“I get it, but I’m also scarred for life,” he says, his tone playful. “So, there’s one thing.” He scrolls up to a text, shows me. “He must live in Whitley. She mentions she can sneak in to see him, that Tyler showed her how.”
“Wow, mentioning her boyfriend to her…other boyfriend. Awkward.”
Ethan laughs. “But helpful. This rules out most lower levelers, narrows it down to, say, sixty-five people?”
“Oh, great, only sixty-five,” I drawl.
“I know, I know. But…” Then he rockets off the bed, cutting across the room in three long strides. He stops in front of Emma’s whiteboard, which is affixed to the back of her closet door. He erases the “affirmation for the day,” a cheesy thing Emma used to do religiously but gave up on at some point. A tiny space inside me aches as another vestige of Emma disappears forever. Even if it was a quote from Mean Girls.
Ethan begins to write out names, and I spot the pattern.
“Guys on the FIRST Robotics team, okay. You’re missing Rajesh.”
“Beau is white, remember?”
Oh, how I’d like to forget.
“She did tech for drama, too. Hold on.” I pull up the school website and navigate to student organizations. Ethan adds the names of any junior or senior boys from the latest production photo. I backtrack to the FIRST team page in case we missed anyone. Ethan catches me frowning at the image.
“Something wrong?”
“Professor Butler,” I say. “Do you think…”
“He doesn’t live on campus, so no.” Now Ethan frowns. “But Professor Griffin is one of the faculty in residence at Whitley. Drama sponsor.”
Ethan adds him to the list.
We crawl through each of Emma’s activities on campus, all her classes. We end up with twenty-two people, because Claflin is lousy with white dudes.
“Now we go through the list, narrow it down to who she would have realistically hooked up with, compare it to the texts. Maybe we’ll spark on something,” Ethan suggests.
Am I even the best judge of who Emma would be into? I’m basing it on the Emma I thought I knew. The roommate and friend who always had to be the center of attention (at least when Avery wasn’t around), but you didn’t fault her for it. Because she was fun, freewheeling, clever. Emma entertained, was never a stick-in-the-mud about things. Everyone liked her, I thought. Can I trust my own gut?
I read Beau’s messages carefully. Then I see an exchange that makes my blood run cold.
Babe, what’s the code again?
3724.
Then, after a ten-minute gap:
Now what?
Seriously? Boys’ locker room, through the steam room. 1902.
“Ethan!” I call him over from the whiteboard, where he’s crossed off a few names on his own. The less socially adept candidates. Emma had high standards. “Look at this. Three-seven-two-four. That’s the code to the boathouse. That had to be their spot.” I scroll up, double-checking. “Yes, this is when they started to hook up regularly.”
Ethan peers over my shoulder. “What’s in the boys’ locker room, through the steam room?”
I leap into action, already halfway into my coat. “We’re going to find out.”
“Now?”
I plop down into my desk chair and slip on my boots. “Yep. Get your coat.” The knit of his brows says, Olivia, I think you have lost your mind, but Ethan hops to it.
“Won’t it look weird, us going to the boathouse at this time of night, after what happened?” Ethan asks once we’re outside. I charge ahead of him, my longer legs and determination giving me a lead.
“It’s still ages before curfew. And if anyone asks, I’ll say I left something in my locker that I need to take home with me. With training canceled, I haven’t had a chance to go back since—” I catch myself before I say it. Everything comes back to Emma. “It’s fine.”
I’ve walked this path a million times; my feet carry me by instinct. I’m so used to practice, my arms already ache in anticipation. I roll my shoulders, missing the burn. It hasn’t even been a week. I glance up at a security camera. Presumably it’s on this time. Is Paul watching me right now? Could Paul have been hooking up with Emma? Maybe his whole Oh no, we were hacked! shtick is a front. He turned off the cameras so there’d be no evidence of him sneaking out to the boathouse to meet with her. I share the theory with Ethan.
Instead of telling me I’m paranoid and I suspect everyone, he agrees. “It’s compelling.”
Wild theories don’t seem so wild anymore.
We reach the boathouse, and I input the key code. The front doors click open, and we make our way into the lobby. There’s still police tape over the rowing-room doors. A tug at my navel, like an invisible string, has me veering left. I touch the doors. Finger the yellow plastic tape. It’s warped, like it’s been stretched by someone ducking under it. I don’t know what I want from it, from this place. To walk back through that morning, retrace every step? Find something I missed?
“Olivia?” Ethan’s voice breaks me from my trance. He’s poised on the bottom of the stairs, ready to ascend.
“Right. It’s upstairs on the left.” I follow him up, and then we cut through the locker room. The steam room also features a hot tub, and Ethan’s eyes nearly bug out of his head.
“Does the girls’ locker room have one of these as well?”
“Yep.”
“I should have rowed crew.”
I look him up and down. “You’re tall enough.”
Ethan breaks into a dopey grin. “You checking me out?”
“Merely an observation.” I duck my head to hide a smile. “It has to be there.” I point to the only other door, tucked away in the shadows beyond the hot tub. We approach, but with the lights off it’s difficult to see the keypad. Plus, I’ve forgotten the code. Emma’s phone solves both problems, the flashlight blindingly bright as I refer back to the second code and key it in.
Ethan and I tumble into a lounge. The lights flick on automatically, on a motion detector. They’re low mood lights, but bright enough to illuminate the space. It’s swank—leather couches and armchairs, wet bar, big-screen TV with gaming system attached.