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I clamp my hand over my mouth. Elsie and I talked all the time, and she told me about her classes and every stupid thing that annoyed her, but she never said a word about him being anything more than some hot professor. She never sent me any pictures of them either.

How long was she with him before she died? Why didn’t anyone know? Not even her parents?

Fucking hell.

Veronica raises her phone and takes photos of the pictures on the desk, one after another, while my gaze is fixed on Elsie laughing in the passenger seat of Camden’s car. What if he killed her? And if he didn’t, he must know something.

My heart races. I’m finally getting so close to the truth, but this just might mean Camden is even more dangerous than I thought.

Chapter 39

VERONICA

CAMDEN’S LAPTOP HAS been open on my desk for what seems like ages, and every password we try doesn’t work. Jayden types in another guess, but his jaw clenches so hard that I’m pretty sure he’s about done.

“It’s useless,” he says. “I’ve tried everything I can think of.”

“Maybe there’s some recovery thing, like a hint, or a backup email, or whatever.”

“There isn’t. A guy like Camden isn’t going to leave a sticky note with his password on it.”

Yep. I bite down on my lip and stare at the screen. “So we’re giving up then? We can’t get in?”

“I didn’t say that.” He runs a hand through his hair and glances at me. “I know a guy. He’s good with this kind of thing. Like, really good.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “What guy?”

“Nicky. We had a couple of classes together last year, and he basically lives glued to a computer.” Jayden shrugs. “He got into his high school’s system once just to change a grade for someone, and he never got caught either, or at least that’s what he says.”

Hmm. I don’t like the idea of dragging anyone else into this, especially now, when the whole point is that no one is supposed to know we’re back.

“Everyone thinks we left, though,” I say. “If you bring him here, then he knows we didn’t actually go anywhere.”

“He won’t care. Nicky doesn’t talk to anyone. He barely talks to me. And we don’t have to explain why we need the files, just that we do.”

“Sure, but whose laptop is it when he asks?”

The corner of Jayden’s mouth curves. “Yours. You forgot your password, something got messed up, and there’s stuff on there for a class you can’t afford to fail. Simple.”

It’s not the worst cover I’ve heard, and we don’t have a lot of options anyway. “Fine. But if he seems off in any way or like he could figure it all out, we’re changing our minds.”

Jayden pulls out his phone, and a couple of minutes later, a knock sounds at the door. I freeze, since it could be anyone out there, even someone checking whether my room is really empty.

Hell, it could be Camden, who’s probably figured out by now that someone got his laptop. Although, coming here and confronting us in the dorms would draw everyone’s attention, and I’m not sure that would be a good idea for him. Or maybe he’s looking for us somewhere else, since he wouldn’t assume we’d be back here.

“Relax.” Jayden gets up, then unlocks the door and cracks it open. “It’s him.”

A guy enters the room, his hood up. His dark brown hair sticks out from under it, and he barely looks my way before his eyes go straight to the laptop on my desk.

“Is this the laptop?” he asks.

“Yeah.” Jayden shuts the door and locks it again, then nods at me. “This is Veronica.”

Nicky gives me a nod, then pulls the chair up to the desk and gets to work. He unzips his backpack and takes out a little drive, then plugs it into the side of the laptop.

“You need back into the account, or just the files off it?” he asks without looking up.

“Just the files,” Jayden says. “We only need what’s on there. Veronica doesn’t care about getting back in.”