We strolled through the main floor with its wide walkways and gleaming glass counters, and then down the stairs to the beauty department. Noelle wandered off toward the makeup counters to
check out a few things, and I was hit with a whiff of perfume. I paused and looked over at an anorexic-looking woman dressed in a formfitting black suit who was offering samples of some new scent. The cash I’d been given by the Billings alumni was currently burning a hole in my Chloé bag, and I had never bought myself perfume before. Could I possibly spend my green on something so decadent?
Why not? This was my weekend of freedom. I could do whatever I wanted.
“I’m going to go try out some perfume,” I told Sabine.
“I’ll come with you,” she replied.
As if I ever thought she was going to go after Noelle.
After assaulting my senses with fifteen ridiculously strong scents, I chose a clean, invigorating perfume called, appropriately, Free, and barely broke a sweat handing over the many bills I need to shell out for the tiny bottle. The moment the transaction was done, my iPhone rang, and Vienna’s picture came up.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Max out your credit already?”
She ignored my joke. “Where are you bitches? We’re trying on dresses. Get your butts up here!” she shouted.
“Guess we’re going to try on dresses,” I told Sabine and Noelle, who had just joined us with a small bag from La Mer.
“Sounds like a plan,” she said. She glanced at my bag.
“I can’t believe I’m actually in Barneys,” Sabine breathed, looking around as we ascended the escalator.
I glanced at Noelle, knowing some obnoxious comment was right on the tip of her tongue. She caught my look, and instead of saying
whatever she wanted to say, she looked away. Huh. Maybe Noelle was starting to get bored of teasing Sabine. Or maybe whatever she and Dash had done last night had left her in such a good mood that her heart wasn’t in it. She hadn’t returned to our suite until this morning.
Clench.
Okay. Not thinking about that.
We found London and Vienna in the spacious dressing room off the couture section on five, being waited on by two very eager assistants. From the looks of their rooms, they had already tried on several dresses and sorted them into racks of “yes’s” and “no’s.”
“Oooh! What’d you get?” London asked, grabbing at me and Noelle and our little Barneys bags.
“Perfume,” I said, as she pulled out the bottle so she and Vienna could inspect it.
Vienna spritzed it and smiled. “Nice. Very bold. Very you.”
“Thanks,” I said, beaming as I reclaimed the expensive bottle. They seemed much less interested in Noelle’s face cream. “Have you guys found anything yet?”
“We found something for
you
!” London announced, shoving a gold minidress at me. “You have to try this one on! With your legs and butt, the guys will go catatonic when they see you.”
At the mention of my butt I froze. I saw Noelle check it out in the mirror. Was she thinking of Dash? Wondering if he’d ever noticed it? Wondering if she’d been wrong about our flirtation being so very innocent?
“She’s right. You’ll look hot in that,” Noelle said finally. She
slipped out of her coat and glanced at one of the hovering workers. “Bring me something sophisticated and black. Only black,” she told them.
“Right away, Miss Lange,” the girl said. Of course she knew Noelle’s name. “We have some fabulous new things you’ll just adore.”
“I’m sure I will,” Noelle replied, taking a seat on the velvet chair in the corner.
And adore them she did, considering she bought five of them. After trying on practically everything in the store, London and Vienna went home with two new dresses each. I bought the gold one, which basically made me look runway-worthy. It put another dent in my cash, but it was totally worth it. Noelle kept urging me to use the Billings Alumni Fund instead, since the dress was for the fund-raiser, but I didn’t feel right about it. Sabine, meanwhile, snapped up a Marc Jacobs on sale. Even though she came from money like the rest of the Billings Girls, her family had actually taught her frugality. Go figure.
Afterward, we hit the CO-OP on the top floor, where the Twin Cities stocked up on more pairs of jeans than any two people could ever wear in a lifetime, and I splurged on a funky BCBG sweater that cost more than my mother brought home each week from her new job at Target. I could get used to this having-money thing. Although the wad was rapidly dwindling at this point. Perhaps I’d receive a new stash at Christmas or something. I’d have to hold out hope.
By the time we returned to our waiting limo, we were so loaded down with bags, they didn’t all fit in the trunk. We had to squeeze a few
in between us on the seats. I let out a sigh as I dropped back against the cool leather, feeling tired, but in a very self-satisfied way.
“That was a productive weekend,” Noelle said as the chauffeur closed the door behind us.
“Yeah, for American Express!” Vienna joked, shoving some bags into the corner near the partition.
“Back to Easton, then?” I said with a smile, happy to discover that I was actually looking forward to getting back there. This weekend really had been like a vacation. I felt so much more relaxed and happy. Like everything was going to be all right. That retail therapy always did the trick.
“Back to Easton,” Noelle replied. “Drew! We’re ready!” she shouted at her driver.
“Noelle, whip out those Prada boots you got again so I can drool over them,” London said, scooting forward in her seat as Drew edged into traffic.
“If you insist,” Noelle said smugly, pulling the box out.
London delicately lifted one of the black leather boots from the tissue inside the box and hugged it. “Omigod. I want to marry these boots!”
“I don’t know why you didn’t just get a pair for yourself,” Noelle said.
London scowled and handed the coveted boot back. “I tried them on, but they pinched my feet.”
“Of course they did, Ms. Big Foot. You totally need that surgery where they pare down your tootsies,” Vienna said.
“Ew! Vienna!” I exclaimed.
“What? Her feet are as wide as a duck’s. Seriously! Have you not noticed? Here! I’ll show you!” Vienna exclaimed, grabbing one of London’s legs and lifting it onto her lap. She tugged at the lace of one of London’s Coach booties and tried to pry it off.
“Leave my monster feet alone!” London squealed, giggling as she tried to squirm from Vienna’s grasp.
“No! The world needs to know about your deformity!” Vienna said with a faux cackle.
We were all laughing as Drew pulled the car out onto the FDR. Then, suddenly, all five of our phones beeped and sang in near unison. Everyone scrambled in their bags, but my phone was hidden somewhere at the bottom of my Chloé. Vienna was the first to unearth her cell.
“Omigod!” London and Vienna blurted in unison. They were both gaping down at Vienna’s screen, looking ashen, London’s legs still hooked over Vienna’s.
“What?” I asked, sitting up straight again. “What’s wrong?”
“The cops just dragged Ivy off for questioning!” London said, her eyes wide.
My heart started to pound. They had come for her. They had finally come for her.
“About Cheyenne?” Sabine asked, glancing at me with concern.
Vienna swallowed and nodded. “There must be new evidence or something. They’ve actually reopened the case as a possible murder.”
Everything inside of me deflated. We sat there in stunned silence, letting the true meaning of this sink in. Possible murder. Another murder. There could very well be a killer somewhere on campus. Again. Even though I had known this was a possibility, I still felt as if I was hearing the news for the first time. I guess I had been hoping it would all just go away. Now that hope had been dashed.
I looked up at Noelle, my skin cold. She stared grimly back. We were going to have to go through this. Again.
Later that night Constance, Rose, Tiffany, and I walked into the solarium together. I hadn’t seen the place so dead in months, not since Coffee Carma opened. But that night the place was so hushed it could have been a museum. People were talking—of course they were talking—but they were talking in whispers. Paranoid, frightened whispers.
It was all too familiar. Too eerily, skin-tinglingly familiar. Cheyenne’s death was bad enough. But Cheyenne’s possible murder? It had left the place grim. I wanted to tell them all what I knew—that Cheyenne’s grieving parents had asked for the investigation and that the police weren’t 100 percent behind it—but I couldn’t. Not without everyone knowing that I had been the one to visit with the cops last week. I glanced right and saw Josh alone at a table with a book open in front of him. He was looking at me but quickly looked away. What did that mean?
“I really don’t believe this is happening,” Constance said under her breath, clinging to the sleeves of her white sweater. As we wove our way around the café tables and couches, every eye in the room was on us. The Billings Girls. Once again we were at the center of a murder investigation.
“How could it have been murder?” Tiffany whispered. “We were all there. We all saw her. She took pills. There was no violence, no struggle. She wrote a note. I don’t understand.”
Two notes, actually. But there was no need for them to know that.
“Well, clearly the police have something or they wouldn’t be questioning all these people,” Rose said. Her normally healthy skin looked waxy under her red ringlets. “I just can’t imagine it. She must have been so scared. Why didn’t she call for help? Why didn’t she—”
Rose’s voice broke and she covered her face with her sleeve, which was pulled down over her hand. Tiffany put her arm around her and shot me a sad look.
“We’ll go get a table,” she said.
My insides quaked as Constance and I joined the short line at the counter. I wanted to squirm to try to make this awful feeling go away, but I knew it wouldn’t work. This feeling wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. No point in letting half the school see me fidgety and nervous and scared in the meantime.
“I hate this. I hate it,” Constance said, hugging herself tighter. She leaned closer to me as the worker behind the counter fired up the foam maker. “Do you realize that someone in this room might have
killed her? Might have snuck right into our dorm while we were all asleep and killed Cheyenne? I can’t handle this.”
I was about to respond when the already quiet vibe went deathly still. As if someone had just hit the mute button on the sound track of our lives. Startled by the sudden silence, I turned around. Ivy stood in the doorway, looking like a rabid pit bull ready to strike.
No one moved. They had let her go. The police had let her go. Her blue eyes found me in the crowd.
“You,” she said under her breath.
She stormed across the room. Everyone turned to look at me now. To see what I would do. They must have been disappointed, because I could think of nothing. Like a deer in headlights, I just let her come.
“Ivy.” Josh stood as she passed before him, but she flinched away. In two seconds her hand was on my arm. Grip like a vice. She dragged me away from Constance, who let out a gasp.
“What are you—”
“Back off,” Ivy snapped at her.
Ivy pulled me into the corner near the emergency exit where we were partially hidden from view by a large potted plant. I couldn’t see anyone from this vantage point, which meant they couldn’t see me either. My pulse started to race. Suddenly the airy room was full of murmurs. What was Ivy doing? No one treated the president of Billings this way. The thought finally woke me up from my stunned stupor and I snatched my arm back, sure her grip was going to leave finger-shaped bruises.
“What is wrong with you, you—”
“I know you were in my room at the Legacy,” Ivy said, cutting me off. She stepped right up in my face, her dark hair like two blankets around those eerie blue eyes. I took an instinctive step back, then hated myself for it. “You found my albums. You left them all over the floor, so I know that you know.”
“Know what?” I said, stalling for time.
“Don’t play dumb. It’s beneath you,” Ivy said.
Weird. Was that a compliment?
“Did you tell the police about me and Cheyenne?” she asked. She was all accusatory. Indignant. As if
I
had done something wrong. I lifted my chin and looked her dead in the eye.
“Yes, I did. You’ve got to admit, it’s all a little suspect,” I said firmly. “You guys are best friends all the way up through sophomore year, but now you hate each other out of nowhere? Put it all together with your shady criminal past and whatever this deal was with your grandmother and you start to look like a suspect to me.”
“Shut up,” Ivy said venomously. She didn’t even register surprise at the revelation that I knew about her family and her indiscretions. “Do not talk about things you will never understand.”
“So make me understand them,” I replied, growing warm from all the adrenaline. “What the hell happened between you guys?”
“I don’t have to explain myself,” Ivy said with a sneer. “Least of all to you.”
That sneer got right under my already taut skin.
“You think you’re so superior, don’t you? You people with your
rituals and your sisterhood crap and your blackball ceremonies,” Ivy said, her eyes narrowing. “Well, guess what, Reed? It’s your turn now. Your turn to find out what it feels like to be blackballed. We’re going to see how you like it.”
I couldn’t breathe. All I could see were those black marbles in my desk drawer. She had put them there. She had to have put them there. Why else would she be saying these things to me? Ivy was my stalker. She had somehow gotten her hands on a key to Billings, whether by stealing Kiki’s or getting one in the office or finding one some other way—it didn’t matter. However she had done it, she was guilty. There was no other explanation.
“I’ve never done anything to you,” I said through my teeth, trembling from head to toe. “I barely even know you. Why are you doing this to me?”
Ivy smiled evilly. “Haven’t done anything. Yet.”
She turned to go and I instinctively reached out and grabbed her. “Stop lying, you freak.”