tongue.
"I brought my list of suspects," she said, yanking a piece of paper out of her black and white tweed
bag. "Of course they've all been crossed off now except you."
She was acting completely normal. So either Josh hadn't received my gift after all, or he'd decided
not to tell her about it--which could be interesting. If he was keeping it a secret, that meant it had
touched him--that it meant something to him. Trying not to hope, I looked her list over. It was well
worn, with notes in the margin and a coffee stain at the top. Clearly she had been working on this
as hard as both Marc and I had. Apparently she really did care about Cheyenne.
"I wonder how many other people have taken this up as a hobby," I said, turning and sitting down
at my desk.
"What do you mean? Is there someone else?" Ivy
asked. She perched on the edge of my bed,
tugging down on her short black skirt.
"Marc Alberro. He used to have a thing for Cheyenne. Plus he kind of thinks he's going to be the
New York Times' next ace reporter," I explained. "So he was investigating too."
"Never heard of him," Ivy said with a shrug.
"I guess that's me filling in the blanks then," I replied.
221
"I guess so." She leaned back on her hands. "So let's see your list."
I handed mine over. Ivy smirked as she took it in. "So you did investigate some of the Billings
Girls."
My face turned pink, though I wasn't sure why. I focused on my computer, bringing up a Google
search screen in case we needed it. "Of course I did."
"I'm just surprised. I thought you guys were all about sisterhood and loyalty," she said, her words
dripping with disdain.
"I'm not an idiot," I told her, snatching the list back from her. "One of my 'sisters' tried to kill me
last year, in case you hadn't heard."
"Oh. Right," she said with a trace of chagrin. "Ariana. Who knew she would turn out to be such a
psycho?" She looked at me sideways and sat up straight. "Maybe she's the one who's been
stalking you. Or us."