The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (162 page)

“It’s a long story, but for now I’ll just say she’s got about ten strikes against her. I tried to talk to the police about it, but they won’t even listen to me,” I whispered.

We dropped our bags at the end of a table in the American history section and the freshman students sitting there stared up at us warily. I stared them down until they blushed and went back to their work. Being a scary murder suspect had its own kind of power. It was less pleasant than Billings power, but it was still something.

“Anyway, Ivy’s not about to let me interview her, and the Web hasn’t been much help,” I told Marc, tilting my head toward the computers.
My station was still empty, thanks to the
RESERVED
sign, but the screen had long since switched over to the Easton screen saver—an Easton Academy crest bouncing around from corner to corner. “But my gut tells me she did it.”

“Have you tried LexisNexis?” Marc asked, pulling off his hat and gloves as I shed my coat.

“What’s that?” I asked.

He dumped his own coat on a chair and then motioned me to follow him back to my reserved computer. I stood behind Marc as he sat down and brought up a new Explorer page, typing in the address window.

“It’s a subscription-only search engine,” he said. “I got a username and password at my summer job at the
Miami Herald
and it still works. It’s, like, a hundred times more powerful and thorough than Google and pretty much anything else. Plus it only searches reputable publications so you don’t get any of that gossip or Facebook crap.”

“Sounds good to me,” I whispered.

I grabbed an empty chair from a nearby table and brought it up to the desk. Once he accessed LexisNexis, Marc typed in “Ivy Slade” and hit enter. Almost instantly a list of articles appeared. Some of them were familiar—the same articles I had been staring at for days, like the one about the horseback riding competition and Olivia Slade’s obit. I was just about to groan in frustration when I noticed a link from the local Village of Easton newspaper—a link I had never seen before. Next to it was a thumbnail photo that, even in miniature, looked mighty familiar. My blood ran cold at the sight of it.

“Open that one,” I said, pointing. I felt so jittery that I was amazed
at my steady hand.

Marc double clicked. Instantly, the photo filled the screen. Ivy, Cheyenne, Noelle, and Ariana smiled out at us. It was the same photo that hung above Ivy’s bed. Marc whistled under his breath.

“That’s eerie,” he said.

“Seriously.”

“‘Students from Easton Academy help out with last weekend’s Coleman Park Cleanup,’” Marc read, squinting at the caption. “I remember this! It was my freshman year. There was this park in downtown Easton that they wanted to renovate and Easton Academy sent all these kids to help. It was supposed to be a volunteer thing, but everyone who was sent was pretty much being punished for some infraction or another. All of Billings and half of Ketlar went.”

“What was the date of the picture?” I asked.

“It was taken on . . . May thirteenth,” Marc read.

That freakish tingle of discovery I had been feeling so often lately rushed right through me. May thirteenth. The date was familiar for a reason. That night, Ivy and Cheyenne had broken into Ivy’s grandmother’s house in Boston and tripped the alarm. That very night Ivy’s grandmother had suffered her stroke and Ivy’s vendetta against Billings had been born.

This was the picture she chose to keep within sight at almost all times? It had to remind her of the worst day of her life. Why would she keep it so close? Why?

Um, because she’s a psycho?

And then, just like that, it hit me. She’d kept it as a constant
reminder of why she hated Billings so much. She’d kept it to motivate her in her mission to bring all of us down. Looking at each of the faces in turn, I got chills for a whole new reason.

One committed. Check

One dead. Check.

Noelle was the only one left.

“Well, you’ve got me convinced,” Marc said as we headed out of the library together an hour later. He pulled his hat on and lowered it to his brow line. “I’d say Ivy’s a pretty decent suspect.”

I had just shared the entire Ivy/Boston/grandmother/Billings story with him and he had been riveted throughout the telling.

“Glad we’re on the same page,” I replied as I pulled my scarf up to my chin. “But we do still have another person on our list.”

“Astrid Chou,” we said in unison.

All night I had been wanting to ask him why
he
thought Astrid was a good suspect, but we had been so busy talking about Ivy, I hadn’t had the chance. Now he paused at the bottom of the steps, hugging himself against the cold.

“Yeah, she’s a weird one,” he said as a gust of wind nearly knocked us both off our feet. “Not only do she and Cheyenne have a long history,
but no matter what I do, I can’t get anyone to tell me why she was expelled from Barton last year.”

I yanked my hat on as well and concentrated on not letting my teeth chatter. It was beyond bitter out. “What do you mean, no matter what you do?”

Marc shrugged. “Well, I’ve tried talking to at least five people over at Barton and they all tell me her records are sealed. Which means that whatever she did, it was really bad.”

There was a sinking feeling in my gut and my knees started to shake in the cold. “Define really bad.”

“Like, could-be-violent bad,” Marc replied, his tone ominous.

My mind immediately flashed back to a couple of awkward moments I had shared with Astrid recently. Her going through my bag at the last soccer game, her bizarre comment about me trying to take Cheyenne’s place. And then there were all those arguments she and Cheyenne had had at the beginning of the year. Plus she had been really paranoid when she found out about the Billings disc. . . .

“Damn,” I said under my breath as my heart sank even further.

The Billings disc. Why did I have to break that stupid thing? Why had I never made a copy? I would have bet my life that the information we needed about Astrid’s expulsion had been in her file.

“What?” Marc asked, visibly shivering.

“Nothing. I’m just an idiot,” I told him, starting to walk. If I didn’t move soon I was going to turn into a Reed-shaped ice sculpture. “I had this way I could have found out about Astrid, but . . . now I don’t.”

I had already told enough people about the disc’s existence, but at
least they had all been in Billings and therefore had a vested interest in said disc. Marc didn’t need to know about it.

“Okay, cryptic,” Marc said, but he didn’t push it any further than that. He walked close to my side, blocking the wind. “What about her friends from Barton? Do you know any of them? Maybe they heard something. I mean, they wouldn’t be the most reliable sources, but it could be a start.”

A realization hit me and I stopped in my tracks so fast Marc tripped forward in surprise. I didn’t know anyone at Barton. But I knew someone who did. Josh Hollis.

“What? What is it?” Marc asked, adjusting his backpack.

I looked west toward the outer buildings. Toward the J.A.M. Building in particular. “I have an idea—someone who might be able to help us,” I said, breathless.

“Who?” Marc asked.

“I’ll let you know if it pans out,” I told him.

Then I turned on my heel and started for the J.A.M. Building. Josh had to be in the studio, working on his final project for his painting class. And if he wasn’t, I was just going to have to track him down elsewhere. Right then, he was my only hope.

“Okay, Cryptic Girl! You do that!” Marc shouted after me.

I didn’t even bother to turn around and respond. I had to focus. Focus on keeping my nervously beating heart inside my chest. I was going to see Josh. And hopefully I was going to clear my friend. That was about all my brain could handle at that moment.

A fat drop of rain smacked into my cheek about halfway across the quad. Seconds later, the rain was coming down in earnest, and by the time I slipped into J.A.M.’s well-lit hallway, my hair was soaked through and my teeth were chattering. A couple of girls shot me derisive looks as they opened their Coach umbrellas and ducked out into the rain, but I hardly noticed. My mind was racing at the idea of talking to Josh. But I forced myself to keep moving. I walked over to the studio and opened the door.

There were a few students peppered throughout the room, working busily at easels. They all looked up when I entered. Josh was the only one who didn’t instantly look away.

“Can I talk to you?” I mouthed to him from the doorway. The place was so silent I didn’t want to disturb it any further. Josh dropped his paintbrush and came right over.

“What happened to you? You look like a drowned rat,” he said.

“Let’s go in the hall,” I suggested.

I walked out and dropped my bag on the floor against the far wall of the hallway. Josh leaned back against the opposite one, keeping his distance. Next to him was a large bulletin board papered with information about various clubs and plays and outings. A huge, colorful Holiday Dinner sign was tacked up right in the center, reminding me of how very lame the gift I’d bought him for said dinner was. But that wasn’t the point right now.

“Listen,” I began. “I know you’re going to think I’m insane, and I know you’re probably not in the mood to do me any favors—”

“Is this about Ivy?” Josh said grimly, picking at an old piece of Scotch tape on the frame of the bulletin board.

I tried not to cringe. His question was, after all, called for. The last time we’d spoken I’d told him he didn’t know his girlfriend the way I did, and then I’d fled.

“No. It’s not,” I told him. “You still talk to that Cole guy, right? Astrid’s ex-boyfriend?”

Josh and Cole Roget had hit it off at Cheyenne’s Christmas party the previous year after discovering their mutual love of art, and I knew they had kept in touch via e-mail while Cole was studying in Paris last spring. Josh took a deep breath and stopped picking at the tape, instead tucking his hands behind him against the hallway wall. He looked suddenly uncomfortable. Squirmy.

“Yeah. My brother and I actually met up with him one night in Vienna over the summer. Why?”

I bit my lip and prepared myself for his forthcoming reaction.
Lacing my fingers together, I brought my hands up over my chest and held my breath.

“Is there any possible way you could call him and find out if he knows why Astrid was kicked out of Barton?”

Josh looked at me like I was insane. “What?”

“I swear there’s a good reason,” I said in a rush. “You know that I wouldn’t come here and ask you to do this unless there was a good reason. Especially not after the way we left things.”

“No. No way,” Josh said, standing up straight and shaking his head. “What would I even say to him? ‘Hey, I’m calling you out of nowhere to ask why your ex-girlfriend got expelled?’ You’re cracked.”

I moved away from the hallway wall, hazarding a step toward him. “I know. I know it’s insane. But I need to know what happened, and the records are sealed and I think . . .” I looked at him desperately, not sure how he was going to take this. “Trust me. I just . . . need to be sure.”

Josh stared at me, looking me over as if he was trying to figure out what to make of me. As if he’d never seen me before. I tried my best to plead with my eyes. Finally, he tipped his head forward, brought the heels of both hands to his forehead, and let out a kind of groan.

“I already know why she got kicked out,” he said.

I felt as if the doors at the end of the hall had just burst open and the wind had knocked me sideways.

“You know? How?” I asked, my heart pounding anew.

Josh looked up at me through his lashes. One perfect curl had fallen forward over his forehead. Even with all the intrigue, all I wanted to do right then was kiss him.

“Cole told me over the summer,” he admitted, swallowing hard. He crossed his arms over his chest, shoving his hands under his arms and looking off down the hall. Whatever it was Astrid had done, I could tell by his face that it appalled him even to think about it. My throat suddenly went dry. Had Astrid really done something awful?

“What?” I asked, barely audible. “What was it?”

Josh reached back and scratched the back of his neck. His face was turning redder and redder by the second. Whatever he had to say, he really didn’t want to say it.

“Josh,” I prompted.

“Fine! Astrid slept with her history instructor, okay?” he blurted finally, keeping his voice down so the people in the studio wouldn’t hear. “That’s why she got kicked out of Barton.”

My heart completely stopped beating. Astrid and a professor? I immediately envisioned her making out with the dreaded Mr. Barber—our current history teacher—and almost heaved right there on Josh’s boots. But wait. This was good news. Astrid hadn’t hurt anyone.

At that moment, the door at the end of the hallway swung closed with a bang and we both looked up to find Astrid herself standing there in a hot pink rain slicker and matching hat, clutching her big black portfolio. It was blatantly clear from the stunned look on her face that she had just heard exactly what Josh had said.

“Oh, bollocks,” she said. “How did you find out?”

Josh and I both stood up straight, snagged. Astrid slowly trudged over to us, her black and white polka-dotted rain boots squeaking and squealing on the hardwood floor.

“Actually, it doesn’t matter. You’re not going to tell Trey, though, are you?” she asked Josh.

Trey? What did she care what Trey thought?

“Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me,” Josh said, blushing all over again.

“I’m sorry. What am I missing here?” I said.

Astrid took a deep breath and let it out audibly. She whipped her hat off and tousled her short dark hair before looking at me.

“I’ve sort of been seeing Trey since the beginning of term,” she said.

“What?”
I blurted. How did I not know this? Josh and Trey were roommates. How had Astrid and I never talked about this? How had Josh and I never talked about this? Especially back when we were together?