The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (136 page)

“Actually, I do think this is our best piece of evidence
for
suicide,” Hauer said. “I just wanted to hear what you had to say about it.”

I took a deep breath. It felt good to have this out there. To have someone listen. Even if it was Detective Hauer.

“I wasn’t Cheyenne’s biggest fan and she wasn’t mine,” I said, placing the page down again, feeling a bit more in control. “But I’m sorry she’s dead, and I had nothing to do with it.”

The detective picked up the e-mail printout and placed it atop the other pages in his folder. “All right then,” he said. “There’s just one other question I have to ask. Do you know if Cheyenne had any other enemies at school? Anyone else who could help shed some light on what might have been going on in Ms. Martin’s mind?” Instantly, a name popped up in my mind. A knowing smirk. Cold blue eyes. The eyes of someone who had known Cheyenne but had grown to hate her.

“What is it?” Detective Hauer asked, clearly noting the change in me—the realization in my eyes.

“Ivy Slade,” I said, a bit too loudly. “You definitely want to talk to her.”

I speed-walked back to Billings after Hauer dropped me off on the circle, hoping that no freshmen or sophomores with big mouths saw me getting out of the detective’s car from their windows in Bradwell. If they did, the news would certainly be all over campus in the morning—Billings president leaves campus with Hunter Braden, returns with police—and that could not happen. No one was going to know about my meeting with Hauer. No one was going to know that Cheyenne’s parents had asked the police to open up a murder investigation. Not if I could help it.

I remembered all too vividly the dreary, morbid, terrified atmosphere on campus once it was revealed that Thomas had been murdered. I couldn’t go through that again. This school couldn’t go through that again. Especially considering there was still a good chance Cheyenne had taken her own life. I mean, if she hadn’t, then why had I gotten her suicide note? It made no sense. I wished Hauer
had told me what kind of evidence her parents had discovered that had spurred them to reopen the case. I couldn’t imagine what it could possibly be. The girl had been found alone on her floor with pills and a note. No signs of a struggle. No one in the dorm had heard a scream. How could she possibly have been murdered?

High on nervous adrenaline, I hurried up to my room and found Sabine sitting on her bed, working on her needlepoint. Big Saturday night for my roommate. But then, maybe she had the right idea. Going out hadn’t exactly been enjoyable for me, to say the least.

“Reed! It’s so early,” she said, tucking her needlepoint ring away. She sat up and scooted forward, all ears. “How was the date?”

“Awful,” I replied. “I left early and walked myself home.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding overly disappointed.

I whipped off Shelby’s coat and started for the closet, but immediately changed my mind and tossed the coat on the foot of my bed instead.

“It’s no big deal,” I told her, running my fingers through my hair. “So the guy’s a jerk. Half the guys at this school are.”

“Maybe more than half,” Sabine said under her breath.

“What?”

I turned on my computer, more determined than ever to do a little research on Ivy Slade. Now that I had implicated her to the police, I had a sudden desire to back up my claim. To find some kind of evidence that she was, in fact, capable of very bad things.

“Nothing, it’s just . . . I was over at Coffee Carma earlier and Missy came in. . . .”

Sabine trailed off, looking squeamish. My heart thumped extra hard. “Missy came in and what?”

“She said she saw Josh and Ivy in front of Pemberly . . . kissing,” Sabine said with an apologetic look.

The floor went out from under me, but I quickly grasped at the first straw I thought of. “And you believed her?”

Sabine’s brow furrowed. “You think she lied?”

“She’s Missy. She hates me. And she would just love to spread a rumor like that.”

“Oh. Well, it didn’t seem like she was lying,” Sabine said. Then, on seeing my face, she quickly added, “But if you think she was, then I’m sure she was.”

“I’m sure she was,” I affirmed.

I hoped she was.
Please, God, let her be lying.
But I couldn’t believe it. I refused to believe it. He couldn’t have really moved on so fast. Despite what I’d heard from Jason, I’d thought they were just becoming friends. Close friends. Which sucked, but still. It wasn’t as bad as the alternative.

“Reed . . . what exactly happened between you and Josh?” Sabine asked. “No one knows and everyone’s speculating. . . . It might help if you talked about it.”

“I really don’t think so,” I replied.

No one was ever going to know that I’d cheated on Josh with Dash. For many, many reasons. Well, aside from the random drunk and stoned partiers in the hallway that night who had witnessed our fight—but apparently none of them had been from Easton or
they were just too far gone to remember, because so far, there were no rumors flying around campus. Thank God. If the Billings Girls found out, I was sure that they would be able to forgive me for hurting Josh—they were, after all, my friends, and most of them were dedicated to instant gratification and having fun above all else. But no one would ever forgive me for betraying Noelle. And Noelle, of course, would kill me. That was reason enough.

“Did he cheat on you?” Sabine prompted, toying with her silver ring. “Did he and Ivy hook up at the Legacy or something? Because if he did, that’s just reprehensible and I’m glad you dumped him. I mean, how anyone could do that to someone they loved—”

“Sabine, I really don’t want to talk about it,” I said, cutting her off as the ever-present guilt in my gut started to expand.

“Okay. Sorry,” she said quickly, “but if you ever do—”

“I won’t. But thanks.”

I turned toward my computer and went straight to Google, trying to focus on the task at hand. Trying not to think about Sabine’s opinions—about how reprehensible she would find
me
if she knew the truth. I thought about taking out my disc full of info on the Billings Girls, but I didn’t want to crack that open in front of Sabine, and I wasn’t certain it would have anything on Ivy, since she had never actually
been
a Billings Girl. I could always check it later. For now I was going to search the old-fashioned way.

As Sabine settled in with a book, I Googled Ivy Slade. Luckily, it was not a common name. I got only thirty listings. The first, an obituary.

Victoria Slade, 89

Boston Socialite Was Groundbreaking Feminist

I scrolled through the cached article for Ivy’s name and found her listed as one of Olivia’s survivors—her granddaughter. Olivia had died over the summer, having suffered a stroke more than a year ago.

Sad. But unhelpful. I closed the obit and went back to my list. There were a couple of mentions of Ivy attending this party or that fund-raiser. Then, jackpot.

The headline:
MILLIONAIRE TEEN CAUGHT STEALING . . . FROM OWN MATRIARCH
.

I clicked the link, which took me to a Boston gossip site called Dish of Beantown. Okay, not the most reliable source, but I had to see what this was all about.

Sources inside the BPD have confirmed that the “minor” whose name was withheld from the
Boston Globe
’s front-page B&E story yesterday was in fact Boston princess Ivy Slade, 16, daughter of financier Colton Slade and former supermodel Esmeralda Lake-Slade. Apparently home for the weekend from her tony Connecticut boarding school, Easton Academy, Miss Slade got tired of inspecting her diamonds and organizing her couture and decided it might be fun to bust into Grandma’s house to snatch God knows what. That pair of Jack Kennedy’s boxers the elder Ms. Slade is rumored to have tucked in her trousseau,
perhaps? Too bad the prodigal grandkid never noticed during all those Sunday teas that Grandma had a state-of-the-art security system installed. Miss Slade was pinched, and we’re all tickled pink to see what happens next. Is this the new fave pastime of the rich and semifamous? Better get out the shotguns, people, before all the kids in the outers start emulating the fabulous Miss S. We could have an inept-crime trend on our hands!

I covered my mouth to keep from laughing in shocked glee. Ivy was arrested for breaking into her own grandmother’s house? Why? What was she hoping to steal? Clearly the girl had everything she needed. But even more baffling was the fact that the police had yet to investigate her in Cheyenne’s death. Didn’t a girl with a record—one who was so intimately connected to the victim—merit a first look?

I sat back in my chair and saved the pertinent files to my hard drive. At least I had proven one thing—there was definitely something off with that girl. But was she capable of murder? I couldn’t wrap my brain around that—the idea that there was another student at Easton who was that evil, that insane. An image of Ariana’s cold, hard face flitted through my mind and a dreadful shiver raced down my spine.

No. There was no way it had happened again. Cheyenne had committed suicide. End of story.

Still, I needed a distraction. Now.

“Sabine?”

She looked up from her book. “Yeah?”

“Do you want to play, like, Spit or something?” I asked her.

“Absolument!”
she answered brightly, tossing her book aside.

I took a deep breath and grabbed my deck of cards. Thank God there were still a few normal things to do around here. Maybe I should just leave the investigating of potential psychos to the cops.

Sunday morning dawned crisp and cold. So cold that I had to huddle close to Noelle, Constance, Vienna, and London as we hurried across the leaf-strewn campus toward the dining hall. As the wind whipped my hair back from my face, I burrowed my chin into my scarf and wished I had thought to bring my wool hat. All I wanted to do was get inside again as quickly as possible. All my friends wanted to do was talk about my date.

“I can’t believe you walked out on Hunter Braden,” Vienna said, clutching London’s arm in her shearling coat. “No one walks out on Hunter Braden.”

“Reed Brennan does,” Noelle said, sounding proud.

“I’m sorry. He’s just . . . not my type,” I told them, my words muffled by my scarf. I wriggled my chin out and ducked it over the woolly fabric.

“He’s everyone’s type,” London replied.

“Until you talk to him,” I told her. “Just trust me. It was the most boring night of my life.”

London and Vienna looked at each other and rolled their eyes. “Fine. We’ll go to the next candidate,” London said, whipping the printed F.Y.R. list out of her pocket. The wind almost made off with it, but she managed to keep it clutched in her gloves. “But if Hunter Braden is boring, I don’t really know
who’s
going to satisfy you,” she added under her breath.

“Who’s next?” Constance asked, trying to see over London’s shoulder as we walked.

“Dominic Infante. Portia’s pick,” London replied.

“Actually, I think I’m going to ask out Marc Alberro,” I told them.

“You are?” Constance’s face lit up.

“Who?” London blurted, looking confused.

“Number fifteen,” Vienna informed her, pointing. “Reed, come on. He’s, like, a scholarship student.”

Noelle snorted a laugh at the faux pas. I stopped in my tracks just outside the door to the dining hall and they all stopped as well. I stared down the blank-faced Twin Cities until they remembered who they were talking to—another scholarship student.

“Oh! Right!” Vienna said finally, blushing. “But this is different. I mean, he’s a Dreck.”

Dreck was the not-so-positive nickname the Billings Girls had for residents of Drake Hall, the upperclassman dorm where the “unsavory” boys lived.

“Plus he’s president of the Purity Club,” London said with a shudder, sticking her tongue out like she’d just swallowed a bug.

“Easton has a Purity Club?” I asked, shocked.

“Oh, it’s, like, really small,” Vienna clarified.

Interesting. I couldn’t imagine anyone at this particularly horny school wanting to remain pure, let alone advertise the fact. Marc Alberro was looking better and better. A smart, funny, cute boy with no delusions of grandeur who was not out for sex? Count me in.

“I’m asking him out,” I said, whipping open the door and striding into the warm, hustle-bustle of the dining hall.

“Yay!” Constance cheered.

The Twin Cities protested under their breath, but I pretended not to hear. I’d done it their way. Now it was time to try it my way.

I unbuttoned my coat as I walked over to the Billings tables, feeling confident in my decision. Feeling, in fact, better than I had in days. But the feeling was short-lived. Halfway across the cafeteria I noticed people whispering. Eyeing me warily. Glancing away quickly when I looked in their direction. An eerie sense of déjà vu settled in around my shoulders. The vibe in the room was way too familiar. It felt exactly like it had after Thomas’s body had been found.

I gulped for air. Cheyenne. Had Easton somehow found out about the murder investigation?

“What’s up with the morgue vibe?” Noelle asked, flinging her coat over the back of her chair.

The Billings Girls who were already seated with their meals—Sabine, Tiff, Rose, Kiki, Astrid, and others—all exchanged nervous looks. Like there was something they didn’t want to tell us. Then Amberly Carmichael scurried over with her two sentries in tow. She grabbed my forearm with one hand and Noelle’s with the other.

“You guys, I just want you to know, I don’t believe a word of it,” she said, her eyes wide and earnest.

“A word of what?” I asked, removing her hand from my arm.

At that moment Missy arrived, dropped her tray on the next table, and turned around, her arms crossed under her sizable chest.

“You guys should know that everyone’s talking about how you conspired to murder Cheyenne,” she said bluntly, looking at me and Noelle.

I grabbed onto the back of the nearest chair to steady myself.

“What?” Noelle blurted, loud enough that most of the conversation in the airy room screeched to a halt.