Vengeance (Private 14)
I turned up my palms. “So?”
“It says they’re leaders in green initiatives in their field,” Ivy said, though even she sounded skeptical.
“They make organic blush and primer. That’s gonna be really helpful,” I groused, pushing myself up. I shooed her out of my chair. “Get up. Go!”
“Why? We’re done with the G’s. What do you think you’re going to find that I didn’t?” Ivy complained. She finally stood up when she saw that I was about to sit down on her lap.
“I don’t know,” I said. “There has to be something.”
I started scrolling through the entire alphabetical list, as if I was going to find some G name misfiled under M.
“No, actually there doesn’t,” Ivy said, hovering over me. “It looks like our little MT just felt like sending you on a pointless mission.”
“But why?” I asked, tearing my eyes from the screen as random names flew by faster and faster and faster. “Why bother? Just so that we’d waste a few minutes on my laptop?”
Suddenly, Ivy’s eyes widened at the computer screen. “Wait! Stop! Go back.”
I lifted my fingers from the touchpad. “Go back where?”
“To the S section,” she said, shaking her finger at the screen in frustration. “Did I just see the name Carolina Slavowski?”
“Um . . . maybe.” I scrolled back. What someone with the initials CS had to do with G was beyond me, but Ivy was acting like a puppy dog that had just spotted its first cat. I found the name Carolina Slavowski and hovered the arrow over it.
“And we’re interested in this person why?”
“Carolina Slavowski is the real name of Carolina Grant.”
I stared at Ivy blankly. “Who the hell is Carolina Grant?”
“From Renovate TV?” Ivy prodded me. She rolled her eyes at my continued dumb stare. “She does all these green renovations, overhauling houses to reduce their carbon footprint, helping businesses get up to code . . .” She clucked her tongue and nudged me aside with her shoulder, angling for the keyboard. “Here.”
It took two seconds for her to bring up the Renovate TV website and toggle to a show called Go Green! Suddenly a video popped up on the screen, featuring a bright-eyed, curly-haired woman who was spunk personified.
“Hi! I’m Carolina Grant!” she said as she walked along a pristine beach in jeans, a T-shirt, and a tool belt. “Do you want to have the greenest, most cost-efficient, most Earth-friendly home on your block? We’re looking for new homes to renovate for next season’s episodes of Go Green! Simply click on the link to my left and fill out the entry form. You could be the next person to join the Go Green revolu
tion!”
The video stopped and I gaped at Ivy. “She went to Easton?”
“That just makes her so much more awesome,” Ivy said reverently.
I leaned back, narrowing my eyes at her. “You watch Renovate TV?”
Ivy crossed her arms over her chest and stood up straight. “Sex addicts need sex. Drug addicts need drugs. I need to watch people demolish their homes and rebuild them again. Got a problem with that?”
I laughed. “Just seeing a whole new side of you, that’s all.”
“You do realize what this means, right?” Ivy said, grabbing my phone up off my bed. “It means that your MT is on the up and up.”
I turned around and stared at Carolina Grant’s frozen made-for-TV smile. “And it also means that we may have just found somebody who could help us fast-track Billings.”
Suddenly, I felt as if a huge weight was being lifted off my heart, and I found myself sitting up a little straighter. Maybe this project didn’t have to be shelved after all. Maybe there was something I could do to fix it. Who needed Noelle when I could have Carolina Grant?
“Thank you, MT,” I said under my breath.
“Should we call her?” Ivy asked, practically hyperventilating as she clutched my cell. Clearly the idea of talking to Carolina was making her dizzy.
“Definitely,” I said.