Taking a deep breath, I pushed a row of tiny undies aside, cringing at the very idea that I was
touching Ivy Slade's intimates. I quickly uncovered birth control pills and a box of condoms, both of
which
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made me think of her and Josh and how far they might have already gone, which made me want
to vomit, but there was nothing else there.
The second drawer was all T-shirts, again perfectly folded and arranged in rows. I lifted out a stack
and there was nothing underneath. Same with the next.
The third drawer contained about twenty black and white sweaters. Ivy's staples. I lifted up the
first pile, holding the sweaters toward my shoulder, and froze. Sitting in the bottom of the drawer
was a very familiar silver box. A box with the letters VMS etched into the lid. The very box Ivy had
been sent into her grandmother's house to steal. The very box I had seen in Cheyenne's room the
night before her parents had come to pack up all her things.
Clutching the sweaters in the crook of my arm, I reached down with my free hand and flipped
open the lid of the box. Sure enough, sitting inside on the velvet lining was Cheyenne's diamond B
necklace--which was slightly bigger than everyone else's--the chain broken a few inches away from
the clasp.
Ivy must have sneaked into Billings that night--the night before Cheyenne's things were carted
away. It was the only explanation. She was still so angry that Cheyenne had taken the box, she
must have sneaked in to steal it back. That was how much this little token meant to her.
Suddenly, my skin tingled with excitement. This was it. This was the key. The heirloom box gave Ivy
a very concrete motive. She had never forgiven Cheyenne for her role in her grandmother's stroke
and
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for leaving her there to take the blame. She had never forgiven her for taking the family heirloom
with her. So she had killed Cheyenne and, once she knew the police had inventoried everything,
she had sneaked back to the scene of the crime to reclaim what was hers. The fact that the B
necklace was inside was even better. Maybe Ivy had ripped it off of Cheyenne during some kind of
struggle. I would have bet my life that the B had Ivy's fingerprints all over it.
This was it. I finally had her.