlocked the window and slid it open.
“Thank god you’re okay!” she whispered. She took Vero under her arms and helped her through the opening. “What took you so long? We were worried the police found you.”
“Our Uber driver refused to give us a ride,” Vero said through blue-tinged lips.
“Because you look like that chick on the door at the end of Titanic?” Cam asked.
“Because of the handcuffs, you idiot! He said if I didn’t get out of his car, he was going to call nine-one-one and report us.”
Cam laughed. “How’d you talk him out of that?”
“With fifty in cash and some cheeseburgers. Here,” I said, thrusting the McDonald’s bag at him as I climbed in and shut the window. “Share these with Zoey. There are enough for both of you.”
“No Slushy?” Cam asked.
“Be grateful you got burgers.” I wasn’t about to walk into a 7-Eleven with a waterlogged woman in handcuffs. The drive-through was the best I could do.
Cam opened a burger and frowned into his bun. “I specifically said no onions,” he grumbled, scraping them off.
Zoey took a blanket off her bed and draped it over Vero’s shoulders. She offered Vero a bite of her cheeseburger, and Vero greedily gobbled it down.
“What now?” Cam asked, feeding a chunk of his to Arnold.
“We thought we knew who the thieves were, but now we’re not so sure,” I explained. “We need to talk to Ava again.”
Zoey stopped chewing. She swallowed hard. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. You saw how angry she was the last time she found you in here. What if she calls Celeste? Or the police?”
“The police are already looking for us,” Vero said. “It’s only a matter of time before they find us. We have to figure out what happened to the money, and it has to be tonight.”
“But can’t you just run?” Zoey asked. “You were safe and happy in Virginia! I’m sure Cam can fix the belt. Maybe you can take his car and just keep going—”
Cam’s head snapped up. “I’m not voting for that.”
“Running isn’t an option,” I said over them.
“I have two small children waiting for me at home, and we both have families and loved ones we can’t—and won’t—walk away from.
Whoever took the backpack had help from someone inside this house.
Ava and Mia were the only other board members with access to a master key.
But it was Ava who went to Vero’s room that morning, once she knew the police were here. ”
Zoey paled. “You think Ava took the money?”
“We’ve exhausted every other possibility,” Vero said solemnly. “She’s the only one who could have done it.”
“But Ava wouldn’t!” Zoey whispered, as if she were afraid of being overheard through the walls. “She was chapter vice president! You can’t accuse her of stealing it. She could get in a lot of trouble.”
“I’m in a lot of trouble!” Vero reminded her. “They all accused me of stealing it! And the only way I’m going to get out of this is to figure out what really happened that night. So are you going to help me or not?”
Zoey gnawed her lip.
“All you have to do is message Ava and ask her to come down here,” Vero said.
Zoey looked sick as she set down her cheeseburger. She pulled out her phone and sent off a hesitant text.
A moment later, there was a knock on the door. “That was fast,” Vero said.
Zoey unbolted the lock. As soon as she turned the knob, Mia burst in with Bennett on her heels. “I don’t know what the two of you think you’re doing here, but someone had better explain to me what the hell is going on!” she snapped.
Vero looked at them suspiciously. “How did you two get in here?”
Mia held up a key card. “I knocked on Ava’s window, woke her up, and told her I needed her key. I was on my way to her room when I heard you all yammering in here.”
“This entire situation has gotten completely out of hand,” Bennett said.
His tie was askew, there were sweat rings under his arms, and his hair was sticking up in every direction, as if he’d chased Mia the entire way here.
“Will someone please explain to my fiancée that I didn’t steal her sorority’s money.
And I didn’t murder my friend. For Chrissakes, Mia, I was with Theo thirty minutes ago.
If you don’t believe me, ask Veronica. She and her friend were there, too.
” The pleading look Bennett threw me felt laced with a threat.
Mia gawked at us. “But I saw you both at the party tonight. You told me—”
“We were wrong,” I said, holding Bennett’s gaze. “We thought we knew who had the money, but we didn’t find it. And Theo is alive. We were wrong about that, too.”
“We weren’t wrong about everything,” Vero muttered.
“What do you mean?” Mia looked at each of us in turn. The strained silence was interrupted by a second knock on the door.
“Zoey? Mia? It’s Ava,” a hushed voice called through it. “Let me in.”
Mia shoved Bennett out of the way. She threw open the lock, grabbed Ava by the front of her pajama top, and dragged her into the room with the rest of us.
Ava rubbed sleep from her eyes, squinting against the light. She took one look at Bennett, then me, then Cam, then Vero. “What’s going on? What are you all doing here?”
“I’d like the answer to that, too,” Mia said, crossing her arms. “Bennett just told me that Veronica and her friend were at Jackson’s shop tonight, making some pretty wild accusations about where the money disappeared to.”
“Don’t be mad,” Zoey pleaded.
“Vero and I just have some questions for you, Ava,” I said.
“I already told you everything I know!”
Vero shook her head. “You haven’t told us what really happened the morning the money went missing.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “You’re all delusional. I am not having this conversation with you.” She turned for the door.
Mia bolted the lock. “We are all having this conversation.”
Zoey wrung her hands. “But Ava already said she doesn’t know anything. Maybe we should just let her—”
Mia cut her off. “As the former president of this sorority and the senior-most Kappa Gamma here, I am advising you both to take a seat. No one is leaving. We’re going to get to the bottom of all this, right now.”
Ava and Zoey sat reluctantly on the bed.
“Now,” Mia said with a tone of authority, “who wants to start?”
Vero opened her mouth to speak but closed it as we all registered a sudden commotion in the hall. Doors opened one by one. Voices murmured, growing louder until they were calling from room to room.
What’s going on?
Why are the police downstairs?
It’s the middle of the night. Is everyone okay?
A woman’s commanding voice spoke over them: “I need you all to go back inside and close your doors until a member of campus security or Officer Oates comes to your rooms to talk to you.”
“That’s Celeste,” Ava whispered. Zoey looked like she might be sick.
I nearly choked. “Officer Oates is here?”
Cam yelped as Vero kicked him with her ankle monitor. “I thought you said this thing wasn’t working!” she whispered.
“It’s not! Someone must have tipped them off.” Cam scrambled for the duct-taped belt on Zoey’s desk, looking around frantically for someplace to hide it. Bennett shot me a warning look.
I pried back the shade just enough to peep outside.
Blue lights flashed against the glass. “We can’t go out the window.
There’s a campus police car in the staff lot.
It looks like we’re trapped.” Down the hall, the campus police were already knocking on doors.
We had minutes at the most until they’d get to Zoey’s.
Ava shot to her feet. “I’m not staying in this room and becoming an accomplice to whatever it is you’re doing here.”
Vero beat her to the door and held it shut. “You’re not leaving until you answer my questions. Did you or did you not let yourself into my room the morning the money went missing?”
Ava’s mouth hardened. “Why would you even ask me that? I don’t see how that’s important—”
“It’s a simple question! Did you break into my room?”
“I didn’t break into your room! I was on the exec board. I had a key!”
“So you did go into my room.”
“I knocked, and you didn’t answer! I opened the door to see if you were there. You weren’t, so I left.”
Vero scoffed. “After you took the backpack out of my closet and threw it out the window.”
“What are you talking about?” Ava snapped, ignoring Mia and Ben’s curious stares.
“I never touched the backpack, Veronica! I never opened your damn closet! And I definitely never threw anything out the window! You can ask Zoey. She was in the hallway when I came out. She was probably watching me the whole time.”
Every eye in the room turned to Zoey. Zoey looked down at her shoes.
“Is that true?” Vero asked her. “Did you see Ava go into my room?”
“Yes, but—”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It didn’t seem important, Veronica!” Her voice rose with desperation as she explained. “She was only in there for a second, just like she said. And I didn’t want anyone to get in trouble!”
Ava crossed her arms. “Go on, Zoey. Tell her what you saw.”
Zoey’s voice wobbled. “I was in the kitchen that morning when the police showed up. There was this big commotion in the library. Emory Willingham was in there with his parents. They were yelling at Celeste about how they’d lost all this money and it was all our fault because we’d been hosting the poker nights.