“I floated all possibilities by them, one by one, to see which would strike a nerve. They were good actresses when it came to Paige’s possible death. They were shaken a bit when I told them about the huge reward offered for information about their friend, explaining that it would drive out the truth soon enough. But the mention of the possibility of a conspiracy—one that would point a finger directly at them? Well, that pushed the Clee girls right over the edge. So much so that they called you.”

“Speaking of, I need to dump this uniform somewhere.”

“Not yet,” Jana says, stopping in her tracks and forcing Otto to stop, too. “I want to push one more button.”

“What’s that?”

“You stole a pair of keys along with that uniform, right?”

Chapter 8

JANA (THE ACTOR)

Oh, the look on their faces, my dear Matthew.

I’m not sure what shocked them more—the fact that I was sitting in their dorm room, their precious inner sanctum, or that a campus security guard was lounging on Hannah’s bed, feet up, lazily thumbing through a copy of Vogue.

“You…” Hannah shouts, as if she’s about to have a seizure, “you can’t be in here!”

Poor Brooke, meanwhile, has turned as pale as nonfat milk. She stands behind her sister, hoping that her sibling’s sheer rage will act as a force field.

“I know what you both did,” I tell them calmly, “and I want you to know that you’re not going to get away with it.”

This is a lie, of course—I don’t know their role in this conspiracy quite yet. But perhaps pushing this final button will reveal something.

It’s just like improv. If you sense an opening, you take it and see where it leads.

But like any decent actor, I know when to stop pushing and make my exit. I’m sensing Hannah is headed toward a total meltdown and will do something rash once she gets there. I nod at Otto, who grumbles a bit about climbing back out of bed—I think he would have kept reading there all afternoon if I’d let him.

This time, Hannah knows better than to summon another security guard…because they might be in on it, too! The cell phone in her hand—which she ordinarily uses to overcome any small impediment to her otherwise perfect life—can’t help her now. Daddy’s too far away, and there was a security guard lying in her bed!

“Cock-a-doodle-doo,” I whisper as we pass by.

Suddenly, this trip to snowy Concord isn’t so unpleasant after all.

Chapter 9

THEO (THE TRADER)

I can smell Paolo’s room even before I pick the lock and slip inside. Damn, this kid uses a lot of cologne. It’s so thick in the air, I practically have to wave my hand around so I can see.

For a guy in hiding, he’s already made a mess of this squalid little dump. Skinny jeans and shiny shirts and oversized grooming products and sticky beer bottles and, weirdly, random pieces from board games are scattered all over the place. Guess he likes to lure his underage prey back to his place for drinking and a few rounds of Sorry! (And, boy, will they be.)