He swore under his breath. “Is Javi with you?”
“Javi? He’s… running errands, too.” It wasn’t a lie. He just wasn’t running his errands with us.
Ramón blew out a placated sigh. “I’ll stall Oates as long as I can. But you get Vero home, and you get her home now.”
He disconnected without saying goodbye, leaving me with the ominous feeling our conversation wasn’t over.
“Oates is checking up on you,” I told Vero.
“Why is that woman such a pain in my ass?”
“We should get you back to the house. We did what we came to do. There’s no sense in pushing our luck.”
“But we still haven’t talked to Ava,” Vero argued.
“We’ll regroup and come up with a new plan at home.” I raised the window blind. Cam packed up his laptop and we lined up in front of the window to leave.
There was a hurried rap on the door.
“Zoey? It’s Ava. I need someone with a key to let me into the office, and you’re the only board member in the building.”
Zoey’s eyes went wide. Vero looked at the door.
“Do not open it!” I whispered.
“This might be our only chance.” Vero opened the door before I could stop her. She pulled Ava inside and locked it behind her.
“Veronica?” Ava gasped and shook out of Vero’s grip. She turned to gape at the rest of us. “Zoey, are you insane? Do you have any idea how much trouble we’ll all be in if anyone catches her here?”
“No one has to know unless you tell them,” Vero said. “I only came to talk.”
“Please, Ava,” Zoey begged. “Just hear her out. Veronica didn’t take the money. She said she has proof.”
“Are you seriously that naive?” Ava snapped at her. “Veronica could tell you the sky is green and you’d believe her. She took the money, and she ran off with all of it. The only thing she’s ever proven is that she never really cared about us! Sheusedus, Zoey. She used us for the money, and now she’s using you and your bleeding heart to convince the rest of us she didn’t do it.”
Vero put her hands on her hips. “You thinkIusedyou? You chased after me for weeks, desperate for me to join your stuck-up sorority. I never asked you and Mia for that scholarship. Youneededme to have it. Because you needed someone you could guilt into going along with all the half-baked ideas you and Bennett’s frat bros cooked up to make money. No oneelsein the chapter was smart enough to triple our chapter’s assets.”
Ava’s voice shook with anger. “You think you’re so much smarter than the rest of us? Then enlighten me, Veronica. What’s your theory? If you didn’t take the money, tell me who did.”
“Theo.”
Ava went still. The skeptical creases in her forehead deepened.
Vero continued in a measured tone. “After the party ended, your cousin saw Theo leave the frat house in the middle of the night with a girl. Jackson wouldn’t say who it was. But you know, don’t you?”
Ava’s laugh was incredulous. “What are you saying?”
“Theo gave you a ride home after the party.”
“No, hedidn’t.”
“Yes, hedid. Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot, Ava! You used your key card to get into this house at three o’clock in the morning. I saw your key number on the security logs.”
Ava’s jaw dropped. “How? The only person who has access to those logs is Celeste!”
“The security logs were submitted as evidence,” I said with authority. “Veronica had a right to review them.” I had no idea if that was true, but it seemed a safer explanation than blaming an incontinent Chihuahua.
“Myname wasn’t on the logs,” Vero said. “BecauseIdidn’t use my key card that night.”
