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"So who was this mysterious person? Who did the police bring in for questioning?" Sabine wondered aloud, her expression con-
cerned as I slowly unbuttoned my coat. "Please. It probably didn't even happen," I said, forcing a laugh. "Someone probably made the
whole thing up from start to finish." I glanced up at Noelle as I said this, figuring she'd chuckle and agree with me, but instead her
eyes were flat as she stared back at me. My heart all but stopped. She knew. She knew it had been me. She knew I was lying. How did
she do that? "Yeah. Probably," Noelle said calmly. I glanced around at the rest of my friends, feeling suddenly nervous and snagged,
but I could tell that Noelle was the one person at the Billings tables who saw through me. The only one who understood that I knew
more than I was letting on. And sooner or later, she was going to want to know the truth.
CONTROL
How much could one person handle before totally losing it? This was a question, among many others, that started to plague me af-
ter the scene in the dining hall. Not only had I just broken up with my boyfriend, but now he was quite possibly smooching some girl
who was a liar with a criminal record and who just generally gave me the creeps. I was hiding the fact that the cause of our breakup
was me hooking up with my best friend's boyfriend--though I still didn't know if he was her boyfriend at the time. Meanwhile, some-
one was planting a dead girl's stuff in my room for sport, and said dead girl might or might not have been murdered. Oh, yeah, and
soon the ultra-exclusive dorm of which I was president might be closed down--a travesty for which I would be blamed
for all eternity.
Yeah. That wasn't too much to deal with. And I also had classes and calls home to my parents and a rivalry between Sabine and
Noelle and my friends forcing me to date random boys. Public school was starting to look not so bad.
Monday morning I decided that the best thing to do would be to focus on the stuff that I could actually control. Stuff like the
fundraiser. So after lunch I went directly to the Crom's office. His assistant, Ms. Lewis, was on the phone when I walked in, looking
harried. I waited quietly in front of her desk, thinking of our bizarrely intimate encounters last year, back when she used to be Ms.
Lewis-Hanneman. Before her husband had found out she was having an affair with Thomas Pearson's brother Blake. I had been the
one person she had confessed everything to. The only person she had managed to trust. It was so strange to think of it now.
Finally she hung up the phone and sighed. She pushed her hornrimmed glasses up on her nose and smoothed her blond hair back
toward her bun, then pulled her chair closer to her desk. "What can I do for you, Miss Brennan?" "I was hoping to see the headmas-
ter," I said. She glanced at her phone. One red light was blinking. "He's on his line right now. I can leave him a message." "I have a
few minutes. I can wait," I told her. "Super," she replied sarcastically. The phone rang again and she quickly answered it. As soon as
she hung up, she typed a few words into her computer and yanked a file out of a drawer. She seemed irritated and busy, but while I
was there, I did have some business with her as well. "Ms. Lewis?" I said tentatively. "Yes?"
She didn't look up as she flipped through some papers in the file. "I was wondering if you could do me a small favor," I said. "In all
my spare time?" she said. I laughed quickly for her benefit. "If you get a minute, I mean. I need a list of all the Easton alumni under
