hell of a lot stronger than Lorna, plus she hated me. What if she had helped out Lorna by offing

Cheyenne, then decided to get her own jollies by stalking me? It made a twisted kind of sense. I

added "Missy/Lorna ???" to my list.

After much thought I also added Astrid. It pained me to do it, but the girl was kind of an enigma.

No one knew why she had been kicked out of Barton School last year. She had told me she'd been

caught smoking, but would that really get a person kicked out of school?

36

Maybe it had been for some insidious crime. Plus she had known Cheyenne forever. Maybe, like

the drama Ivy and Cheyenne had at Ivy's grandmother's house, there was something in their

shared past that had set Astrid off. They had definitely been at odds with each other at the

beginning of the year, and I had assumed it was because Astrid refused to fall in line with

Cheyenne's plans to keep Constance, Sabine, and Lorna out of Billings. But who knew? Maybe it

had been something larger than that. Still, I put two extra question marks next to Astrid's name. I

didn't want it to be her. Not remotely.

I looked over my list and took a deep breath, feeling calmer now that I was taking some sort of

action. Tomorrow morning, after everyone had left for breakfast, I was going to search Ivy's room

for something concrete. I knew it was risky, but I didn't care. If I could prove that Ivy was the

murderer, that she had been working to destroy me for months, at least I might actually be able to

sleep at night. Then I could concentrate on earning Noelle's forgiveness for what I'd done, getting

back into Billings, and maybe even winning Josh back too.

I could concentrate on reclaiming my life.

37

* * *

"Thank you so much for fixing my computer last night," Jillian said as she and Ivy walked out of

their room on Monday morning. I listened from the other side of my door, my breath coming quick

and shallow. "I thought the thing was fritzed, and I totally forgot to back up my world civ paper."

"Not a problem," Ivy replied. They were in the hallway now, passing just outside my door. "But

how many times have I told you, always back up everything? "

"I know, I know, Bill Gates," Jillian said with a laugh. "I promise I will never again question your

computer geek ways."

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