Pulling into a spot in the back of the parking lot, Aiden handed me my bag. “Here you go.”
“Thank you,” I said over the rumble in my stomach. I grabbed a fry and stuffed it in my mouth. “Mm.”
“I knew you were hungry.”
The sounds of us biting, chewing, and drinking filled his sports car for a solid five minutes. When I was satiated enough to not have my stomach angry at me anymore, I took a gulp of my milkshake and then turned to him.
“What happened when you went upstairs?” I wondered, realizing I never knew what was actually happening in the house.
He swallowed the last bite of his burger. “It was crazy. There were people running upstairs, people running downstairs, people running out the front door. Everyone was yelling, talking crazy. I asked what was going on and Liam told me about the bathroom fires. I guess they put sheets and random stuff in the bathtubs and set it on fire. But that was a distraction to grab what they really wanted.”
“The boat keys.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “No, the notebook.”
“What notebook?”
“Keep it between us because I know they didn’t say shit and I probably wasn’t even supposed to find out about it.”
“I won’t say anything.”
“There’s a notebook full of… information. There’s supposed to be names and contact information for local drug dealers, people who write term papers, strippers who do more than strip, bookies… the list goes on.”
I chomped on my fries before I rattled off questions. “What? This is a small college town. I could see if we were in the city, but couldn’t that all fit on one sheet of paper? Why is there a whole notebook? And don’t drug dealers and strippers usually use fake names anyway?”
“All of the people in the notebook are students.”
My jaw dropped. “Oh!”
“Yeah, that’s just the first few pages. But they have info about themselves in there, too. Mostly related to who they’ve been with and how far they went…STDs, abortions, and then some sort of ranking system of the sex.”
My lip curled in disgust. “Wow.”
“Yeah, that’s what most of the notebook is. I haven’t seen it, but they’ve talked about it around me. Never in too much detail. But when they realized it was gone, they lost it. That’s when I found out what was in it.”
I shook my head and then a memory hit me.
That was probably the insurance Vivian was talking about.
“When I was packing to leave the Cheer House, Vivian made a comment about how Dakota took something as an insurance policy so the PROs wouldn’t call the police. That must’ve been it.”
“Yeah… they definitely didn’t want that to get out.”
“Is that why they threatened to teach me a lesson?”
He took a sip of his milkshake. “Yeah. But I told them that you were down in the basement with me the whole time and you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Did they believe you?”
He made a face. “They eventually did. But initially when they were trying to go to the basement to talk to you, I blocked the doorway. They were drunk and I didn’t like what they were saying. But when Trevor came in the kitchen to see what was going on, he noticed his boat was on fire. Everything went to hell from there because they had to call for help.”
“Did you tell the police that?”
“Not about the notebook but about everything else,” he admitted. “I don’t know everything that’s in that shit, but I don’t want to be associated with anything else to do with that whole situation. And if it even had some of the stuff they were talking about in there, this isn’t even close to being over.” He ate the last of his fries. “Do you think Carter could’ve taken the book?”
That thought had never even crossed my mind. I was surprised by the question and even more surprised by how the question stumped me. “I… don’t know. Carter and I hadn’t been friends for a long time so it’s hard for me to say what she would or wouldn’t do. Why do you ask?”
“Because the whole thing doesn’t sit right with me. I haven’t really fucked with them since the party for several reasons. But the main one is that if they were as mad as they were about the book. I mean, Trevor was pissed about the boat, but it was insured. They were furious about the notebook being gone. And just the things they were saying that night made me feel like they would hurt somebody… the next day, I find out that somebody is dead near the PRO House. It just feels…”
I nodded. He didn’t even need to finish the sentence. I knew exactly what he was trying to say. It feels off.
“I was told that Carter went back to look for me once she realized the cheerleaders planned to leave me in the house,” I whispered.
He let out a low whistle. “Damn, that’s rough.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, finishing the last of my food quietly.
“You know it’s not your fault though, right? Both of you got the short end of the stick that night.”
I gave him a tight smile. “Yeah. Thanks.” I looked away.
He was the first to break the silence. “You said that Carter went back for you?”
“Yeah. That’s what I was told.”
“Hm.”
“What?”
“I never saw her come in the house.” He glanced over at me. “If she was coming back for you, why wouldn’t she have come in the house?”
My brow furrowed. “Could she have come in and you missed her?”
“I guess it’s possible. Maybe, but…” He sounded doubtful.
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking about your character analysis and I’m just trying to figure
