boyfriend--kissing. Touching. Taking off each other's clothes. Everyone knew what I had done. And
no one had talked to me since.
Except Sabine DuLac, my roommate in Billings.
Where Noelle had all but banned me from the Billings table in the dining hall, where Portia
Ahronian had organized a Billings shopping trip and excluded me, and where even Kiki Rosen had
switched
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seats in the library so she wouldn't have to acknowledge me--Sabine had remained loyal. At least I
had one true friend left. One person who had been willing to listen to my explanation. Although,
she had always hated Noelle. She probably would have taken my side if I'd shot the girl dead. But
maybe now that a few days had passed, some of the others would come around as well. Maybe I
could even get Noelle to listen to me.
It was a stretch, I knew. But I was going to have to try.
Halfway across the snow-covered quad, lit only by the quaint, ground-level lamps lining the
pathways, I stopped and took a deep breath to steel myself. I was going to march into Billings and I
was going to make Noelle listen to me. I didn't care if I had to scream the whole apology to her
through her closed dorm-room door. She was going to hear my side.
My life at Easton depended on it.
A bitter gust of wind whipped my dark hair back from my face and got me moving again. Knees
quaking--not from nerves, I told myself, but from the cold and the weight of my bags--I turned up
the walk to Billings. That was when I saw a dark figure move toward me. I froze.
"Reed. Good. I'm glad I caught you."
It was Detective Hauer. The King of Bad News. Just what I needed.
"Detective," I said. He was all bundled up in a dark wool coat that seemed one size too small for
his stocky frame, a tweed hat pulled low over his brow, hiding his dark, usually unkempt hair. His
wide nose was red from the cold, and there were visible bags under his brown eyes. The way he
looked at me--like a doctor probably looks at
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a patient right before he diagnoses inoperable cancer--made me want to run inside, even though I
dreaded facing my friends.