“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 youdidgo 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 yellingat Celeste about how they’d lost all this money and it was all our fault because we’d been hosting the poker nights.
“Then Ava came home. As soon as she walked in the front door, I heard Celeste tell her to find you and Mia for a mandatory board meeting. Celeste soundedreallymad. I was scared we were all going to get in a lot of trouble, so I followed Ava upstairs to see what was going on. I knew you weren’t home yet, and I was going to tell her as much, but then she started unlocking your door. I figured whatever she was doing must be really important or she wouldn’t have used her key. So I watched from the hall to make sure everything was okay. She only poked her head in for a second, just like she said. Then she ran down the hall to Mia’s room.”
“Are you happy now?” Ava asked Vero. “I told you, I didn’t open your damn closet. And even if I had,” she said, thrusting a finger toward Zoey’s window, “I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to toss a bag of cash on the ground where just anyone could have grabbed it.”
Vero’s jaw fell slack. She turned toward the window, then to Zoey. Zoey looked like she wanted to melt into the wall.
“It was you, Zoey?” Vero croaked. “You helped Ava steal the money from my room? She threw it out the window to you? And then what? You helped her hide it?” Vero looked at Zoey in complete disbelief. So did everyone else.
Zoey shook her head. “No, Veronica! I swear! It wasn’t like that.”
“She’s telling the truth. That’s not what happened,” I said. Vero turned to me, confused. But I could picture it now, the big reveal, how all the pieces fit in this story. Ava was wrong; the person who had thrown the money out the window hadn’t been stupid at all. “Ava didn’t take the money from your closet,” I said. “Zoey did. She wasn’t helping Ava. She was helpingyou, Vero.” Ava and Zoeyhad both been telling the truth when they said Ava only opened the door for a moment. Once Ava left the room, all Zoey had to do was keep the door from closing, the same way Vero and I did when we had let ourselves into the print shop. Vero and I hadn’t used a key. We’d snuck in on Jackson’s heels. “How did you get in?” I asked Zoey, seeking confirmation.
“I caught the door with my foot before it could close,” she confessed, staring at the floor. “Then I snuck into Veronica’s room.Itook the money and dropped it out the window.”
Bennett and Mia’s eyebrows shot up.
Vero’s face crumpled. “Why, Zo? Why would you do that?”
But we already knew the answer. Zoey had told us, over and over again. We just hadn’t been listening carefully to what she’d actually said.
Zoey’s lower lip began to tremble and tears gathered in her eyes.
“She did it because she didn’t want anyone to get in trouble,” I said. “She was scared, not just for the chapter but for her Big. She was afraid Celeste would find the money in your room and you would be punished for having it, so she did the only thing she could think of to protect you—she moved it.”
Zoey nodded and swallowed the lump in her throat. “I thought if Celeste couldn’t find the money, no one could prove we had done anything wrong. It would have been our word against that horrible pledge, and Celeste wouldn’t have been able to say for sure that any of us were involved. I was just going to hide the money until the police were gone. Until I could talk to you all in private and explain what I’d done. But then everything went wrong,” she said, her confession spilling out in a rush. “When no one could find the money in Veronica’s room, everyone started pointing the finger at her. Emory’s parents called the university, threatening to sue. The Office of Student Conduct got involved. Our entire chapter was in so muchtrouble. Everyone was so angry at Veronica, and I was trying to find the right time to speak up, but it all escalated so fast, and then Veronica disappeared and no one knew where she’d gone, and it only made her look guiltier. Ava, Mia, and Celeste started talking to the police about pressing charges, and then suddenly there was a warrant for Veronica’s arrest. And I was too afraid to tell anyone what I had done.” Tears spilled down her cheeks in fat, wobbling drops.
I could see the root of the whole story so clearly now: a terrified freshman who’d thought her closest friend and mentor was going to be expelled from the house. Zoey hadn’t intended to steal the money for herself. She had intended only to hide it, to keep Vero safe.
Mia looked abashed. “So Veronica didn’t steal the backpack after all.”
“And you had the money, all this time?” Ava asked Zoey.
Zoey nodded, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. “I didn’t spend a penny of it,” she said through a sniffle. “After the police finished searching my room, I brought it inside. It’s been here the whole time. I didn’t know what else to do with it.”
