IX.
Mike Montgomery had eyes that could crack ice.
His photograph stared out at Hanna from Caleb's computer screen, beside a wall of text detailing his entire history — the fights, the drugs, the failing grades. All the skeletons his family had probably spent millions to lock away in a closet. Now, they sat like a stain on the homepage of the Academy's website and in the e-mails of every student and faculty member on campus. Hanna imagined the school's tech consultants holed up in a dark office somewhere, typing like crazy to undo this, but with little progress. Caleb had outdone himself. No amount of scrubbing and covering-up would make this go away that easily.
"How is this even possible?" Hanna whispered, touching the screen as though half-expecting it to give way to her fingers like water, and vanish all together. "Where did all this come from?"
Caleb shrugged. "Let's just say it took a couple hours and a lot of typing, but I'd say it was worth it."
"Worth it? Caleb, Mike is missing. The day after this hits the internet. Coincidence? Not likely."
"It's his own fault," Caleb said. "Him and his family, tossing around money to keep him here. Meanwhile, people who actually deserve scholarships, people who work hard and actually need this place, we get pushed around and treated like dirt. This school is screwed, Hanna, and it's about time everyone here knew it."
"There must have been another way. You didn't have to do this. What if this 'A' person is serious, and something might have happened to Mike?"
"Then I guess we'd better get looking for him." Caleb pulled up a new window — a black one full of green gibberish. He began typing into it, and suddenly, some recognizable words appeared. Hanna saw that it was a listing of some kind: RA — Academics. RA — Athletics. RA — Cavanaugh. RA — Commons.
"What is this?" she asked.
"All the surveillance cameras on campus."
"Caleb."
"What?" He opened up the first one: RA — Academics. "They pretty much leave this footage open to anyone on the school's network."
"Did you forget," said Hanna, "that you're not supposed to have access to the school's network in the first place?"
Caleb grinned as the screen loaded, and the Academic Office came into view in real time. "It sure comes in handy, though," he said. "The footage goes back 48 hours, and there are 36 of these cameras set up around the campus, so we'd better get to work."
Hanna pulled up her chair beside him and watched as he quickly skimmed through the footage from the Academic Office. For some reason, Hanna was surprised to see that hardly anything happened there throughout the day. Most of the footage was of white-blouse-and-glasses-wearing people sitting in front of computers, typing. Every now and then, someone came to the office, spoke very briefly with the receptionist, exchanged papers and left. If the office were a reality show, the producers would have had to set the place on fire to get any sort of reaction from anyone there.
"Not much to see here," Caleb said dryly. He closed the window and opened the next one — the Athletics Center.
Again, nothing of note was in that footage, besides the varsity lacrosse team's coach staggering into the building late the previous night. Caleb could practically smell the liquor coming off him through the computer screen, but that wasn't important right now. They checked the Cavanaugh Hall footage. This was a bit more lively, with all the students moving in and out of the building. Caleb saw himself walk into the lobby and sign in, and suddenly the tips of his ears went pink with the memory of that night. Of how close he and Hanna had been when he —
"Mike's name would have been in the sign-in book," said Hanna, shutting the Cavanaugh Hall window. "The police probably checked all the dorms' guest books already. Check this one."
She clicked on the Commons surveillance footage, and when the window came up, a section of the campus Hanna had never seen appeared on the screen.
It was something of a greenhouse, a building filled with plants. Caleb began to fast-forward through the footage, and Hanna was about to rule out this one out as a boring minute-by-minute account of grass growing when suddenly, a flash of black swept across the screen.
"Wait!" Hanna said. Caleb rewinded the footage a bit, and paused as the black figure appeared on the screen.
Now, they could see that it was a person wearing a dark hoodie, hands tucked into the pockets and shoulders hunched as he quickly disappeared into the greenhouse.
"Oh my God." Hanna leaned into the screen. She couldn't make out his face clearly at all, could only see his hair jutting up from his head, but she had a sinking feeling. "Check the time," she said.
Caleb did. Early that morning, around the same time that Caleb had returned to his own dorm, this mystery person was ducking into the Commons.
Caleb fast-forwarded the footage all the way up to the live feed, and there was no sign of the person ever coming out.