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“Good point. Let’s go back to the school now.”
“Now?” Erin glanced at her watch. “It’s two in the morning. Everything’s locked up.”
“I know, but that security guard will still be there. We could tell him we need to go into the library to see if Kinsey left anything behind,” I said. “He might be sympathetic to us because he saw how the cops weren’t taking her disappearance seriously.”
Erin shrugged. “I guess it’s worth a shot.”
We headed back to CPA and parked in the closest lot to the entrance. I found the spy camera gear in the glove compartment and explained the setup process to Erin. Then we walked around until we found Ken. He was patrolling around the school’s aquatic center at the bottom of the hill.
When he spotted us heading toward him, he picked up the pace and closed the distance between us. “You’re back again?” he said, two lines appearing between his brows. “What’s going on?”
“We still can’t find Kinsey, and the police aren’t doing anything,” Erin said, giving him her best doe eyes. “We were hoping you’d let us into the library to see if she left anything behind earlier. Anything that might give us a clue about where she went or who she went with.”
“I know you’ll probably tell us to wait until the morning,” I added. “But we can’t sleep. We’re really worried.”
Ken regarded us with a skeptical expression for a fraught minute. Then he sighed and relented. “I’ll give you ten minutes in there,” he said. “But you can’t tell anyone, okay? If the administration finds out that I unlocked the school to let two students roam around in the middle of the night, my job could be on the line.”
Erin mimed zipping her lips up. “We won’t say a word. Promise.”
On our way over to the library, Erin scanned the map Adam had sent to her, denoting the exact location of the computer we needed to keep our eye on. It was in the center of a row of desktops in the back corner of the building, set far back from the stacks. It was no wonder RXorcist chose it as their main haunt—hardly anyone would notice a person skulking around this end of the library. Even if they did, the person in question could just claim they were using a computer to look up the location of a book on the library network.
Five minutes later, we had the miniature camera set up on a brass sconce on the wood-paneled wall behind the row of desktops. It had a perfect view of the computer RXorcist always used, and there was no way he or she could possibly notice it.
“Does it still work?” Erin asked, staring at me anxiously.
“I hope so.” I frowned down at my phone screen as I loaded the app that I installed weeks ago to spy on Kinsey. It buffered for a few seconds, and then the home screen popped up. I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah, it’s fine.”
I tested the connection three times just to be sure. It worked perfectly—whenever I loaded the app on my phone, I could see the computer, the desk it sat on, and the black ergonomic chair in front of it in HD.
Erin waited for me to finish, leaning back on the desk with wide, anxious eyes. “What next?” she asked when I finally slipped my phone away.
I set my jaw and stood up straight. “Now… we wait.”
5
Jax
Tick.Tick. Tick.
My eyes were glued to the clock on the economics classroom wall, watching the seconds crawl by painstakingly slowly. Every time a full minute passed, I added it to the running timer in my head that was keeping track of how long Kinsey had been missing.
Eleven hours and seventeen minutes.
Guilt churned my guts as I wondered where she was, what was happening to her, what she must be feeling right now. I couldn’t stop picturing the worst. Part of my brain did its best to fight off the awful thoughts, but the negative side kept winning, allowing terrible images to break through my mental barriers. Kinsey tied up in someone’s trunk. Kinsey face-down in the ocean. Kinsey lying on a forest floor, birds pecking at her unseeing eyes.
The door flew open, and a familiar vanilla scent wafted through the air. I whipped my head around, half-expecting to see Kinsey stepping into the classroom, but it wasn’t her. It was just a girl who was late for class because of an appointment.
As she stepped past me to hand in her doctor’s note to the teacher, the vanilla scent in the air grew stronger. I sat up straight, skin prickling. The girl probably used the same brand of perfume or shampoo as Kinsey. It was just a coincidence, but it was driving me crazy, making me think that if I just closed my eyes for a second, she would appear beside me, telling me how much she missed me.
I clenched my teeth and turned my attention back to the wall. The teacher started lecturing us about exchange rates, but I barely paid any attention. Just stared at the clock, waiting for what felt like an eternity.
When the bell rang, I slowly packed up my things and trudged outside, feeling like a zombie. A familiar chiming sound suddenly reverberated through the hall, sending a bolt of energy through me like I’d just chugged a double espresso. Pulse spiking, I whipped out my phone and stared at the screen. The Dirt app had finally posted the daily poll post regarding Kinsey’s innocence.
I looked up and spotted Erin at the other end of the hallway. She mouthed something to me and tilted her head toward the right, jabbing a finger in the same direction. I nodded and strode toward her.
“Are you telling Adam the post went out?” I asked when I fell into step beside her. She was holding her phone in her palm, fingers flying over the keyboard.
“Yes. I’m sure he already knows because he had to download the app to research it last night, but I’m just reminding him in case he fell asleep or something,” she said. She glanced over at me. “Should we go to the library?”
