“Those assholes,” I mutter.
“What?”
“They knew about this place—or at least Emma did—and didn’t tell me. This is a hangout spot.”
“And probably a nap spot!” Ethan flops down onto one of the leather couches. He sighs into the supple black material, closes his eyes.
“You sure you want to lie on that?” I wrinkle my nose.
“Why?”
And Sierra says that I’m clueless. “This is a hookup spot.” I raise my eyebrows knowingly.
It takes a second, but awareness washes over Ethan all at once and he nearly falls trying to get off the couch. I walk the perimeter of the room. “I bet Tyler told Emma about this place,” I reason. He’s captain of the guys’ crew team. “And then she brought Beau here. Classy.”
“Or Beau was on the team, too?” Ethan suggests, starting to walk the perimeter of the room. It’s wall-to-wall shelves stuffed full with books, the kind with cracked spines and gold-embossed titles that clearly aren’t meant to be read. “What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. Clues? We have to figure out who he is.” I hold up Emma’s phone for emphasis. Ethan crosses to the bar, starts to rummage through the supplies. I hear bottles clinking and join him. He’s poured an amber liquid into a glass tumbler. “Are you drinking?”
“You think I’m going to turn down the chance to steal expensive whiskey from the rich douches at this school?”
“Good point. Make it two.”
“Really?” But Ethan doesn’t wait for confirmation before pouring one for me, too.
“I’ve put up with a lot of bourgeoisie bullshit over the years,” I say as I accept the glass. “Fifth-wheeling luxury shopping trips and pretending to be fascinated by tales of spring break trips and summer vacations in Saint Moritz, Montenegro, Tokyo, Seoul, Paris, the Hamptons. No one gives two shits about how summer vacay went down in Lanham.”
Ethan’s gaze is keen. “You’ve been nursing that bitterness awhile, huh?”
“You don’t know the half of it.” I raise my glass to his, and we clink them together. A toast to the best and brightest of Claflin Academy. The progeny of the one percent.
“I never did think you fit in with them. You didn’t make sense.” Ethan narrows his eyes, thoughtful. Then he drinks.
His commentary slices through me, a dull knife opening old wounds. I hold my glass too tight, crystal etching grinding against my fingers. It’s meant as a compliment, but that doesn’t erase how desperately I wish I belonged. And with all the Ivies have kept from me, it’s glaringly clear that I don’t. I never will.
I toss back the whiskey in one go. A mistake.
I double over, hacking wet, heavy coughs between gulps for breath. The liquid burns and stings like a wildfire spreading from inside out.
“Whoa, Olivia!” Ethan slaps his hand on my upper back, trying to help, but all he does is disrupt my rhythm. I cough harder and reach for a nearby waste bin in case my dinner decides to come up with the whiskey.
“Hey,” I rasp, sucking in my first proper, deep breath in what feels like centuries. “Someone burned something in here.” Tentatively, I reach my hand inside, feeling the partially scorched remains of black fabric. Finally good to stand, I set the container on the bar and use both hands to carefully pull out the charred remains of a sweatshirt.
The stitched lettering across the bust has been well ravaged, but some threads remain. I recognize the color immediately. It’s not even necessary to figure out the letters.
“It’s Avery’s,” I say. “Her Harvard hoodie.”
“You’re sure?”
“If it were Yale, the stitching would be white. Princeton is orange. Harvard is crimson. That shade of crimson.”
“The depth and specificity of your knowledge is very weird.” Ethan fingers the raised embroidery of what I think is an H. “Okay, so this is a Harvard hoodie. Couldn’t it be Emma’s? We know she was here.”
I shake my head. “No, Emma does have a Harvard hoodie, but it is maroon with white lettering. And it’s in her closet right now. I checked the pockets earlier today for the phone. Avery’s hoodie is black.”
“So that means she was here.”
“The night Emma died.” I search the room for something to carry the sweatshirt in. I’m not leaving it here.
“How do you figure?”
“The wastebasket hasn’t been emptied. The whole building has been shut down since it happened, so it had to have been left here the night of— Aha.” I find a plastic grocery bag under the coffee table. “Otherwise the cleaning staff is in here Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Emma died Wednesday morning.”
I burn under Ethan’s assessing gaze as he watches me place the hoodie into the bag.
“Are we turning that over to the police?”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“And the phone?”
Unease crawls up my spine. “Why are you giving me the third degree?”
“Emma had…a lot of secrets.” He squirms under my gaze. “I think this is getting a bit intense. That phone is evidence of a crime that may have led to a murder. We’re in a secret room that places your friends at the scene of the crime. I feel like we’re in over our heads and we should hand this stuff over to Cataldo.”
Logically, I know he’s right. Normal, everyday people logic. But we’re embroiled in a freaking murder. Someone we know, someone I know, killed my friend. “I can’t hand over half-baked evidence, not when it will make me look even more suspicious for doing all this digging instead of giving Cataldo information. No, we have to keep looking, take these clues to their natural conclusion and then hand stuff over.”
“I want to state for the record that I object,” he offers with a wink.
“Duly noted,” I return with a salute, going warm and fuzzy with relief. “Come on, let’s go. This place gives me the creeps.” In point of fact, it gives me a hollow feeling that gnaws at my insides. My friends hung out here and never told me. Another lie by exclusion.
We slip back out into the shadows of the steam room, the plastic bag crackling against my thigh as we move. I haul open the tempered-glass door to the locker room, and that’s when we hear them. Voices, echoing up the stairs.
I react on instinct, grabbing Ethan by the arm.
“What—”