The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (157 page)

“I have to go. Sorry,” I said to Diana and Sabine. “But yeah. He’s definitely going to ask about the baby boomers.”

I took off after Trey, ignoring the baffled expressions on my friends’ faces, and caught up to him right at the base of the library steps.

“Trey!” I called out.

He paused and turned around. He was wearing a thick white turtleneck sweater that set off the dark color of his skin, and he’d recently had his black hair shorn so close to his scalp that it was barely there. Trey was widely considered to be one of the hottest, sweetest, and most mature guys at Easton. Why Cheyenne had ever let him go, I had
no idea. Somehow, he didn’t seem surprised to see me jogging toward him. Even better, he didn’t look remotely annoyed or disturbed by my presence.

“Hey, Reed. What’s up?” he asked. He casually held his books with both hands down at waist level in front of him and looked me in the eye. “How’re you doing?” he asked in a low voice.

“I’m fine,” I said, catching my breath. “Well, you know, not really, but—”

“I can imagine you pretty much want to blow this joint,” he said, shaking his head at my gawkers. “Bunch of losers.”

“So . . . you don’t believe the rumor?” I asked tentatively, walking over to lean back against one of the metal handrails leading up to the library.

Trey scoffed and joined me, leaning next to me. “Please. You didn’t kill Cheyenne any more than I did.”

I winced. Little did he know, his name was on the list of potential suspects tucked into my book bag. Not that I really believed he’d done it, but still.

“The whole Dash thing, however . . .” He looked at me admonishingly. “Let’s just not go there.”

“Fair enough,” I replied, hugging myself against a sudden chill. Trey and Josh had become seriously close friends this year, so the last subject I wanted to broach with Trey was his feelings on my infamous slut video.

“So what’s up?” he asked.

“Actually, I was just kind of wondering . . .”

How the hell was I going to say this? I realized, suddenly, what a loser I was going to look like, asking about my ex’s new girlfriend. But it wasn’t because I was pathetically lovesick—it was because I suspected the girl of murder.

Trey’s brow creased and he looked at me with those warm brown eyes of his. “Wondering what?”

Okay, Reed. Just ask him.

“What do you think of Ivy?” I blurted.

Trey stared at me for a second, then laughed, bringing the side of his fist to his mouth. He pushed away from the railing. “Oh, come on. You’re not really asking me that, are you? I would have thought you were above that whole jealous ex-girlfriend thing.”

“I’m not asking as a jealous ex-girlfriend,” I told him, my face burning. “It’s not like I want Josh back.”

Even though I do.

“Oh, really?” Trey said, his eyes dancing. “Then why are you asking?”

I took a deep breath and waited for a pair of guys from Drake to lumber their way up the stairs to the library doors. “I think she might have killed Cheyenne,” I whispered.

At this, all the mirth dropped away from Trey’s face. “What?”

“It’s just a theory right now,” I explained. “I’m trying to gather information—”

“No. There’s no way,” Trey said, shaking his head. “Those two used to be best friends. Ivy would never have hurt Cheyenne.”

“You don’t think?” I asked. “Even after their . . . falling-out?”

“No way.” Trey was adamant. Which, considering how convinced
I was, kind of got under my skin. He leaned back next to me again. “Sorry, Nancy Drew. I think you’re way off on this one. Even though they were hanging out with different crowds when Cheyenne died, I think there was always a connection between them, you know?”

I didn’t know what to say . . . what to ask. I had been so sure that he would agree with me on some level that I was totally thrown. Trey looked down at the concrete steps and pushed at a wilted brown leaf with the toe of his boot.

“I still can’t even believe this is happening,” he mused quietly. “I mean, it’s psychotic, thinking that someone on this campus might have killed her.” He glanced sidelong at me and adjusted his books. “Would you believe the cops have questioned me five times already?”

I blinked, stunned. “Five times? Why?”

“I
am
the ex-boyfriend,” Trey reminded me, lifting his shoulders. “Cops love that shit.”

“Right.”

“Luckily I have an airtight alibi,” he said. “So they finally gave up.”

“Really?” I asked, trying to sound like a moderately interested friend, rather than a person who had anything riding on said alibi. But suddenly all I could think about was how happy I would be to officially cross Trey off the suspect list. “What is it?”

Trey took a deep breath and looked out across the evergreen bushes that lined the steps. “Well, actually, Josh was having a hard time sleeping, you know, after you and he . . .”

I gulped in some cool air and tried to ignore the tightness in my chest. “We’d broken up around then.”

“Right,” Trey said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “So I was trying to help the guy out, you know? Distract him and all. We were up pretty much all night trying to beat these suckers from Malaysia on Infinite Warrior. Guys were in and out of our room all night, cheering us on, eating our food. Plus there’s the site you have to link to so you can play internationally. They have a log of how long we were playing. Which was, unfortunately, way too long.”

He laughed in a self-deprecating way and I let out a sigh of relief. I wasn’t sure if I could handle being so very wrong about a friend again. The Ariana thing had been bad enough.

“So, anyway, sorry to burst your bubble about Ivy, but I’ve known the girl since freshman year. I really don’t see it happening,” he said, standing up straight.

Yeah, well, no one had seen the Ariana thing coming either, had they? Just because Trey thought Ivy was innocent . . . that didn’t make her innocent.

“I’ll see you around,” he said, lifting his chin.

“Yeah. See ya.”

Trey started up the stairs to the library, then paused, his shoes scraping on the wet concrete steps. He turned and looked down at me from a few steps up.

“There is one thing. I told the police, so I guess it won’t hurt to tell you,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked, intrigued.

“I’m pretty sure Cheyenne was cheating on me last spring,” he said, a slight blush coming to his cheeks.

“Dominic Infante?” I suggested before I could check myself.

Dominic was a guy I had gone on one date with in New York City. He’d gotten insanely drunk and confessed that he’d slept with Cheyenne several times before her death.

Trey laughed. “No. She didn’t hook up with him until this September, I don’t think. No, it was someone else. She used to get these texts all the time from someone with the initials S.O. and she’d get all flustered and weird about them. Finally one day I snagged her phone and checked out the texts and they seemed totally innocent, but the way she acted when they came in . . . I don’t know. It wasn’t right.”

I smirked. “You checked her texts?”

“Hey. Nobody’s perfect,” Trey said, spreading his arms wide.

As he jogged up the steps and disappeared into the library, my mind scrolled through all the people I’d ever met or even heard of, searching for an S.O. Of course it came up blank. But at least I now had something new to go on. Maybe the answer to all my problems would be as easy as IDing S.O.

As I walked into the post office that afternoon, Jason Darlington was walking out. I automatically opened my mouth to say hi—we were in the same English class and we’d hung out before the Billings fund-raiser debacle. He automatically went to hold the door. But when he saw it was me, his normally friendly face shut down entirely and he let the heavy door slam closed behind him. If not for my catlike reflexes, I would have been crushed.

Guess that was one more person who wasn’t talking to me.

Trying to ignore the ever-growing hole in my heart, I swung the door wide and walked inside. The post office was jam-packed with chatting students, the excitement in the air palpable. They were all holding little blue cards and passing them around to check out the names they contained. Everyone was there for the same reason I was: to find out who they would be gifting at the Holiday Dinner.

Steeling myself for another wave of glares, stares, and whispers,
I rolled my shoulders back and wove through the crowd. Sudden pockets of silence followed me all the way to my box. I thought back to the way the campus had felt after we had all heard about Thomas’s murder last year. How eerie it was, with everyone wondering who among us might be a murderer. But this felt totally different, because this time everyone had already decided it was me. So instead of an eerie vibe, there was more of a growing sense of animosity toward me. A focused, sizzling, unifying hatred—like eventually, these people might organize and decide it was time to take me down.

Let’s just say it did not feel good. My face was giving off as much heat as the summer sun, but I managed to shake my hair back and concentrate on opening my mailbox’s lock. Sooner or later I would clear my name and these people would all have to apologize for suspecting me. For now it was get in and get out. That was the plan.

Then someone stepped up to a box a few feet away from mine and I could feel whoever it was eyeing me tentatively. Against my own will, I glanced over. It was Marc Alberro. My date for the Billings fund-raiser who hadn’t spoken to me once since dismissing me that night. He approached me slowly, letting his dark hair fall over his forehead as if he was trying to hide. My heart fluttered with nervousness. Not that I cared all that much what Marc Alberro thought of me, but would this be another public call-out? God, I hoped not.

“Hey, Reed. What’s up?” he asked. His tone was conciliatory, which relaxed my tense shoulders a bit.

“Oh, I think we all know what’s up,” I replied, glancing at a group of girls who were eyeing me nearby. “What’s up with you? I thought
you were never going to speak to me again after the fund-raiser.”

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when Marc basically told me to walk away after the Dash video had been zapped to everyone we knew. He was, after all, a decent guy and a member of Easton’s Purity Club. A guy like that would definitely not be happy about everyone seeing his date’s sloppy hookup with another guy. Another girl’s guy, to be exact. I already had two strikes against me, so why was he talking to me now? Wasn’t an alleged murder rap strike three?

“Yeah, well, I’ve thought about it a lot and . . . when it comes down to it, it’s not really my business what you did before we met,” he said quietly, leaning back against the wall of P.O. boxes. “It’s not even really my business what you’ve done since.”

His words made me feel both chagrined and relieved at the same time. He was telling me he no longer had any interest in going out with me. Which, while it was a rejection, was kind of a welcome rejection. With everything else that was going on right then, the last thing I needed was to navigate the murky waters of a new relationship. Especially one I hadn’t been all that into to begin with. Marc was a nice guy and all—smart, cute, funny—but I had never felt that thing you’re supposed to feel when you like a guy. That “I might die if I don’t see him again before the next class” thing. That thing I always had with Josh.

“So . . . friends?” I said.

Marc smiled, his whole face lighting up. What? Had he expected me to make a scene? “Friends.”

“Cool.”

I smiled, possibly my first real smile of the last two days, and opened my mailbox. Inside was the same little blue card everyone else had received. I pulled it out and flipped it over.

JOSHUA HOLLIS, KETLAR, SENIOR

“You have to be kidding me,” I said aloud. Why didn’t they just saddle me with Ivy Slade, too?

“What? Who’d you get?” Marc asked, leaning over.

I turned the card for him to see and he whistled under his breath.

“Someone in Hell Hall has a twisted sense of humor,” he said.

I slammed the tiny metal door shut and stuffed the card into the back pocket of my jeans. “I’m starting to think this entire school has a twisted sense of humor.”

Marc glanced at our gaggle of onlookers. I saw Amberly’s two sidekicks checking me out, but they both blushed and looked away the second I caught them, pretending to be absorbed in the new Barneys catalog. “I know what you mean. Come on.”

He grabbed my hand and led me through the crowd, cutting a path so I wouldn’t have to be there any longer than absolutely necessary. As soon as we were back outside in the cool evening air, I gulped in a deep breath.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I seriously can’t believe anyone thinks you would have hurt Cheyenne,” Marc said, shaking his head. “I mean, just because a person makes a sex tape, that doesn’t mean they’re capable of murder.”

My face flushed crimson. “I didn’t make a sex tape. Someone did that
without me knowing. And by the way, there was no actual sex involved.”

“Well, in any case,” Marc said as we started across the quad, “I bet there are at least fifty suspects who make more sense than you do. I mean, the girl was always juggling two or three guys at a time. Maybe one of
them
finally snapped. A crime of passion makes a lot more sense than someone killing for a spot in a dorm.”

A warm, tingling rush came over me and I paused. That rush you get when you suddenly realize that someone has said something important. Maybe something they didn’t mean to say.

“Wait a minute. How do you know she was juggling several guys at a time?” I asked.

Marc stopped walking, already a couple of feet ahead of me, but it took a second for him to turn around. A long second. Every inch of my skin was on fire. This wasn’t the first time Marc had blurted something about Cheyenne that he’d had no real reason for knowing. He had also brought up the whole Cheyenne-drugging-Josh thing a couple of weeks ago.

“Just something I heard,” he replied with a shrug, looking me in the eye. His expression bordered on defiant.