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The somber mood doesn’t make any sense. The three of them act like someone just died.
“What’s going on?” I ask finally.
“This is what’s going on.” Vaughn strides past me to the closet and opens it, barely a limp in his gait. Underneath the row of a neatly hung suit jackets is the hotel-provided safe. “The safe is empty.”
Our laptops, watches and more than a little cash is right where we left it. There are several thousands of dollars’ worth of valuables casually lying around. None of us bother to lock any of it up, or even put it away, when we leave the room. It doesn’t make sense that someone would break in here and not take anything with an actual street value.
Assuming someone was stupid enough to steal from us, all that shit is easily replaceable. It might be reckless not to worry about sticky-fingered maids, but none of us put much thought into hiding our valuables. If someone came in here to steal, they had their pick.
Unless money isn’t the thing that they actually cared about.
We only kept one thing locked in that safe. Something more valuable than any amount of cash.
With dawning horror, I realize their despondent reactions make perfect sense. “It can’t be gone.”
“We’ve torn up the entire suite,” Cole answers with a sigh. “We looked under the beds and in our bags, pretty much everywhere that we could think of. The ledger isn’t here.”
I stomp to the first bedroom, picking up random items and tossing them back to make sure the book isn’t hiding under something. “Then we need to look again.”
But the upended suitcases in the bedrooms and all the open cabinets in both bathrooms make it pretty clear that they already conducted a thorough search. There are only so many hiding places in a hotel room, even one the size of a luxury apartment.
The ledger is gone.
I walk back into the living room, feeling more than a little crazed. “This doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
Nolan raises his head, the hangdog expression on his face halfway between drunk and hungover. “There goes the Initiation. Kiss it away, boys.”
“We just need to find it,” I snap. Everything I’ve been working toward for the past four years is about to go up in a puff of smoke. Literally. “When was the last time anyone laid eyes on the ledger?”
“It was in the safe when the fire alarm went off,” Vaughn says. “I checked before going downstairs.”
“No one besides us knows the combination. You have to reset it every time you open and close the safe,” I point out. “How did it get opened?”
Cole goes to the safe and inspects the flimsy door. “These things are pretty much the same in every hotel across the country. Anyone with the skills to pick a lock could get in here if they wanted to.”
“Might have been nice for you to point that out before we shoved an irreplaceable piece of Havoc House history in there,” I snap at him, more than a little annoyed when he just shrugs in response. “The question is why someone with those skills would want to sneak in here and steal a fucking book? Why would anyone else want it?”
“Maybe because it was locked up,” Cole replies drolly. “That’s usually what you do with things that are valuable. If someone used the fire as cover to make a sweep, then they might have taken it because they figured the thing in the safe had to be worth something.”
The idea might be plausible, but I still don’t believe it. “Then they just left all the cash and electronics lying around without bothering to grab any on their way out. I doubt that.”
Cole lets out a sigh that’s heavy enough to hold the weight of the entire world. “We have to assume that someone came here specifically to take the ledger.”
Nolan lurches to his feet and stumbles toward the minibar. He starts shaking bottles to see if they still have anything in them. “We have to tell the alumni.”
“I have to tell my grandfather.” Vaughn murmurs, his expression pained. The thought has to sit about as well as lighting himself on fire. “Begging for forgiveness is our only option at this point.”
Nolan twists the top off a tiny bottle of Jack Daniels. “I thought your grandfather hated you.”
“He doesn’t care enough to hate me. I just disappoint him more often than anyone else does. At least, that’s what he wrote in my last birthday card.” Vaughn has his phone out and idly flicks through his contacts. “I’ll call my brothers first. Maybe this is all a just a mean-spirited prank.”
Nolan tosses aside the now empty bottle and rifles through the cabinet for another one. “You think they would do something like this as a prank?”
“You clearly haven’t met his brothers,” Cole remarks drily.
This whole thing stinks worse than horse shit. I refuse to believe that we’ve fallen victim to a random theft. Either we’re being fucked with or this was a targeted move by someone who wants to prevent our Initiation from happening.
“Don’t tell your brothers that the book is missing, just that we got robbed.” I sharply instruct Vaughn as he brings the phone to his ear. “If they aren’t involved, then we don’t want this getting back to the alumni until we’re sure that we’re out of other options.”
