There were sev­er­al file icons on Ar­iana's desk­top, each marked with a year. I clicked open the most re­cent and there were noth­ing but Word files in­side. Po­ems. Hun­dreds of po­ems. Some with ti­tles I rec­og­nized from the Quill, most with ones I did not. But was one of these an in­crim­inat­ing file in dis­guise? Was one of these “po­ems” ac­tu­al­ly some kind of an­ti-?Leanne rant that might prove Ar­iana want­ed to hurt her in some way? Who knew? My heart filled with sick, frus­trat­ed des­per­ation. I did not have time to click open and read a hun­dred or more po­ems.

I scrolled down in the win­dow, look­ing for who knew what. At the very bot­tom was one sin­gle file icon. A file with­in the file. It was marked “projects.”

Okay. This could be some­thing. I dou­ble clicked. In­side were sev­er­al more Word doc­uments, each with ini­tials as their ti­tles. EP, CS, IP, NL, TL, IM, and then LS.

LS. Leanne Shore.

My en­tire mind went blank. This was it. A file on Leanne. I sup­pose that part of me had al­ways thought it was im­pos­si­ble. That Noelle and Ar­iana could nev­er have got­ten some­one kicked out of school for no good rea­son. But here it was. I was about to have the proof.

Re­luc­tant­ly sali­vat­ing, I opened the file. A Word doc­ument

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popped up and filled the screen. At the top, the words Latin Stud­ies. Then, Notes from 8/5. My whole body slumped and I al­most laughed. Ap­par­ent­ly, Ar­iana had spent her sum­mer tak­ing class­es. In Latin. Stud­ies.

Noth­ing to do with Leanne. Ar­iana was in­no­cent.

I took a breath and closed the doc­ument. I lis­tened for foot­steps and heard noth­ing. Ap­par­ent­ly Or­lan­do was still do­ing his thing. I de­cid­ed to check out the oth­er ini­tialed doc­uments, just to sat­is­fy my cu­rios­ity, so that I wouldn't have gone through all this for noth­ing. I opened EP. It was a list of wom­en's names with “yes” or “no” next to each one and a to­tal at the bot­tom, some kind of RSVP list. Maybe Ar­iana had helped her mom throw a par­ty or some­thing. Next up was CS. I opened it and my heart took a nose­dive.

As I Lay Dy­ing, Faulkn­er, 1980.

Their Eyes Were Watch­ing God, Hurston, 1987.

In­vis­ible Man, El­li­son, 1947.

It was a crib sheet. A list in a tiny font set on 3 x 5 pa­per. And from the looks of the in­for­ma­tion, it was a se­nior En­glish crib sheet. Ex­act­ly the class Leanne Shore had cheat­ed in. And what had the ad­min­is­tra­tion used as their damn­ing ev­idence?

Crib sheets.

If these matched the crib sheets that had sealed Leanne's fate, then it was all true. Natasha was right. Noelle and her friends had framed Leanne. They had got­ten her kicked out of school. But why? Just be­cause she was a suck-?up and she an­noyed Noelle? Was that re­al­ly a rea­son to mess with some­one's life?

Dy­ing to know more now, I opened the file marked IM. Sure

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enough, a file full of copied IM mes­sages filled the screen. They were most­ly be­tween Ar­iana and Noelle. My eyes scanned the first mes­sages. They all seemed mun­dane. Con­ver­sa­tions about home­work and par­ties--noth­ing out of the or­di­nary.

Then I saw my name and all the air rushed out of me. I stopped to read.

*Ar­iana*: so we're def­inite­ly do­ing this Noelle_l: DEF­INITE­LY. We de­cid­ed we want­ed Reed

right? *Ar­iana*: yes. and lat­timer is on board, ki­ran

got her a free pass at manolo 4 her si­lence. Noelle_l: PER­FECT! Lat­timer is 2 easy. So we're

ready to do it? You have the cribs? *Ar­iana*: all set. just tell me when and where. Noelle_l: TO­MOR­ROW. We'll get Reed in here by the week­end. And L out. Thank God! ?Ar­iana*: you are so bad! Noelle_l: And it feels SO GOOD . . .

I could not breathe. Couldn't move. Co

uldn't have even saved my­self if the en­tire dorm had walked in at that very mo­ment.

They had done it for me, to cre­ate a place for me in Billings. This had all hap­pened be­cause of me.

I heard a creak on the stairs and sud­den­ly came to life. I didn't

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have time to think about this. Quick­ly I copied all the ini­tialed files on­to my disk, just in case there hap­pened to be some­thing more worth read­ing. I shoved the disk in­to the back pock­et of my jeans, then shut the com­put­er down and re­placed ev­ery­thing as I'd found it. I was just clos­ing the trunk when I heard voic­es down­stairs. The par­ty was break­ing up. I shoved the trunk in­to the back of the clos­et, closed the doors, grabbed my stuff, and fled.

Tags: Kate Brian Private
Source: readsnovelonline.net