The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (173 page)

I had never really looked at the photo of Sabine and her mother before, except in passing it on my way to the bathroom, but now I saw that there was an extra hand in the picture. A creamy white female’s hand. Someone had their arm slung across Sabine’s shoulder from the other side.

“That’s weird,” I said.

“What?”

Ivy came up next to me to check it out.

“Look. She cut someone out of the picture,” I said, pointing at the hand.

“Or folded it,” Ivy said. She grabbed the frame from me. She started to undo the clasps at the back.

“Ivy! What are you doing?” I hissed, trying to snatch back the frame. “Leave Sabine’s stuff alone!”

“We need to throw away the broken glass,” Ivy said matter-of-factly.

Ivy finally freed the photo and the glass shards tumbled onto Sabine’s perfectly made bed. Sure enough, the photo
was
folded. I snagged what was left of the frame back from Ivy as she opened the picture in front of her. Her face went pale so fast it made my heart drop.

“Oh. My. God.”

“What?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

She turned the picture around, holding it up in front of her chest. The room around me blurred as I focused in on the photo. Focused in on the smiling face of a pretty blond girl with icy blue eyes.

On the face of Ariana Osgood.

My hands shook as I reached for the photo. Every single inch of me shook. On Ariana’s other side was an older man with white hair and blue eyes, who appeared to be laughing as the picture was being shot. Ariana’s dad. It had to be. He looked just like her.

I knew what I was seeing, but I couldn’t make sense of it. My brain refused to take it in. Mr. Osgood laughing with his arm around Ariana. Ariana smiling with her arm around Sabine. Sabine holding her mother close to her side. They looked like a big, happy family.

“I don’t understand,” I said, sitting down shakily on the edge of Sabine’s bed. My breath started to come fast and shallow, my chest heaving up and down. “I don’t understand.”

“Did she ever tell you that she knew Ariana?” Ivy asked, sitting down next to me.

“Never. She never said a word,” I replied, my mind racing as my skin started to burn. “She’s supposed to be my best friend, but all semester she’s been keeping this from me. She knows the girl who tried to murder me. She even looks like she’s . . . friends with her.”

“You don’t think that she’s . . . I mean, that Sabine is . . .” Ivy trailed off, as if it was impossible for her to say what she was thinking. I was right there with her. It was impossible for me to process it. That Sabine could be our stalker. That sweet, innocuous Sabine could be Cheyenne’s murderer.

Suddenly, I found myself on my feet, still clutching the photo. “I have to go,” I said, half blind with rage and confusion.

“Go where?” Ivy asked, standing as well.

“All those months I lived with her. All those months I trusted her with everything. And all that time she was lying to my face,” I spat. “If she could keep this from me, what else has she been lying about?” I added, holding up the picture.

“Reed, you can’t just confront her. We have to call the police,”
Ivy said firmly, stepping in front of me as if to block my route to the door.

“So call the police,” I told her. “I’m going.”

She reached out and grabbed my wrist. “But the girl could be seriously dangerous.”

“I don’t care. There are a hundred people at that party,” I said. “What’s she going to do to me in front of a hundred people?”

“Reed, I can’t let you—”

“You can either let go of me, or I can make you,” I told her, staring into her coal-black eyes. “Your choice.”

Just like that, Ivy released me. And just like that, I was on my way across campus to finally confront the girl who called herself my best friend.

The music was pounding when we reached the solarium, Ivy trying desperately to explain everything into her cell phone—to make the officer on the other end understand. Red and pink lights flashed, bathing all the faces and distorting them into demonesque masks. Everywhere I looked people were laughing and sipping punch and dancing. Everyone I knew, obliviously prepping for a night of revelry.

But Sabine. Where was Sabine?

“Reed! I’m so glad you’re here.” Noelle appeared out of nowhere and slipped her warm hand into mine. “I think it’s about time we talk.”

“No,” I heard myself say. “Not now.”

A look of consternation crossed Noelle’s face, but I didn’t have time to explain. I slipped away from her and dove into the crowd. Behind me I could hear her blocking Ivy’s entrance, telling her she
wasn’t invited and she had to go. If only Noelle knew what Ivy had done for me just now. If only she knew how everything had so suddenly and fundamentally changed. But she would find out soon enough.

“Reed! Hey.”

It was Josh. Adorable, innocent, kissable Josh in his suit with its open-collared shirt, looking oh so perfectly handsome. He stepped up close to me and lowered his lips toward my ear.

“I got your present. Thank you so much. The paintbrushes . . . the letter . . . it was amazing,” he said. “Can we maybe go somewhere and talk?”

I barely even registered the words. Felt nothing at his closeness. I could feel nothing but my rage. And then I saw her. Dancing near the edge of the crowd with Astrid and Constance and Trey and Gage. My friends. She had no right to be anywhere near my friends.

“Later,” I told Josh.

I stormed away from him, shoving aside Billings Girls and Ketlar boys as I went. I walked right past Astrid and Constance. Sabine noted my approach, and her entire face lit up.

“Reed! There you are! We were wondering when you—”

Shaking from head to toe, I unfolded the eight-by-ten photo and held it up right in front of her face. Sabine stopped dancing.

“What. The hell. Is this?” I demanded.

Around us, Astrid, Constance, Trey, and Gage slowly stopped moving and looked at one another warily. They couldn’t see the photo, but they obviously sensed the tension. Sabine’s smile faltered, but only for the briefest of moments.

“Where did you get that?” Sabine asked, her voice barely audible over the music.

“You know where I got it—from the frame next to your bed,” I replied, advancing on her slightly, still holding the picture up. “What are you doing with Ariana, Sabine? How the hell do you know her? How could you have kept it from me all this time?”

Sabine glanced around and laughed nervously, as our mutual friends were now gaping at her.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” she said, shaking her head.

“The evidence is right here!” I said, thrusting the picture at her. “You can’t even try to deny it. Tell me the truth, Sabine. What are you doing with Ariana Osgood?”

Sabine was still smiling, looking at me like I had lost it. My blood was boiling so hot my skin was going to sear right off.

“Reed, I—”

“The girl tried to kill me!” I blurted, my hand quaking. “Tell me how you know the psycho bitch!”

Just like that, something inside Sabine seemed to snap. The innocent, cornered puppy dog mask fell away and was replaced by something dark. Something evil. Something smoldering.

“Don’t call her that,” she said, her voice hard.

I had to laugh. “Call her what? Psycho bitch? That’s exactly what she is.”

Sabine got right in my face so fast I almost lost my balance. Her green eyes bored into mine. “She’s not a psycho bitch,” she hissed through her teeth. “She’s my sister.”

The world around me was sucked into a vacuum, leaving nothing but me and Sabine behind. The lights, the music, the voices, the laughter, the whirl of color all around me. Gone in a flash. All I could see was the rabid look in Sabine’s eyes. So very much like Ariana’s ferocity. So very familiar. So very obvious.

Ariana was Sabine’s sister. The one she always talked about like she was some kind of goddess, the one she had visited off campus, the one who had been “out of the country” for our fund-raiser. All that time she had been talking about Ariana. Of course the girl was out of the country. She was out of her freaking mind. Suddenly, I remembered a couple of weeks ago when Sabine had tried to get me to confide in her about my breakup with Josh. She had mentioned helping her sister through a bad breakup. Had she been talking about Ariana and Thomas then? My God, I was such a total fool.

“Your
what
?” Constance blurted, bringing me back into the here and now. The world rushed back in on me so fast I thought I was going to faint. And on top of that, the realization. The complete realization of the truth.

“It was you,” I said quietly, my hand and the photo finally dropping. Sabine had killed Cheyenne. Sabine had been the one haunting me. She had done it all for Ariana.

“It was all you.”

Sabine simply stared at me, but I saw the light of triumph in her eyes. She didn’t even seem upset at having been caught. She seemed . . . excited.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Trey said, stepping up next to us.
Slowly a crowd was forming around us. Trey. Noelle. Astrid. Gage. “What do you mean, it was all her? What was all her? Reed, what the hell is going on?”

I couldn’t answer him. All I could do was stare at Sabine. “Why did you have to kill Cheyenne?” I asked her, my throat suddenly aching. “If you wanted me, then why didn’t you just come after me? Why did you have to hurt her?”

My voice broke on the word
hurt
, which pissed me off. Trey and Gage looked at each other, grim understanding creeping into their eyes.

“Because I wanted you to feel it,” she said fiercely, her teeth still clenched. “I wanted you to feel what it was like to slowly lose your mind. I wanted to put you through exactly what you put my sister through. An eye for an eye.”

“What?” Trey said. “What the hell are you guys talking about?”

“Let her talk,” I said, holding a hand out to Trey. “It feels good to talk, doesn’t it, Sabine? Just like Ariana did. Doesn’t it feel good to get it all off your chest?”

“Don’t talk about my sister like you know her!” Sabine snapped, getting right in my face. “You ruined her!”

There were a few gasps around me as the crowd thickened. Up until now, it had been difficult for anyone to hear us over the noise, but now that the other partygoers were starting to take notice, I could hear the whispers running already, disappearing into the heavy bass of the music.

“Ariana’s sister?”

“Sabine?”

“Reed just said Sabine killed Cheyenne. . . .”

I saw Josh slip into the front row of onlookers, his gorgeous face creased with concern and confusion. I felt stronger just seeing him there.

“Fine. Let’s just say I ruined Ariana,” I said sarcastically. “What did that have to do with Cheyenne?”

Sabine let out an evil laugh. “Don’t pin that on me,” she said, shaking her head. “I would never have had to go there if it hadn’t been for Josh. All I wanted to do was help Cheyenne steal him from you the way you stole Thomas from Ariana. Easy as pie. But no. Not Josh. He loved you too much. He was too strong. I had to drug him within an inch of his life that night just to get him to hook up with Cheyenne in the Art Cemetery.”

All the air rushed right out of my lungs. Astrid’s face went ashen and Constance let out a small whimper.

“What? That was you?” Josh demanded, coming forward. “You fed me those pills? You could have killed me!”

Sabine laughed. “Please. You’re fine. Get over it already.”

I couldn’t stop staring at her face, trying to find some semblance of the girl I’d known all year. The girl I had trusted. But there was no trace of sweet, innocent Sabine left. She was all darkness.

“Besides, the pills didn’t even do the job! You two still got back together. It made me sick, the way you just forgave him,” Sabine said, looking at my feet as if she wanted to spit on them. “That was when I realized I’d have to take a more extreme approach.”

“So it’s true. You did kill her just to get to me. To make me feel responsible,” I said, my palms sweating. A hard rock of guilt settled in over my heart. Once again I was indirectly responsible for murder. First Thomas, now Cheyenne. Both dead because of me. I felt Noelle step up behind me. Getting my back. Just like old times. She put her hand protectively on my shoulder.

“Collateral damage,” Sabine said with a sneer. “Necessary in all wars. And let’s face it, Cheyenne was kind of a bitch.”

Wars?
Wars
? She was clearly out of her mind. Completely and totally gone.

I could barely think. Barely feel. Barely process anything that was going on around me. There was no space. No air. But I needed to know. “And what, your
battle
plan was to haunt me? Make me think Cheyenne was dead because of me?”

Sabine laughed, her eyes wild. “You should have seen yourself. Every time I sent you an e-mail or left you a little ‘present.’ Things I stole from Cheyenne’s room that night her parents so generously let us paw through all her stuff. You were always on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”

Someone, somewhere, finally cut the bass-heavy music, and all around were whispers and elbows nudging elbows. I felt tears of anger and embarrassment well up in my eyes. I couldn’t take much more of this. All this time I had trusted her. All this time I had thought she was one of my only true friends. But all the while I had been living with the enemy. Sabine had tortured me for months and I had never once suspected her.

My God, she must have gotten such satisfaction out of seeing me slowly losing it. Seeing me lock myself in the bathroom. Watching me tear my dress off before the fund-raiser because the perfume on it was Cheyenne’s. She was one of only three people even to know that photo of Cheyenne and me existed, so she must have dug through my stuff until she found it and used it against me. I had treated her like my best friend and all the while, she had been plotting with Ariana.

Ariana. That was how Sabine had known about the blush beads and the bedding, Ariana must have told her. It was all so perfectly, sadistically planned. Sabine probably gave me that stupid rug just so she could crush the blush beads into it later.