Revelation (Private 8)

"Summer job money," Marc said with a grimace. "I thought my mother was going to fly up here

just to throttle me when she found out how much I'd taken out of my savings account."

I whistled under my breath as Marc held the door open for me. He must have really liked

Cheyenne to risk his mom's wrath like that. Suddenly I hated Cheyenne for the way she had

treated him. Why did she always have to make everything such a big, dramatic scene?

"So what have you found out?" Marc asked me.

"You first," I said. "You've decided Noelle is innocent?"

Of course, I already knew this in my heart, but I was curious as to how he had come to the same

conclusion.

"Yeah. She was on a boat all night that night. Some charity event on a cruiser that went around

Manhattan," he said as he unzipped his

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coat on our way across the lobby. "There're pictures and everything, so there's no way she did it."

Interesting. I wished Ivy had been around to hear that one.

"Honestly, though? She was my number one suspect until I found that out," Marc whispered,

sounding disappointed.

Then, off my offended and baffled look, he continued.

"I mean, after everything that happened last year with Ariana and Thomas Pearson, Noelle just

seemed shifty to me. And the fact that she moved right back in after Cheyenne was gone, took

over her room, took over your dorm..."

"Yeah, yeah. I've heard it all before," I whispered, shaking my head. "God, your best friend goes

mentally AWOL and suddenly you're public enemy number one," I joked lamely.

Marc smirked. "So who do you think did it?"

"Ivy Slade," I whispered back.

Marc nodded, unsurprised. "Yeah. She's high on my list too. I know she kind of hated Cheyenne,

but I never knew why."

"It's a long story, but for now I'll just say she's got about ten strikes against her. I tried to talk to

the police about it, but they won't even listen to me," I whispered.

We dropped our bags at the end of a table in the American history section and the freshman

students sitting there stared up at us warily. I stared them down until they blushed and went back