The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (33 page)

I was about to replace the magazines when I saw a tiny piece of brown ribbon that seemed to be lodged between the bottom of the trunk and the side. How had that gotten wedged in there? I reached in and tugged at it and my breath caught in my throat. Had the bottom of the trunk just moved?

I glanced at the outside of the trunk. Sure enough, the “floor” of the inside was about four inches higher than the bottom on the outside.

The trunk had a false bottom.

Heart pounding a mile a minute now, I dove in and took everything out. I knew this was dangerous. There was a ton of crap here and it would take me a while to replace it all. But I had to see what was in the bottom of this trunk. If Ariana was hiding something, she had done a much better job of hiding it than her friends had.

Once the trunk was clear, I grabbed the ribbon and pulled. The entire floor of the trunk pulled free. Sitting underneath it was a sleek black laptop computer.

I turned and looked over my shoulder. Ariana had a Mac all set up on her desk. What did a high school student need with a second, secret computer?

I took the computer out and rested it in my lap. I popped the
top and hit the power button, just praying no one would walk in. It took the computer a few agonizing seconds to power up. What was on this thing? Was it the proof Natasha was looking for? Had Ariana and the others actually plotted to get Leanne thrown out of school? It was clear that Ariana, at least, had something worth hiding. These were pretty elaborate measures for simply stashing a laptop to keep it from getting stolen. Especially when everyone at this school could buy one of these things four thousand times over.

“Come on,” I whispered. “Come on, come on. . . .”

Finally, a black screen appeared with a prompt window in the center.

“Welcome, Ariana,” it read. “Password?”

And there was that white box underneath with a flashing cursor, mocking me. There would be no getting past this without a password.

Shit.

Downstairs, the front door of Billings opened and slammed. I was on my feet in an instant, carefully replacing the computer and the false bottom and all the contents of the trunk. I shoved it back into the closet, slipped out the door, and ran to the stairwell, jogging down to my own floor. It wasn’t until I was back in my room that I allowed myself to breathe. I leaned back against my door and heaved, my hand over my stomach.

I was onto something. I knew I was. I had to get the password
to that computer, but how? I couldn’t figure out what Ariana meant half the time when she was speaking directly to me, so how was I supposed to deduce her secret password?

Didn’t matter how. I had to do it. Because if there was anything to be found, it was on that computer. I was sure of it.

“Reed! Reed! Wait up!”

I paused on the steps to the library as Constance jogged to catch up with me. Her face was flushed and her eyes were bright with excitement. She placed her hand over her heart as she stopped in front of me to catch her breath. Just looking at her made me think of meadows in springtime and flowers blooming.

“Thank you
so much
for making me talk to Whittaker the other day,” she gushed. “I never would have gone up to him on my own, but he was
so
sweet. We talked for so long Mr. Shreeber was screaming at me to get on the bus. I made us late for the meet!”

“Wow. Glad I could be of service,” I said.

“He told me all about his trip to East Asia and asked me about the Cape,” Constance said. “He remembered that my family goes to the Cape every summer. Not that he shouldn’t. I mean, his family has visited us there a few times. But still, it was nice of him to ask, wasn’t it?”

“Sure,” I said, grinning as well. It was nearly impossible not to in the face of that much giddiness.

“Do you think he was flirting?” she asked me, grabbing my forearm, which was wrapped around my books.

“I—”

“Of course he wasn’t flirting. Why would he flirt with me?” Constance said, pulling me aside to let a few students through to the door. “He’s known me since my Elmo obsession,” she said, looking at the ground.

“Your Elmo obsession?”

“Oh, I was obsessed with Elmo—you know, from
Sesame Street
?—for
way
too long. I carried that stupid doll around with me until I was, like, nine years old,” Constance said. “My older brother Trey threw it in the ocean one year and Whit dove in to save it.” She sighed. For the first time in my life, I saw firsthand what the expression “stars in her eyes” looked like. Kind of spooky. “I’ll never forget that.”

“Wow,” I said. “He’s a hero.”

“He is, isn’t he?” she asked, scrunching her nose. “Anyway, I think he might actually be interested in me. Walt Whittaker. I can’t believe it. He even said we should have dinner sometime. Just me and him. To catch up on old times!”

I took a deep breath and tasted relief. “Constance, that’s so great. I’m really glad it went so well.”

“Me too!” she said. Then she grabbed me in both arms and hugged me. Hard. Constance was bonier than she looked.

“Come on. Let’s go study!” she said.

As she dragged me through the door and into the library, I couldn’t help feeling I’d finally dodged at least one bullet. If Whit
and Constance started spending time together, he would have to see that she was ten times more appropriate for him than I was. And ten times more eager to be with him. And then I wouldn’t have to worry about deflecting his advances or trying to remind him of our agreement to be just friends. One less thing to stress about.

I needed this. I needed it badly.

When I arrived at the dinner table that night, a heated debate was taking place. Dash was definitely on one side, Noelle on the other. It was unclear as of yet whom the others had aligned themselves with. I blushed as I walked by Dash and sat down on his side of the table, as far from him as I could get, making it nearly impossible for me to see him. Ever since my illicit discovery in Noelle’s room, I’d had a hard time being in the same room as Dash without constantly seeing his nether regions in my mind’s eye.

Two seconds later, Josh sat down across from me. “Hey,” he said.

I smiled. “Hey.”

“I don’t understand,” Dash was saying. “One phone call and we could have a limo waiting for us anywhere in town. Do you
want
to be uncomfortable for two hours?”

“Dash, you’re not getting it. This party is all about tradition,” Noelle replied, gesturing with her fork. “And part of the tradition is taking the train.”

They were talking about the Legacy. They had to be. The Billings Girls had never talked about it right in front of me so openly before. Were they finally,
finally
going to invite me?

“She’s right, man,” Gage said, leaning back on two chair legs and balancing. “The train ride is half the fun.”

“Yeah. It was really fun when you booted all over the window last year on the way home and it dripped down the back of my coat,” Dash said grumpily. “That was fun.”

“Look. The Legacy has been going on for generations,” Noelle said, taking a bite of a baby carrot. “Our forefathers took the train to the Legacy and we will take the train to the Legacy.”

“Since when do you give a crap about our forefathers?” Dash asked.

“Since when are you using wax in your hair?” Noelle asked, eyeing him disdainfully.

“Oh, that’s relevant,” Dash replied.

God, this was torture. Didn’t they realize that no one had officially told me about this thing yet? Didn’t they want me to come? Talk about Cinderella. This was what she must have felt like when her annoying stepsisters kept talking about the damn ball.

Okay. Clearly I was going to have to make this opportunity for myself. Sometimes a girl had to do what a girl had to do.

“Um, I have a question,” I said, leaning forward.

Everyone turned to look at me. Noelle, Kiran, Taylor, Ariana, Gage, Josh, Dash, and Natasha. It was as if they had all forgotten that I existed and my speaking was, therefore, a
complete
shock.

“What
is
the Legacy?”

Noelle and Kiran exchanged a look. Gage snorted a laugh and dropped his chair back down, reaching for a roll on his plate.

“That’s for us to know and you to most likely never find out,” Gage said, enjoying himself a little too much.

“Funny,” I replied.

Josh cleared his throat. “He’s fairly serious,” he said, his expression apologetic.

I felt a blush creeping onto my cheeks. “Come on.”

Dash cleared his throat and leaned onto the table to better see me. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing and tried as hard as I could not to see his guy parts superimposed over his face.

“Reed, the Legacy is an exclusive party,” he said sagely. “Only private school legacies are invited.”

My insides turned. I had kind of expected someone to make me an exception, to tell me they would find a way around the rule. Was it possible that Constance’s theory had been completely off base?

“Not just legacies,” Kiran corrected. “Multiple-generation legacies.”

“Oh,” I said, looking down at my food.

“‘We came over on the Mayflower’ legacies,” Gage added.

I get it. I’m not invited. Thanks for the hammer to the head.

“The only way to get in if you’re
not
a legacy is to be a legacy’s plus-one,” Noelle said, looking directly at Dash until he started concentrating very seriously on his food. “And only a very,
very
select few even
get
a plus-one. Your family has to go back to practically the dark ages.”

“Now where on Earth would Reed find a legacy with a plus-one?” Kiran pondered aloud.

I looked around at all of them, waiting for the answer, until Noelle tilted her head toward the other side of the room. I turned and followed her gaze. Whittaker. Whittaker, who was, as he always seemed to be, chatting with an adult. This time, Dean Marcus.

Suddenly it hit me like a cartoon piano to the head. This was why London had wanted to use him. This was why Vienna had suggested that every girl in school would be after him in the next few weeks. Whit could get one lucky girl into the Legacy with his coveted plus-one. If I had any shot in hell of going, I would have to be Walt Whittaker’s date.

I looked at Noelle again. She arched one eyebrow and lifted a shoulder, like,
Told you so.
She had planned this from the start. The things Whittaker could get me that I wouldn’t otherwise have. We weren’t talking about diamond earrings or other random luxury items. We were talking about entré into exclusive parties. We were talking about acceptance among the elite. Just being a Billings Girl wasn’t enough. At least not for me. I was a special case. I needed another leg up.

I took a deep breath. What Noelle didn’t realize was that I couldn’t be Whittaker’s plus-one. I couldn’t lead him on just to get an invite to some party, no matter how intriguing and mysterious and exclusive. He clearly liked me. A lot. Using him would
be way too mean. And besides, Constance was totally in love with him. There was no way I was doing that to her. Except . . .

“Do you guys really think Pearson is going to be there?” Josh asked.

Except for that.

“Are you kidding? Wherever Pearson is right now, he’ll be at the Legacy,” Dash said. “Dude wouldn’t miss this party if he was dead.”

Thomas was going to be at the Legacy. His friends seemed fairly certain of that fact. That was the whole point of me trying to get to this thing, wasn’t it? So that I could yell at him for everything he’d put me through. So that he could explain. So that I could see that he was okay.

Slowly, I looked up at Whittaker again. He was laughing heartily at something the dean had said—a nice, big belly laugh. And sure enough, a few random girls were looking on with stars in their eyes, just waiting to pounce on him once he was free. Thomas was going to be at this party. The only way for me to get into this party was to get Whittaker to invite me. If I wanted to see my maybe-ex, I was going to have to use my maybe-stalker to do it.

Fate had a really messed-up sense of humor.

The days had been growing rapidly shorter. Now when I left the library after a postdinner study session, the torch lights along the pathways were already aglow to light my way back to Billings. With the dark came the intensified cold. After days of resisting and coming home with my teeth chattering, I had finally caved and broken out my crappy gray wool coat with the embarrassingly short sleeves and the unidentifiable stain along the hem. Already I’d caught a few disgusted stares from the female population. I was overdue for a phone call to Dad anyway. Looked as if the next one would include me begging him to put in an order with Lands End.

Yes, Lands End. While my classmates walked around in their Prada and Coach and Miu Miu, Lands End was the best I could hope for.

I ignored a pair of girls coming in the opposite direction who stared into my semifamous face, then started twittering and talking the moment I was past them. I barely even noticed this stuff anymore. If I ever did hit it big, this semester was going to be perfect prep for handling celebrity.

I turned up the path to Billings, already mentally pep-talking myself for whatever chore list my “sisters” had devised for me, when I saw a dark figure lurking in front of the door. For the splittest of seconds I thought of Thomas and my heart caught. But then I realized that a figure of that size could belong to only one person.

“Reed,” he said, stepping out of the shadows.

“Whit,” I replied, mimicking his serious tone.

“How was the library?” he asked with a small, knowing smile.

I decided not to ask how he knew I’d been at the library. I’d save him the pleasure of sharing, and me the pain of hearing, how he predicted my every move.

“Fine. What’s up?” I asked.

“Well, I have a question to ask you,” he said, slipping his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. “An invitation to offer, actually.”