"What? "I said finally.
"I just wanted to give you the heads up," he said, holding his hat as another gust of wind nearly
knocked me off my feet. "Since you've been so cooperative during this... uh... tragedy." Hauer
hesitated, his eyes darting away from my face.
What was with this guy? He was an adult and a police officer. He was not supposed to feel nervous
when talking to me.
"We've found new evidence," he said. "Your friend Cheyenne Martin... She was definitely
murdered."
His words sucked all the air from my lungs and I clutched the handle on my duffel bag, as if that
would keep me from fainting dead away. This wasn't possible. Not again. Not another murder.
Cheyenne had OD'd. We had all been there to find her. We had all read her suicide note. She had
even sent me an e-mail saying I was the reason she killed herself--an e-mail that had haunted me
for months now. Plus, no one had heard a struggle. There'd been no blood, no bruises, nothing
broken in her room. How could this be possible?
"What?" I heard myself say as the wind whistled overhead. "You can't be serious."
A couple of weeks back Detective Hauer had told me the case was going to be reopened at
Cheyenne's parents' request, but at the time even he still thought it was a clear-cut suicide.
"Unfortunately, I am," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"I don't understand," I said, my mind racing. "What new evidence?
5
How can there be new evidence now? She died months ago. She was cremated. Her room's not
even a crime scene--Noelle's been living there for weeks. What could you have possibly found?"
The detective cleared his throat. "I'm afraid that information is classified."
"Classified? Is this a government conspiracy now?" I blurted, frustrated.
He leveled me with an admonishing glare. "It's not for public consumption," he clarified sternly.
"But you should know we're going to be reinterviewing everyone of interest," he added, standing
up straight. He sounded surer of himself now, and fixed me with a steady-eyed gaze. "If there's
anything else you want to tell me, now is the time."
"Anything else?" I stood there, unable to think. Unable to breathe. Unable to move. Cheyenne had
been murdered. I was going to have to tell the rest of Billings about this. Yeah, right. If they'd even