I try opening the bag, but no matter how hard I tug, it won’t budge. I envision the huddled masses behind me mocking my ineptitude and throw the chips across the table.

Katie opens them easily and passes them back my way.

I lower my voice. “I took videos at the pier.” I address Adam. “I got the Initiators. Shots of the Swarm.” Lip Spikes. His dark brow. His pointed chin. The guy with gray eyes. Glaring at me when the attack broke, his face captured by the lens. “I caught enough to give Detective Irving, so he could build an actual case.”

Adam freezes. His fork and knife hover over his plate. Both elbows jut out like chicken wings. Katie’s jaw hangs slack.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I snap, sure that everyone behind me is trying to eavesdrop and one-up the gossip mill.

Katie fumbles for a swig of water.

“Took pictures with what?” Adam says.

“My phone.”

Adam sets his plastic utensils down on either side of his plate. “Ditch them. Now. They’re easy to access, and if the wrong people find those . . .”

“The images are gone. Pictures, videos, everything.”

“Good. For a second, I didn’t think you were capable of acting sensibly.”

“I left my phone on the pier,” I say, shocked he thinks I’d erase them myself. I risked everything for them. “It was returned inside my bag, but the footage was gone.”

“Define ‘returned,’” Adam says.

“I jumped into the lake without my bag. Last night, it was left on my back porch.”

Katie squeezes her water bottle so hard the plastic crackles.

Adam splays his hands against the table. He closes his eyes, his thick, perfectly sculpted eyebrows adding drama to his frustration.

Everyone in the cafeteria must be watching us by now. I thought Adam of all people would understand. He’s the only one who knows how much I’ve investigated the Death Mob. He’s even been as obsessed as me at times when I’ve needed him for tech support. But I guess I don’t need him to get it. I just need him to help me with the last piece of tangible evidence I have to go on.

Katie turns to Adam. “Someone erased them?”

“Of course someone did. Lia can’t think anything through for the life of her.”

“My phone was locked,” I say defensively. “They hacked it.”

Adam snorts. “They probably guessed your password.”

“Just because you knock down firewalls every night doesn’t make me incompetent.”

“It’s bypass firewalls—not the point. There are ways to hack a phone, but any idiot can figure out your password.”

He acts like I’m technologically impaired. “That’s not true.”

“Katie, guess her code.”

“The date of her dad’s death?”

Adam nods, and Katie’s face glows with pride.

They’re the two people who know me best. That doesn’t make it obvious.