Prepare his contingency exit plan for immediate execution in case Kayla didn’t keep her end of their agreement and spilled what she knew to her roommate.

And if she did, he’d also have to figure out how to silence her—and Cate Sheppard—so he could escape.

“That was a fast call.” Cate yawned and shifted around on her desk chair as Kayla reentered their room. Studying every night was getting old—but with the end in sight, she could keep up the pretense for another thirty-six hours.

Brow puckered, Kayla set her cell on her desk and dropped onto her bed. “Yeah.”

“You still upset about whatever happened over the weekend?”

“Not as much—but some.”

More than some. The girl who spent every minute outside of class cramming and doing projects for extra credit had hardly opened a book the past two nights. “You want to talk about it yet?”

“I don’t think I should.”

“Why not?”

“It feels sort of . . . disloyal.”

“I know how to keep secrets.”

Kayla picked up her teddy bear. Played with a loose thread on one of the seams. “I followed your advice. About talking to the person I had an issue with.”

“Did it help?”

“At first. But the more I think about the explanation he offered, the more I feel like he could be . . . that he’s not telling me the whole truth.”

The knot of tension in Cate’s stomach loosened.

If this was a guy problem, it may not be as bad as she’d thought. Teens tended to overreact to romantic tribulations.

Except . . . Kayla had been clear in their chats that she wasn’t dating anyone special.

“I didn’t think you had a boyfriend. Did you meet someone at home?”

“It’s not that kind of guy problem.”

“Then what kind of guy problem is it?”

“An adult guy problem.”

Cate froze. “Has someone been hitting on you?”

“No.” She waved off the question. “I could handle that. This is . . . it’s more like being let down. And I don’t have any idea what to do with what I know. Or if it means anything. I’d hate to cause an innocent person hassles—but what if they’re not innocent?” She wrapped her arms around the teddy bear. “It totally sucks to start doubting someone you care about.”

She could relate.

But this wasn’t about her and Zeke. It was about Kayla.

“Someone from home?”

“Yes . . . at least that’s where we met. What really freaked me out was when he mentioned Stephanie.”

The nerves in Cate’s fingers began to tingle—like they often did as she was closing in on the solution to a case.

Was it possible Kayla had come across information that was relevant to their investigations?

If so, could she be persuaded to share it? To trust a roommate she’d known less than a month?

How could she make that happen?