Redemption Prep - Samuel Miller Page 0,45
a line through it. “What does this say, under motive for someone outside the school? Kidnap apple . . . kidnap-ably beautiful? Is that seriously a reason to kidnap her?”
Evan nodded. “Yes.”
In three days, she and Evan had turned her lifeless room into the headquarters of an all-out investigation. He was surprisingly equipped with arts and crafts supplies, as though preparing for exactly this kind of assignment. They’d stuck pink and green Post-its to the walls, surrounding every block-letter theory with a colorful array of details.
Despite her insistence that Emma had run away, and desperate attempts to focus their search—Evan was still suggesting wild theories.
“When did you put this up?” she asked, pointing to the AIDEN TOOK HER theory.
“He has a motive,” Evan mumbled.
“Says you.”
“Says the pattern.”
“She,” Neesha read from a Post-it, “changed her breakfast plans Wednesday morning. Pretty sure that isn’t some secret clue into her inner psyche—”
“It is.”
“—and she’s not about to break up with, objectively, the best-looking and, also, not for nothing, the richest guy at this school. And her best customer.”
“I saw it.”
“Okay, well, I saw him in church, and he didn’t look like someone who had just been broken up with.”
Evan shrugged. “Maybe he was acting.”
Neesha glared at him for a long moment. Evan had spent a lot of time around Emma. They seemed to have schedules that fell perfectly together, putting them in the same place for breakfast, the same study halls, at the same events. But every time he recalled time they’d spent together, their interactions seemed to lack one major activity: talking. He couldn’t remember the specific things she’d said to him. Maybe because she treated him like she treated everybody else—an object to be ignored until useful. A fan.
“I think we have to go back to potential exit strategies,” Neesha said. “None of these theories feel developed, when the most logical answer is staring us in the face.”
She pointed to the block letters in the center of the wall—EMMA RAN AWAY, and the three Post-its hanging below: Emma lied about phone call, Neesha forced to do drop (setup), and School was looking for Emma (Apex).
Evan looked away, the way he did every time she steered them back to this. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“I know that this is hard for you to hear,” Neesha said. “But in all likelihood, she was getting out to save her own ass.”
“What about the thing on your door?”
She winced. He was right; that was the one piece that didn’t square with her theory, but she shrugged anyway. “It was a prank,” she said, more confident than she felt. “That’s what everyone else is saying, anyway. There’s been so much weirdness lately, somebody probably was just trying to get some attention—”
“That’s association fallacy,” Evan said. “When two events of significance occur close—”
“I know what an association fallacy is, plebe,” she spat back. “Like you associating your happy, super-fun friendship with Emma with her not wanting to run away.”
Evan stared out the window. “Where would she go?”
Neesha sighed, her eyes wandering to the tape marks above Emma’s bed where the photos no longer hung. “I feel like I don’t know anything about her anymore.”
They sat in silence, surrounded by information. It had taken them three days to get to this point, the moment of clarity where realizations should start to form; but now that everything they knew was within reach, she couldn’t find anything to grab on to, or anywhere to begin. She could feel the school closing in on Apex. Day after day, more of their customers were being brought in to speak in front of Yanis; it was only a matter of time before one of them squealed, and the school found out what she was selling, and the school found out where she was getting it from. Neesha had started spending almost all of her time with Evan, but for all of the obsessive questioning, they weren’t any closer to finding Emma.
Obsessive questioning; the phrase reminded her of Yangborne on test days. “We need to get more scientific about this,” she said. “Run an experiment. Test our best theory. Hypothetically . . . let’s say you’re Emma, and you decided you wanted to leave Redemption. How would you do it?”
Evan shrugged. “Through the forest.”
“Exactly. The center gate would be way too hard to get over—”
“And cameras.”
“—so you go out into the forest, around the gate.” Neesha mapped the grounds in her head. “Where would she go?”
She noticed Evan shift uncomfortably.
“What?”
“She had a favorite loop,” he