Chapter 49 Beckett
Theo doesn't answer when I knock, so I let myself in.
It’s dim in here.
The living room is empty. The kitchen is empty. His laptop is open on the desk.
I drop my keys on the counter.
I'm about to call his name when I hear him down the hall.
I walk down and push the bedroom door open.
There he is.
And he’s with Serena.
A phone is propped against the lamp on his nightstand, red light on, recording everything.
I stand in the doorway for a moment.
Serena sees me first — her eyes finding me over Theo's shoulder, widening slightly. Then something calculated moved through them because Serena had never once in her life had a reaction that wasn't also a decision. She doesn't say anything.
Theo doesn't stop.
I go back to the kitchen and wait.
He must be desperate. He hates Serena. I know it’s not her that he wants. Maybe it’s the footage. Maybe she has something on him.
I'm sitting at the counter when the bedroom door opens. Serena comes out first, dressed, her bag over her shoulder, her expression doing the thing it does when she's gotten what she wants. She looks at me. I look at her. And she leaves without saying anything.
Theo comes out a minute later. He’s dressed like nothing happened. He looks at me once and goes to the refrigerator. He takes out two waters and puts one beside me.
“Do I need to say anything?”
“Nope.” He chugs his water.
“I need to know why.”
“Because Cody called her.”
I nod, putting that together. “Are you sure she’s on your side?”
“She’s fucking obsessed with me, so yeah.”
“The second she finds out about––”
“She knows. I had to tell her some bullshit so that she wouldn’t do anything stupid.”
I shrug, opening the water. “I wouldn’t put that much faith in her.”
“By the time this is all finished, anything she says won’t be useful.” He finishes his water. “Why are you here?”
“Where’s the laptop?”
He smashes the water bottle. “Why?”
I lean forward. “Insurance.”
He glares at me. “For what?”
I stare down at the marble countertop and think of how to word this. “Cody’s been following her.”
Theo waits for the punchline.
I run a hand through my hair. “I think he is, at least.” I tap the counter. “I admit that I fucked up.”
He stills. “What did you do?”
“I fucked her this afternoon.”
His face remains unmoving, waiting.
“And when I left, I locked eyes with him as we drove past each other.”
He stares in the distance. “Then what?”
“She looked scared getting in his car.”
“You could’ve fucking called me,” he snaps.
“I did, but you were preoccupied.”
His jaw clenches. “Where did they go?”
“To his house.”
Theo doesn't respond right away.
He stands at the counter, looking at the space between us. Then he walks past me and smacks the back of my head.
"Fuck—"
He reaches into a cabinet and pulls out Cody’s laptop.
"Let's go."
He drives.
I take the passenger seat, watch the city move past the windows, and say nothing for the first four minutes because Theo is running something and interrupting it costs more than it buys.
Then I say, "Have you noticed Silas has been out of the loop?"
Theo shrugs. "Not worried about it."
"I think that's your problem."
"You think." He changes lanes. "Doesn't mean it is."
I let it go. Not because he's right, but because this is not the moment to fight about Silas. Silas is a problem for a different hour. Right now, we're moving through Sunday evening traffic toward a girl who got into a car looking scared, and I did nothing but follow them.
Judge Ravenshaw's house takes twenty minutes.
The gate is closed. The drive is empty.
"They're not here," I say.
He's already pulling away.
We drive our happy asses back to Elm Hall.
Her Range Rover is in the lot.
We both see it at the same time. Theo slows. We scan the lot for Cody's car, but it’s not here.
I'm out of the passenger seat before Theo has fully stopped moving.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"I was just up there," I say. "I'm going to check."
"Beck, you—"
I close the door.
I cross the lot and push through the Elm Hall entrance. I take the stairs because the elevator is slow and I don't have the patience right now. Fifth floor. The hallway. Her door.
I knock.
Adela's roommate answers — I've seen her once, briefly, the morning after the first time I was here. She looks at me with the specific blankness of someone who doesn't know whether to be alarmed.
"I forgot something," I say.
She steps back.
I push Adela's door open.
Everything is exactly as it was when I left.
Her coat on the floor where I dropped it. The books on every surface. The bed unmade.
She's not here.
I stand in the doorway for three seconds.
I close the door, and I'm back down the stairs and across the lot. I jump into Theo's passenger seat.
"She's not there."
Theo pulls out of the lot.
"Her coat is still on the floor from when I took it off," I say.
He drives. The city moving past. He's putting distance between Elm Hall and us.
"What do you know, Beck?" The tone means he's already suspecting I know something important.
I exhale.
"She told me she was going to break up with him."
Theo's hands stay exactly where they are on the wheel.
"Today," I say. "This afternoon. She said she was done."
He stares into the traffic.
The city moves.
"Fuck!"
It comes out of him like something physical. One word, full velocity, his fist hitting the wheel once. Then he's quiet again. Jaw set. Eyes forward.
I look out the window.
Silas has been out of the loop.
I don't say it again.
I think it.
We drive.