Page 40

CHAPTER 40

ARIELLA

T he harsh blue glow of the locked computer screen taunted me as I clicked my pen against the library table, the sharp tapping echoing in our corner of the hushed room. My fingerprints smudged the edges of the keyboard, evidence of hours of failed attempts.

"Any luck?" Zaiden asked, the wooden chair creaking as he sank into the seat across from me before sliding an iced caramel macchiato across the table. The ice clinked against the plastic.

Shaking my head, I gnawed my bottom lip raw. The cursor blinked on the password screen, mocking me. Each failed attempt felt like the truth was slipping further away from us.

Staring at the screen, I zoned Journey, Mila, Sterling, and Zaiden out as they quietly chatted around the square table. I had to get into this computer. It was our only hope of figuring out what really happened to Kacie.

"Focus," I mumbled, sipping my coffee. "What were the most important things in Kacie's life?"

Her friends.

Me.

Her family.

Her dog.

And at one point, her ex?—

Oh my God. Her ex. That would be the last password I would try.

My fingers hovered over the keys before typing: Dayton.

ACCESS DENIED flashed back.

His birthday—12/04. The screen remained locked.

His first and last name—DaytonMitchell.

Nothing.

"Shit," I groaned, slamming my palm against the table. The library's quiet amplified my frustration. Three students at a nearby table glanced over, then quickly looked away. "When did they meet? Does anyone remember exactly?"

"What?" Mila's gaze narrowed.

"Do you remember when Kacie and Dayton started dating?"

"I do," Journey said. "It was two days before my seventeenth birthday."

I typed the date into the MacBook. Wrong.

"Fuck." My last chance. My fingers trembled as I tried his initials, followed by the date: DM-05172020.

The screen paused. One second. Two. Three.

The desktop blossomed open.

"I'm in," I whispered, then louder: "I'm IN!"

Chairs scraped against the floor as everyone crowded around, their shadows falling across the screen, their breath hot on my neck.

"Where do I start?" My mouse hovered, uncertain over the sea of folders and icons that contained Kacie's digital life.

"Pictures," Mila suggested.

I moved the mouse toward the pictures folder when something caught my eye—a folder simply labeled "evidence?" My hand froze on the trackpad.

"What's that?" Mila leaned in, her finger tapping the screen.

"Only one way to find out." Zaiden's voice was steady, but his knuckles whitened as he gripped the edge of the table.

The folder opened, revealing dozens of subfolders. Each click revealed more photographs meticulously organized by date, screenshots of conversations, and voice recordings labeled with initials.

"Oh my God," I whispered, opening the first image file. Coach Palmer's face filled the screen, his arm around a dancer I recognized from last year's competition team. The next photo showed him with another student, their positions too intimate for comfort.

"Keep going," Sterling urged, his earlier casualness completely gone.

I clicked through more images, the pit in my stomach growing heavier with each new photo. Journey gasped when she appeared in one of them—Coach's hand on her head as she kneeled in front of him. Then Mila in another. Then me.

"There are text messages, too," I said, opening a document filled with screenshot after screenshot. Kacie had been systematic in gathering evidence for months. The conversations between her and Coach started professionally but gradually revealed his pattern of manipulation.

"She was done being his victim," Journey said, her voice barely audible. "She was building a case."

Mila sank back into her chair. "And he knew it." She pointed to a message where Kacie threatened him.

Kacie: You have two options. You can resign, or I will turn everything I have over to the police and the school.

He never responded.

I stared at the screen, connections forming like constellations in my mind. "This is why she was acting so strangely those last few weeks. She was protecting all of us while gathering evidence."

"And it got her killed," Zaiden said, the words hanging heavy in the library's hushed atmosphere.

"Even if he was the one who cut her brake line," Zaiden said, "That doesn't explain how he knew what car she was driving."

"Maybe it was a good guess," Sterling said. "I mean, think about it, if the brake line was cut at the party. He could have followed her or seen her get out of the car."

"Or maybe," Mila said. "It was a lucky guess. It was the only black BMW at the party that night. I was Kacie's friend, and I would have thought that was her car."

We spent the next hour in tense silence. The only sounds were our breathing and the soft click of the trackpad. Photos of Kacie smiling at parties. Class notes. Social media drafts that were never posted. Each file was a piece of her, but nothing else that explained what could have happened that night.

The brightness of the screen burned my eyes when Journey slumped back.

"This folder's just more dance routines."

Mila sighed. "Everything else is just part of her normal life."

I closed the laptop with a quiet click of finality. "I don't think we're going to find anything else."

"I guess we got our answers," Mila said. "It was Coach trying to stop her from outing him and all his dirty little secrets."

It felt surreal finally knowing what really happened to Kacie, even if we'd never get the full truth because Coach was dead.

"So what do we do now?" Journey asked.

"We could finish Kacie's mission and make all this go viral," Mila said. "Or…"

"We can let it die knowing Kacie got her revenge," Zaiden finished for her. Everyone's gaze locked on Zaiden because this felt like it should be his decision.

"I think we all took in a lot of information that needs time to settle," Sterling said. "Why don't we meet up after school tomorrow?"

We all nodded in agreement.

I pushed out of my chair and slid Kacie's MacBook into my messenger bag. The weight of it—and everything it contained—felt heavier than before. "I guess it's finally over," I mumbled. "We finally know the truth." Though I still had more questions than answers, I was pretty sure we'd never get those answers. We could only guess what else happened, and that would have to be good enough.