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10
After that confrontation, I don’t really feel like going with everyone to Howard’s Convenience to play detective. I just want to go home and put on sweatpants and eat a Nutella sandwich. Maybe curl up in bed under the thick covers and pretend my life isn’t spiraling out of control.
I text Annalisa a quick apology and tell her to go without me, and to let me know what they find. I’m opening my car door when a deep voice calls out to me. Aiden’s jogging toward me, and even though I’m pretty sure a bruise won’t be starting to form so soon, I quickly reach into my car and throw on a jacket I was too lazy to put in my locker this morning.
“Hey,” he says when he reaches me. “Everything okay?”
I have to stop myself from unconsciously tugging down the sleeve of my jacket, even though it’s already covering everything.
“Yeah, fine. Why?” He didn’t see me talking to Ryan, right? He definitely wouldn’t be this calm if he did.
“Anna said you weren’t going with them. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, just tired. I figured you didn’t need all eight of us to ask a couple of questions.” I shift from one foot to the other, in a totally unsuspicious way.
He pauses for a minute, the only sounds between us the slamming of car doors and tires on asphalt as the last remaining kids hightail it off school property. “I’m torn between wanting to give you some space and needing to find out what you’re hiding from me.”
“Why do you assume I’m hiding anything at all?” I defend myself, but my voice comes out a tad too high, and just a little too quick.
I’m a great liar, just not to Aiden, damn it. His gray eyes stare right into the depths of my soul.
“Thea.” His voice softens, concern edging into it. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”
My heart squeezes. I hate lying to Aiden, but I can’t tell him what happened with Ryan. He’ll freak out and do something stupid, like slit Ryan’s throat, and then we’re back to square one.
I bite my lip, trying to figure out how best to play this situation. He already knows something’s wrong, and he won’t let up until I tell him something.
Actually, something else is bothering me that I want to tell Aiden about.
“Did everyone leave already?” I ask him suddenly.
Aiden’s confused by my change of subject, but answers nonetheless. “Yeah, I told them to go on without me.”
“Perfect. Meet me at Luke’s apartment,” I tell him, throwing my bag into my car and getting in.
He puts his hand on my door to stop me from closing it.
“Why?” he asks, studying my face.
“You want to know what’s bothering me? Meet me at Luke’s. Go straight there.”
His lips press into a straight line as he contemplates my words, then he steps back and lets me close my door. What I’ve found at Luke’s has been in the back of my mind all day. I need to tell someone, and there’s no one I trust more than Aiden.
Even though I leave before Aiden, he beats me to Luke’s apartment, and I park beside his minivan.
“When are you getting a new car?” I gesture at the rental as we walk into the apartment.
Aiden glares at it like it’s personally offended him. “Insurance money should be coming in soon.”
I laugh at his obvious distress at being seen in that car, but my mood turns sour when we get to Luke’s apartment. I hurry over to the gross plant, desperate to get out of the creepy hall with the fluorescent light that wants to die but manages to cling to life anyway.
With a grimace, I stick my hand in the soil and fish around. We voted to keep the key in the same spot instead of Annalisa keeping it, in case someone needed to get in. God, I wonder how many drunk people have peed in this plant. I finally find it and brush my arm and the key off, then open the door and close it behind us quickly.
The place looks the same as when we left it last night, but it’s both darker and colder due to the plywood covering the broken window.
I ignore Aiden’s questions as I grab his hand and lead him into Luke’s bedroom.
Aiden takes in the room, then glances at Luke’s bed with a raised eyebrow. “You know I have my own house, right? If you wanted alone time in a bedroom we could’ve just went there. It’s cleaner too.”
“This is serious!”
He raises his hands and turns his palms toward me, surrendering, a silent cue to carry on. I glare at him one last time for good measure and open the drawer of Luke’s desk. The file’s still there, right where I shoved it deep in the back. Suppressing an angry huff, I wish I imagined it. I wish it wasn’t real, wish I didn’t have to go through this on top of everything else.
“I found this when we were looking for clues. I didn’t tell anybody about it.”
I hand it to him almost mechanically, and step back, waiting for his reaction. He pulls the documents out and piles them on the desk, flipping through them with that guarded expression that never gives away what he’s thinking. I study his face intently, waiting for a reaction. All he gives me is an occasional “Hmm.”
My heart’s beating so fast and loud he can probably hear it from over there. I can’t take it anymore. “Aiden!”
He looks up from the file. “What?”
