“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Joey said, his voice cracking. “I don’t know if—”

“Joey, listen to me. We are all in this together. You will be charged with conspiracy if the cops get hold of Leah’s computer. You need to get it before they do.”

“I’ll be charged as an accessory if they catch me.”

The kid was smarter than Matt realized. He hated to do it, but it was time to twist the emotions.

“If you find her laptop and hide it, Leah will be safe. They won’t know why she was in that house. But if they find her machine, the game’s up.”

“Fuck,” Joey said again. “Okay, I’m going in.”

“I’ll be in Halifax tonight. Where should I meet you?”

“The library. Everyone brings laptops. No one will notice us.”

Once again, the kid’s smarts impressed Matt. “How about the astronomy stacks?”

“How did you know that it’s Leah’s fav—oh, right. WhiteDwarf.” A White Dwarf was a star that had expelled its outer layer, so that only the hot core remained. Almost 97% of the stars in the Milky Way eventually become White Dwarves. And of those, some become supernovas.

Leah had always viewed herself as a White Dwarf, but Matt had known from the moment he met her that she was a supernova.

“Got it,” Matt said, with a twinge in his heart.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

10:52 a.m.

Joey yanked his hood over his head, and slouched a little deeper. He fished around in his pocket. Leah had given him a spare apartment key so he could feed the cat when she and Maddie were out of town.

He rounded the corner of her quiet, residential street. Leah’s place was in a converted Victorian three-story house, the brown wood shingles faded and chipped. It was a step up from the student-only buildings right by the university campus, but not by much. Leah liked it because the rent was inexpensive, and Maddie could afford it while she attended med school. They had met in a science lab five years ago, and had been roommates off and on for the past several years. Maddie had just broken up with her boyfriend, so she moved back in with Leah for the year.

Joey sprinted up the porch stairs, and unlocked the front door. Mike, one of the grad students who lived below Leah, hurried down the stairs, fastening his bike helmet with one hand. “Hey, Joey,” he called as he ran past him.

“Hey, Mike,” Joey replied, trying to sound normal through the hammering of his heart.

As soon as Mike left, Joey took the stairs two at a time. He didn’t want to encounter any more of Leah’s neighbors. The fewer people who saw him, the better.