stay in the same room with me for five seconds.
"Yes. Anything at all," he said.
Behind Hauer, I saw a group of girls walking in a huddle t
oward Pemberly. One of them noticed us
and lifted her chin, and another girl turned.
Ivy Slade.
Her coal-black eyes fixed on me, and a cold bolt of ice slammed into my heart. She looked at Hauer
and a sly smile lit her pointy face. Clearly she was already calculating how quickly she could spread
the news that the cops were talking to me, but I didn't care. All I could
6
think about was her story. Her hatred of Billings. Her promise that she would bring us all down.
After the Billings fund-raiser she had told me everything. How the Billings Girls had forced her and
the other Billings hopefuls to break into her grandmother's house her sophomore year to steal a
family heirloom. How they had tripped the alarm, which had caused her grandmother to have a
stroke that ultimately killed her. How Noelle, Ariana, Cheyenne, and the other Billings Girls had left
Ivy there to cope with the tragedy herself.
If Cheyenne had definitely been murdered, then Ivy was, in my opinion, suspect number one. The
girl had motive seeping out her pores. She had practically told me straight out that she was going
to get revenge on Noelle as well as destroy Billings. Plus, I already knew she was capable of very
bad things. Ever since Cheyenne had died, someone had been stalking me. Leaving artifacts from
Cheyenne's life tucked around my room for me to find. Taking that video of me and Dash and
sending it to the entire student body. It was Ivy. I was sure of it. My certainty, of course, had
nothing to do with the fact that she'd stolen the love of my life, Josh Hollis.
"Ivy Slade," I said under my breath, as the girls turned and continued on their merry way.
"What was that?" Detective Hauer asked, curving his shoulders against the wind.
"Ivy Slade," I said more loudly.
The detective sighed and blew on his chapped hands. "Reed, we already talked to her," he said
finally. "She's not our girl."
7
"Talk to her again," I told him through my teeth.