“This is messed up,” Ivy says.
“No kidding,” I say. “And why is she even here? Shouldn’t she be at school?”
“There’s no art on Tuesday. Budget cuts, remember?”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes, but just barely. It’s typical Ivy to believe everyone pays attention to stuff like that. “Do you take her class?”
Ivy shakes her head. “I haven’t taken an elective since freshman year. Too busy trying to keep up with…” She catches herself and finishes with “classes,” but I’m pretty sure she was about to say Daniel. He tested off the charts on some kind of gifted exam when Ivy and I were still friends, and she got really intense about school after that. Like she could level whatever playing field she thought the two of them were on through sheer force of will. “Do you?”
“Huh?” I got lost in thought, and have no idea what she’s asking.
“Take Ms. Jamison’s class.”
“Nope,” I say briefly. No way am I getting into that backstory. “Autumn did, though, and she liked her. Said Ms. Jamison was always really encouraging.”
Ivy folds her arms and glares at Cal’s table. “Oh, I’d say she’s encouraging, all right,” she says darkly.
“Do you think Cal’s parents know about this?” I ask.
“Are you kidding? They’d die. Especially Wes,” she says.
“Why especially him?” From what I remember, Henry was a lot stricter.
“Because he’s the dean at Carlton College. Hello?” Ivy waves a hand in front of my face when I don’t react. “Do you not watch the news?”
“You know I don’t.”
“Well, Carlton College just fired a professor for sleeping with a student. It was a whole thing, and Wes was interviewed a bunch of times. If people knew his son was sneaking around with a teacher, he’d look like a hypocrite. Or a clueless, uninvolved parent. Neither is great for the dean of a college.”
Suddenly, Cal flattening himself against an alley doorway makes a lot more sense. “No wonder Cal freaked out this morning,” I say.
Ivy chews her lip. “He said she wasn’t at the studio, right?” I nod. “But he also said she works there on Tuesdays. She’s blond, and she knows Boney. That’s three strikes. Plus a bonus fourth strike for”—she waves her hand toward Cal’s table—“all that. It’s a good thing we followed him. He clearly has no objectivity when it comes to this woman, so he’s not going to ask any of the right questions.”
“You want to move closer? Try and listen in?” I ask.
“We could,” Ivy says. “And we should. But I had something else in mind, too.”
YOUTUBE, CARLTON SPEAKS CHANNEL
Ishaan and Zack wave at a phone camera from what looks like the front seat of a car.
ZACK: Hey, this is Zack Abrams and Ishaan Mittal, coming to you live from （glances around） Ishaan’s car. Which, not gonna lie, could be cleaner.
ISHAAN: You’re the one who wanted to record here. I voted for Angelo’s Pizzeria.
ZACK: Too noisy. Anyway, we ducked out of lunch to bring you a Carlton Speaks special report on what everyone at school is talking about today: the shocking death of our classmate, Carlton High senior Brian “Boney” Mahoney. The news reports don’t have much detail yet, but it sounds like Boney died in an abandoned building in Boston.
ISHAAN: He didn’t just die. He was killed. By a blond chick.
ZACK, glaring at Ishaan: You’re getting ahead of the story. That part’s not even confirmed yet. （Looks back at the camera.） Anyway. Boney was elected senior class president yesterday, and was supposed to give his acceptance speech at ten o’clock this morning. We were all in the auditorium, waiting. （Dramatic pause.） But Boney never showed up.
ISHAAN, crowding into the camera: You know who else didn’t show up?
ZACK: Not yet—
ISHAAN, loudly: That’s right, a blond chick. The one he beat.
ZACK: Damn it, Ishaan, you always ruin my intro.
ISHAAN: You were taking too long. Anyway, it’s weird, right? Ivy Sterling-Shepard never misses a single day of school until today, when the guy who totally humiliates her dies? And nobody’s heard from her. Not her brother, not her best friend— ZACK: I’m not sure we should be saying names here. This is all just speculation, obviously, but— ISHAAN: But that girl is intense. Like, the kind of intense that snaps one day and goes off the deep end. You can see it, right?