CHAPTER 30

I burst into Miles’s secret room after a long wait for a bus. I’m near explosion from new information overload right now. And freezing. I should have worn a jacket like Harper suggested, but I didn’t have one to go with my dress.

I yank my phone from between my boobs and toss it on the table. Miles looks up from his laptop, and the poker face he’s wearing stops me from bursting with words I’ve held in for over an hour.

“So…” I prompt, waiting for him to tell me I’m awesome and I should win a medal of honor for my interrogation tactics.

“I was sitting right there, Ellie,” he says, pushing away from the table and standing. He spins his laptop around so I can see the screen. “You’ve got balls, doing this right in front of me.”

“Sitting where?” I ask, and then, “Doing what in front of you?”

I lean down and barely read the top of the page: Miles Henry Beckett, before he hits delete and the picture on the screen vanishes.

Miles’s school file. Had I really—

“What did you want to know so badly?” he demands.

“I don’t…” My eyes widen, my mind drifting back to hours ago, remembering my fingers grazing the files in Geist’s drawer. I went from Thomas to Gilbert, and Gilbert sent my head up my ass and caused me to flee the dance in tears. And then suddenly it comes back to me. Miles stepping away, the phone to his ear. And me moving to the B section, tugging his file out and snapping pictures for later. On my phone. How did he even—

He synced my phone to his laptop before I pulled Bret aside to talk. God, I’m an idiot. All the making out must have turned my brain to mush. And man, I’m not much different from Bret Thomas. I couldn’t resist the temptation, either. I couldn’t leave his file untouched. But it was my subconscious that did the work for me. Old habits and all…

“I didn’t read anything,” I argue weakly.

“Yet,” he says, his voice rising.

“You don’t know that.”

“Did you see me reading your confidential school records? Do you see me digging into your life?” He snaps his laptop shut, and the sound vibrates through the silent room. “I trusted you. We were supposed to work together, to be a team. You don’t even know what that means, do you?”

I shake my head. “Are you hiding something in that file? More secrets?”

Okay, so maybe I’m a hypocrite, although to my credit, there’s barely anything in my file. It’s what isn’t there that I’m hiding.

“Yes! I’m hiding a lot of things in that file.” He looks at me like I’m a huge disappointment, and suddenly I feel like one. “My parents’ jobs for one. Emergency numbers telling where to reach them if something happens to me. That’s confidential information. People could die, Ellie. And you uploaded it through an unsecured network.”

“Unsecured by your Fort Knox standards or actually unsecured?” I feel like the world’s biggest asshole. Again. But of course I went into defensive mode instead of apologizing. Like Miles would, I can’t help thinking. He’s done that several times. Said or did something to me he regretted, and then he just looked right at me and told me he was sorry. I can’t do that. I always have to turn it around, point the blame back at my accuser.

He doesn’t respond to my sarcastic remark even though it wasn’t sent via texting. He proceeds to pack up his laptop and tuck things away, tidying up the secret room.

“What are you doing?” I ask. “Don’t we have work to do?”

Miles finally looks at me and shakes his head. “No. Not together. Not like this.”

“Seriously?” My stomach drops, my heart picking up speed. I follow him out of the room. “Were you not listening in on me and Bret? How can you just walk away—”

He spins to face me. “I didn’t say I was walking away.”

“Oh.” I sink back on my heels. You’re just not working with me. “Guess we’re flying solo again.”

“Guess so.”

While I’m leaving and walking back to my apartment, I call him a dozen different names inside my head, but none of it helps. None of it makes me feel less alone. Or less guilty. I violated his trust. Didn’t even think twice about it. Something is wrong with me. Clearly. Or maybe my subconscious has reason to not trust Miles and is seeking out evidence. Hard to tell the difference anymore.

My apartment is dark and quiet but when I crawl into bed, preparing to drift off to sleep—hopefully minus the drowning nightmares—my door opens a crack and Harper creeps in, sliding under my covers.

“So,” she whispers. “Just getting in? Thought the dance ended at eleven…”

“And your point is?”

“Nothing,” she says. “I just want to gossip. It’s two in the morning. What have you been doing all this time? With Bret…”

I snuggle into my pillow and close my eyes. “How about we play that game where you guess?”

“Don’t be a brat,” Harp says. “Consider yourself lucky. Aidan is convinced you need a sex talk, and I didn’t come in here planning on giving you one.”

My eyes fly open. “God, seriously? He’s not going to attempt that, right?”

“He’d rather die a slow, painful death, his words, not mine,” Harper says, laughing. “But really, Ellie, do you want to talk about any of that? Or maybe just tell me you know what you’re doing and you’re being safe? Not that you even have to take things that far.”

I want to tell her right now that I’m not a virgin, but then she’s going to ask who and when. And then I’ll have to tell her that my story went something like hers. Slightly older hot guy who runs in our family’s circle charms innocent girl into sleeping with him, then stomps on her heart. I know it’s one of the reasons she left. And it’s not that I’m too ashamed to tell her. It’s that I know one big reason she came looking for me was to keep something like that from happening. I don’t want to take that away from her.

“Not sure I’m quite there yet,” I tell Harper, forcing the lie out smoothly. “And not sure about Bret, either.”

I’d hoped the last part would provide a distraction, and it does. She breaks into a grin. “Miles. I knew it! Aidan didn’t believe me, but I knew it!”

“Shhh…” I clap a hand over her mouth. “We made out. Twice. That’s it.” I think for a minute, digging for an excuse that doesn’t involve the investigation and my broken trust. “He’s a bit of a commitment-phobe.”

She frowns. “Really? I didn’t get that vibe from him. He seems like the disciplined, loyal type.”

That he is. Unfortunately. “Well, everyone’s got to have their wild side, right?”

“I guess.” She climbs out of my bed. “Well, that was pointless and boring. Thanks for nothing, little sis.”

“Be glad it’s boring.”

After she’s gone, I try to sleep. Try to forget about all the words Miles tossed at me tonight. Truthful words. But the part of my brain that acts without thinking—the part that copied Miles’s file—is on the move again. Soon I’m clutching a notebook to my chest while swinging a leg over the balcony. I pop the lock on the neighbor’s bicycle parked on their patio below ours and hop on, and by the time I’m riding off into the dark, I know exactly where I’m headed.

Simon Gilbert’s house.

Miles would have never agreed to surveillance of the senator’s place.

And thus begins my reentry onto Team Ellie. Flying solo.