* * *
Two hours later,we’d driven to every spot on campus Zoey thought Ivy might go to. We’d texted all of her friends and even gone to check if she was hiding out in her favorite coffee shop in Beverly Hills. We didn’t need to get out of the car to see it was closed.
“Fuck!” I slammed my hands on the wheel. “This is all my fault.”
“Calm down,” Zoey instructed in a clipped voice. “You losing your shit isn’t going to help the situation.”
I looked over to see her dialing Ivy’s phone for the hundredth time. Her sigh told me it went straight to voicemail again.
“I think we should go home and wait for her there,” she said.
“I can’t sit doing nothing while she’s pulling a disappearing act,” I bit out. “We’ll keep looking.”
“Have you messaged Oliver?” Zoey asked after a long pause. “I can’t imagine what seeing him after all this time did to her.”
I grit my teeth and looked out the window. While we’d searched, I’d given Zoey a summary of what happened back at my place, and her reaction had been illuminating. It was clear that Ivy hadn’t gotten over him until long after the tour had ended. “She’s not with him,” I said.
“You don’t know that.” Zoey’s voice had softened.
“Did Ivy say anything to you about meeting him tonight?” I demanded.
“No,” she said firmly. “She hasn’t talked to me about him at all since she started seeing you. I thought she’d blocked his number by now. But maybe she didn’t. Did he say anything that made it seem like he wanted to reconcile with her?”
“Reconcile? No. He all but implied he wanted to get payback for what she did to help me. I don’t think Ivy would go looking for him after what she overheard.”
Some part of me was glad when she came out into the kitchen, and I realized she’d never left my house. Oliver had exposed himself for who he really was, and she’d heard it right out of his own mouth. This would soon be over—the secrecy, the omissions, the misunderstandings—but I had to find her first. I wanted to bang my head on the wheel until it bled.
“Jamie.” Zoey nudged my arm. “We’re not going to find her sitting in this parking lot. Drive us back to the apartment, and we’ll regroup. I can try logging into her computer. If I can guess her password, we can use Find My Phone.”
The plan was dubious at best, but I was out of ideas. If it didn’t work, I was ready to call the police.
Once inside the building, we jogged up the stairs and into the empty apartment. Zoey grabbed Ivy’s laptop and set it up on the kitchen counter.
“Okay. I’ll try the password she used back in high school,” she said, hammering something on the keys. “Nope.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“It used to be Arcade Fire. That was her favorite band growing up. I’ll try a few variations.”
I paced the length of the living room while Zoey typed. “When did she get this laptop?”
“The summer before we left for college, I think.”
A thought appeared. “Was this before or after the tour?”
Zoey stopped typing. “After. Actually, I remember now. We got it when we went shopping together to buy stuff for our dorm. It was after the tour.”
If her passwords were bands she liked…“Try Ritual Disruption.” I prayed to God I wouldn’t have to try “Oliver” next.
Zoey met my eyes for a brief second. “’Kay.” Her fingers moved lightning fast. “It worked.”
I let out a sigh of relief and walked over to her side. “Okay, let’s track her down.”
Zoey was way ahead of me, already opening the location app. It asked for a password, but thankfully, the same one worked.
A small bubble with the letters “IA” glowed on a digitized map. Zoey tapped her fist against her lips. “She’s in the building. She’s…” Zoey turned to face me, her skin flushed. “I’m a fucking idiot. I know where she is.”
“Wh—” I didn’t get a chance to ask, because Zoey was already running out the door, and I followed behind her. She stopped in front of an apartment down the hall and began to bang on the surface. “Mimi! We know she’s in there. Open up.”
