by Kate Brian
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had all frozen in place like members of some kind of freak, designer-clad mime show.
"I'm looking for Lara and... her friend," I said.
Just like that, the entire room emptied out. Bliss compacts were tossed into Cole Haan bags. A
dozen pairs of nearly identical Stuart Weitzman booties hurried past me out the door. Only two
girls remained, looking like they'd just been cornered by a rabid pit bull. Lara and Nameless.
Amberly's two sidekicks. Or former sidekicks. Now that she had ascended to Billings, she was
freshman-lackey free. I was hoping to use the fact that she'd kicked the 'kicks to the curb faster
than last season's Jimmy Choos to my advantage.
"Hey, there," I said, dropping my bag on the counter next to the white marble sinks. "Don't look so
freaked." I looked at the girl whose name I didn't know. She was kind of mousy, with dark blond
hair that fell straight down her back. No bangs. No defining features. Her brown eyes were wide as
she stared at me, and she was gripping the sink behind her for dear life. "What's your name:
"Kirsten?" she said timidly.
"Nice name," I said with a smile, trying to get her to relax.
Her lips curled into a small smile. "Thanks. I like yours too."
Lara, who was a bit taller and had slightly darker blond hair that also hung straight down her back,
smacked Kirsten's arm with the back of her hand and said something under her breath.
"Listen, I know there are a lot of rumors going around about me, but none of them are true," I told
them, crossing my arms over my
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chest. "And all I really want to know from you is if you remember the night of Cheyenne's...
death."
I didn't want to use the word murder. I had a feeling Kirsten might faint if I did and crack her tiny
skull open on the sink. And that, in the words of acronym-happy Portia, would be VNG. The two of
them looked at each other for a long moment, then turned to me.
"Yeah...," they said in unison.
"Do you happen to remember what you did that night? And whether or not Amberly was with
you?" I asked.
Lara's brow knit, obviously trying to figure out why I was asking. Kirsten, however, jumped right in.
"Oh, yeah. Amberly was totally with us. Amberly's always with us," she said, waving a hand.
"Or she used to be," Lara said bitterly. She pushed away from the sinks and took a step toward me,
eyeing me discerningly. "What's all this about?"
Okay, so this girl was shrewd. I knew she was on the paper with Constance, so she was probably
pulling a Lois Lane here, trying to sniff out my motive and stuff like that. Live the life of an ace
reporter as she imagined it.
"I'm helping a friend out with a story," I said, thinking quickly. "You know Marc Alberro, right?"
Lara relaxed. "Marc? Yeah, I know him."
"Well, he's doing an in-depth piece on where various people of interest were that night, so I told
him I'd help out with the interviews,"
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I said quickly. I glanced at Kirsten and away from Lara's prying eyes. "So you guys were all
together."
"Yeah. That was the night we tried out that new workout DVD, remember?" Kirsten said, turning
as she yanked a lip gloss out of her bag. She looked at Lara in the mirror. "Some kind of Pilates
fusion thing? Our abs hurt for days. And then, in the middle of the night, Amberly knocked over
that bottle of water we left out and it woke us all up and you threw your Build-A-Bear at her?
Remember?"
"Kirsten!" Lara said through her teeth. She looked at me and blushed. "I do not have a Build-A-
Bear."
I stifled a laugh as Lara's skin tone deepened. "So Amberly knocked over a water bottle in the
middle of the night," I said. "Coming back from the bathroom, or... ?"
"Yep," Lara said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Coming back from the bathroom."
"No! She went out, remember?" Kirsten said in a scolding tone as she finished glossing her lips.
"She disappeared for, like, hours and then snuck back into the room at, like, the ass crack of
dawn?" she said, narrowing her eyes as she tried to recall. She lifted a desperate hand in Lara's
direction. "I can't believe you don't remember this. You were so mad!"
My heart skipped a beat as I took this information in. Disappeared for hours? And Lara was trying
to cover it up? Did that mean that Amberly went somewhere she shouldn't have gone? Did she
have time to--
"It wasn't dawn, Kirsten, it was more like two a.m.," Lara corrected
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her friend. "I remember that because it was still totally dark out and we had to turn the light on to
clean up the spill."
Two a.m. Cheyenne had still been alive at 2 a.m. She hadn't even gotten back to Billings from the
headmaster's office until almost one thirty, and then we'd had our fight. And I remember some
paramedic saying the estimated time of death was more like 4 a.m. Which would mean Amberly
was tucked back in her bed when Cheyenne died. Unless, of course, Lara was wrong--or lying. In
any case, where Amberly had gone in the middle of the night was a mystery.
"You're sure it was two a.m.," I said, looking at both of them.
"Positive," Lara said. "Kirsten likes to overexaggerate."
"She's right. I do," Kirsten said with a giggle.
"Well, thanks, girls." I shouldered my bag and tucked my hair behind my ear. "That's all I need to
know." I paused before striding out the door. "Say hi to your bear for me," I threw over my
shoulder.
I smiled as I walked out the door, even though I'd just proven that bitchy blond upstart innocent.
These days, I had to find the fun where I could get it.
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* * *
Tuesday at lunch I sat with Diana, Shane, and Sonal as they quizzed one another on French vocab
words they would need to know for their final. Since I wasn't taking French, I was able to tune
them out and stare off into space. Which basically meant I was staring at the Billings table.
Noelle and Amberly sat across from each other at the first seats near the aisle. Noelle in her usual
chair, Amberly in my old seat--which was also Ariana's old seat. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek
ponytail, and she wore a pressed white shirt under an aqua-colored, cable-knit sweater vest and a
gray skirt, plus a light blue scarf. When I squinted, she looked exactly like Ariana. Was I the only
person around here who had noticed her transformation? Was I the only one who was totally
creeped out by it?
"Have you guys noticed anything different about Amberly lately?" I asked my tablemates,
interrupting the vocab round-robin.
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"You mean like the fact that she's gone from sniveling bitch to bossy bitch in less than a week?"
Shane replied, taking a bite of her ham sandwich. "Has to be a record, even for Easton."
Diana and Shane giggled. Sonal covered her mouth with her hand to keep from spitting her
chicken salad everywhere.
"Well, that and... isn't she kind of dressing differently?" I asked.
They all leaned in to see the Billings table better. After a moment Diana shrugged. "Still preppy
and peppy," she said. "I swear that girl has at least one cable-knit sweater in every color in the
universe."
"I thought Seattle girls were supposed to be more, like, earthy," Son
al commented, tossing her
long black hair behind her shoulder as she sucked at her teeth.
"Apparently Amberly didn't get the memo," Shane replied.
"But she doesn't look like she's trying to emulate anyone else?" I prodded.
They glanced over again. "Laura Bush?" Shane suggested.
Then they all cracked up laughing and got back to their work. So much for that. Maybe it was just
because I had known Ariana better than they had. Or maybe I was just trying to see something
that wasn't there. And there was always the chance that I was getting a tad obsessed with this
whole Cheyenne murder thing.
I was about to return to my lunch when Kiran's ex--Dreck Boy James--walked by Noelle with his
tray of food. She said something to him as he passed--something I couldn't hear, but which
cracked up the other girls at the table. James paused for a moment, turning beet
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red. For a second I thought he was going to say something back, and I willed him to do it. To just
stand up for himself. But instead he ducked his head and kept walking.
Noelle smiled happily to herself as she sipped her water, and suddenly all those feelings from that
awful day last year came flooding back. The terrified look on Kiran's face when Noelle had told her
they knew who she was dating. How Noelle had basically blackmailed her into breaking up with
James. How atrocious and nauseated I had felt when I had been the one forced to do it. As much
as I had grown to love Noelle, I wished that just once she could get a taste of how she made other
people feel. Just once I wished someone would blackmail her or make her feel less than worthy.
At that moment I so wished I hadn't destroyed that Billings disc. It would have been such perfect
blackmail material. If I still had it, I could use it to get her to listen to me. Get her to finally hear my
side. Maybe even get myself back into Billings. Damn my temper. Why did I have to go and crack
the thing in half without thinking ahead to--
And then, just like that, an intense wave of heat overcame me. Just like that, epiphany. I could
have made a copy of the disc. I hadn't, of course, but I could have. All I had to do was make Noelle
believe that I still had the information and the upper hand was mine. For the first time since she
had booted me from Billings, I felt an exhilarating thrill of possibility. For the first time I could taste
my comeback.
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* * *
I knew I would have to put my Noelle plan into action ASAP, before I lost my nerve. The only
problem was, the girl never went anywhere alone. If I had any shot of getting her to listen to me,
she was going to have to be solo, because when other people were around she wouldn't be able
to give me an inch. That would be perceived as a weakness, and she couldn't have that.
So that night I called Sabine and asked her to keep an eye on Noelle for me. If the girl did happen
to leave Billings on her own for any reason, Sabine was to call me. Much to my surprise, Sabine
didn't even ask me why I needed this info. She probably just assumed I was going to try to beg my
way back into Billings. Right end game, wrong method.
The call came in the next morning. Early. My heart was in my throat as I fumbled to answer my
phone, unaccustomed to sudden blasts of music at such an ungodly hour.
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"Hello?" I said, breathless, trying to shake the sleep from my head.
"Noelle and Amberly just left for Coffee Carma. They're meeting up with their party planner to
visualize decorations for the pre-Kiran thing before Coffee Carma gets crowded," Sabine
whispered to me. "I know she's not alone, but it's close. It might be your only chance."
"Thanks, Sabine," I said, tossing the covers aside.
"Good luck," she replied just before I turned off the phone.
I dressed quickly, throwing on a black turtleneck sweater and pulling my hair back into a ponytail.
In the bathroom I threw some cold water on my face and looked at my reflection. I looked tired
and pasty, but I was just going to have to make the best of it. I grabbed my Chloe bag and my
books and raced from the dorm.
The campus was cold, gray, and mostly deserted, the once pristine snow now decimated by a
thousand muddy footprints. I passed by Mr. Cross on his morning stroll and slipped into Mitchell
Hall. My heart bounced around in my chest as I approached the conservatory and I took a deep
breath, endeavoring to compose myself. Noelle could not see me looking anxious or tentative. I
had to appear in control. Confident.
"I'm thinking color. Lots of garish, over-the-top color," Noelle was saying as I entered the room.
Her voice echoed in the high-ceilinged space as Amberly and the party planner followed her along
the window wall. She wore a black knit dress, black tights, and black boots, while Amberly wore a
very similar outfit, but in white. With the blue scarf, of course. "I'm sick of white twinkle lights.
Enough
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already. Let's get hot pink and red and purple. Let's make it a sultry, glam Christmas thing."
"Brilliant," the party planner said, making a note on her clipboard. She was a tall, lithe woman with
shorn red hair and tiny square glasses. Her kelly-green wide-leg pants were beyond trendy, and
they made her waist look like it had the same circumference as a soda can. "Simply brilliant."
"Everyone's just going to die," Amberly gushed.
Noelle shot her a brief look of scorn, and I knew exactly what she was thinking--so gauche. Hadn't
someone already died? So apparently, Amberly wasn't totally perfect in Noelle's eyes. The thought
awoke a warm, fuzzy feeling in my chest.
At the Coffee Carma counter someone fired up the foam maker and the noise caught the
threesome's attention. They all turned and spotted me hovering.
"Oh, look," Noelle said, looking down her nose at me. "It's my stalker."
The party planner's eyes widened in alarm. Her trembling hand went right to the oversize beaded
necklace at her throat. Clearly Easton's reputation as the murder capital of the private school
world had gotten around. And I guess I did look a little wild-eyed, considering what I was about to
do.
"Seriously, Reed. It's getting a tad pathetic," Amberly added with a sniff. "And if you're looking for
an invite, keep looking."
Noelle and Amberly both laughed and turned back to the window. The party planner followed suit,
pointing out the challenges of the
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floor-to-ceiling windows and listing a few ideas of how to deal with them.
"Noelle, enough is enough. I need to talk to you," I said, my voice strong and clear as a bell in the
wide room. "It's a matter of life and death."
Noelle tsked and slung her thick hair over her shoulder. "So dramatic."
That was it. I walked right over to her, grabbed her arm, and forcibly pulled her away from the
others.
"What are you doing?" Amberly blurted.
Noelle actually tripped sideways, taken off guard by the physical attack. But the moment she
composed herself she pulled away, smoothing the front of her knee-length dress.
"You did not just touch me," she said.
"I'm sorry, but I had to get your attention," I told her under my breath. "Have you even read any of
my e-mails?"
Amberly had almost reached us,
but Noelle held up a hand, stopping her in her tracks. The girl
looked confused for a moment, unsure of what to do, before she sullenly returned to the party
planner.
"Uh, no," Noelle replied. "Those little missives have been directed straight to the recycle bin."
I pressed my lips together, frustrated. "You shouldn't have done that. I--"
"Miss Lange? Everything all right over there?" the party planner asked.
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"Fine," Noelle replied, lifting a hand. "This won't take long. Why don't you two talk Christmas
trees? I'm thinking faux, faux, faux. Maybe something in feathers." She looked at me again, her
brown eyes bored. "Go ahead. What could possibly be so very important?"
"I think Ivy killed Cheyenne," I told her, my pulse quickening. "In fact, I'm about ninety-nine
percent sure she did it. And I think she's going to come after you next."
Or me, I thought, dread radiating through my stomach as I recalled the pills and the defaced photo
of myself and Cheyenne. But there was no reason to bring my own peril into this conversation. In
order for me to keep Noelle's attention, this had to be about Noelle.Unfortunately, all she did was
let out an incredulous laugh that filled the room. "Ivy Slade? That girl does not have the balls. Nice
try, Glass-Licker, but no sale."
She started to turn away from me. Classic Noelle egotism. Didn't she get that she was in danger?
"Okay. Let me rephrase," I said, putting on my best condescending tone--one I had learned from
Noelle herself. One I knew she would respond to. "What if I told you she's still pissed about how
you, Cheyenne, and Ariana left her alone at her grandmother's her sophomore year?"
Noelle whipped around to face me again. I'd never seen her react so automatically, so fiercely.
Normally she took a moment to pause, consider, and collect herself before reacting to anything.
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"What do you know about that?" she asked, going pale.
I allowed myself a moment of triumph. Finally I'd done it. I'd actually gotten her to feel that
paranoid uncertainty that she made others feel every single day. She didn't appear to enjoy it any
more than the rest of us did. And I wasn't even close to finished.
"I know everything," I said, lowering my voice and taking a step closer. "Including the fact that Ivy
blames you, Ariana, and Cheyenne for her grandmother's stroke--and death."
Noelle blinked, her eyes filling with something that looked a lot like fear. I was getting to her. She
was finally, finally listening to me.
"Don't you think it's all a little suspect?" I asked. "Ivy comes back to school this year and Cheyenne
ends up murdered within a month? Ariana's in an institution, so she can't get to her, but you...
you're right here. You're next."
"Why are you doing this?" Noelle asked, her voice strong but her eyes uncertain. "Why are you
trying to scare me?"
"I'm not," I told her. "I'm trying to warn you. I'm trying to protect you."
Noelle looked me in the eye and for a split second, I could see her start to cave. Start to realize
that I was still her friend. That we needed each other. That one stupid night with one stupid guy
should not get in the way of all that. But then, out of nowhere, her face turned to stone.