CHAPTER 20
After Cam and Joey left, I hurried through the back door of the dormitory and raced up the stairs to my room. Vero was in her pajamas, sitting cross-legged on her bed, staring at my computer on her lap. She tapped a key with a dramatic flourish, looking up at me with a triumphant gleam in her eyes.
Her face fell as I rushed to the window and pulled back the blind. “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
The window was unlocked. No sign of forced entry. But there was a faint red smear on the frame inside. “Did you lock the window after Javi left the other night?”
“No. Why? What’s going on?”
“You’re never going to guess who I just ran into outside.” At Vero’s blank stare, I said, “Cam was here. He snuck through the fence and Joey caught him.”
Vero set my laptop aside. “You think he was here looking for us?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t exactly ask him. I only caught a little of their conversation before they got in Joey’s car and left.”
“What did he say?”
“Cam told Joey that he found something. I didn’t hear what.”
Vero stiffened. “You don’t think that little sneak blabbed to Joey about Ike, do you?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, remembering the last words Cam had spoken to me before Joey carted him off. You don’t have to worry about anything, he’d said, right before he’d glanced up at the windows of our dorm. “I think he might have been in our room. Help me look for anything out of place.”
Vero scrambled off her bed to help me search. We shuffled around the room, tossing aside blankets and clothes, searching under mattresses and pillows, opening drawers … At first glance, nothing appeared to be missing. My computer was on Vero’s bed. Vero’s phone was right where she’d left it while we were in class, charging on her nightstand. Our wallets were both present and accounted for. And as far as I could tell, nothing was out of … place.
I reached into the open gym bag beside my bed, withdrawing the notebook I’d been using to take notes during classes. A bloody handprint stained the cover. A torn sheet of paper slipped free of its pages, folded into a square around a tiny, hard lump. Cautiously, I opened it.
A gold tooth fell into my hand, bits of dried bloody tissue still clinging to its roots.
I dropped the tooth, stifling a gag. It plinked off the tile floor and skittered toward Vero.
“What the hell is that?” she said, leaping back to avoid it.
“I’m pretty sure it’s Ike’s.”
“I know that! Why would Feliks send it to us?” Vero rummaged through her toiletry bag and handed me a disinfectant wipe.
My skin crawled as I frantically rubbed the wipe over my fingers. “I don’t know. What does the note say?”
Vero pinched the corners of the paper and held it between us. Cam’s message was written in blocky, rushed letters.
The Big Man’s Losing His Shit. If You Think You Know Who Ez Is, You’d Better Come Out And Say It Soon Or Heads Are Gonna Roll. He’s Got Dirt On You And He’s Not Afraid To Use It. Also, Please Don’t Kill Me For Saying That.
With Gravitas （I looked it up），
C
“Something tells me we’re not getting any tomatoes,” Vero said, passing me the note.
With a grimace, I used my wet wipe to retrieve the tooth from the floor. I crumpled it inside Cam’s note and dropped it back in my bag, unsure what else to do with it.
“That’s disgusting,” Vero said.
“That’s insurance,” I said, rubbing my hands up and down my jeans. The tooth was obviously a message from Feliks, leverage to make sure we fulfilled our end of the bargain we’d made with Kat. “She promised to handle Ike if we handle EasyClean, but we haven’t figured out who he is yet, and she clearly hasn’t disposed of Ike’s body. At least, not all of it.” I shuddered.
Vero patted my shoulder. “Look on the bright side. Cam said all we need to do is cough up a name.”
“So?”
“So we’ll give Feliks a name, Kat will make Ike go away, and we’ll find some other way to pay off Marco. Problem solved.”
“How are we supposed to give Feliks a name if we can’t figure out who EasyClean is? Did you talk to Pete?”
“I caught up to him after class,” she said, dropping onto her bed. “He talked to the guy who specializes in this stuff, but Dr. Sharif says he won’t look at our bullet because he only works on official cases for the police. And you want to know the worst part? The asshole kept our bullet. He says students aren’t supposed to have ammunition on the grounds.”
“That bullet was the only tangible evidence we had!”
“Pete said he’ll try to get it back for us. Meanwhile, I’ve been working on that whole second part of our plan, and I have some news about the money.” The eager gleam had returned to Vero’s eyes. I’d seen it before, and it never boded well.
“Should I be worried? Because I’m definitely worried.”
“Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
I peeled off my coat and tossed it on my bed. “What’s the bad news?” Might as well get it over with first.
“Javi called. He found a buyer. They’re meeting at Ramón’s later tonight to move the car. He should have the money by Friday.”
I frowned as I kicked off my shoes. “That’s the bad news?”
“He could only get a hundred and fifty grand out of the guy, minus Javi’s ten percent.”
“What’s the good news?” I asked cautiously, remembering the look on her face when I’d come inside the room. She’d been on my computer. On the training center’s Wi-Fi. I hoped, whatever she’d been doing, it didn’t involve any wheeling and dealing with loan sharks or the Russian mob.
“Sylvia loves your new ending.”
I froze, poised on one leg, my right sock peeled halfway down my foot. “I haven’t even written the ending. How could she love my new ending?” My stomach dropped at Vero’s smirk.
“Sylvia texted you this morning to ask how your revision was going. You were in the bathroom, so I texted her back for you. I told her the new ending was brilliant and that your characters were currently on a hot beach in Mexico, drinking margaritas in a state of postcoital bliss.”
“No, they’re not!” I cried, tearing off my sock and throwing it at her. “They can’t be in bliss, they’re in the middle of a—”
Vero dodged my sock and held up a finger. “If the word tsunami comes out of your mouth, I will finish the rest of this book myself. The cop and the assassin will hump each other for three hundred pages, I’ll write a velociraptor orgy into the ending, and I’ll send the whole damn thing to your agent.” She waited for me to shut my mouth before lowering her finger. “I just sent Sylvia a summary of the changes you are going to make,” she said sternly, “and I asked her to extend your deadline. You’re welcome.”
My blood pressure was so high I could feel it pulsing in my head.