The Ivies - Alexa Donne Page 0,73
found it and finally slide her sleek MacBook Pro from the case. I scoot with my back against the door and settle the laptop on my thighs. I open it up, flex my fingers until my knuckles crack. It’s stupidly simple, typing the same passcode from Emma’s secret iPhone into the prompt box. But it works. There are only so many passcodes a person can remember. The cops had no way of guessing this one without knowing her. Or, at least, the surface of her.
The missing text chain is bugging me. I have to know if I’m right.
I’ve watched my friends fiddle with their iPhones and Macs over the years, so I know exactly what to do: check Emma’s iCloud backup. If I’m unlucky, everything was perfectly synced, and if a group text existed but was deleted, it would have been deleted everywhere. But if I’m lucky, Emma may have turned off iCloud backup on her Mac, preserving any messages sent on this device. Or there will be a backup I can restore.
I have to try. And then I’ll dive into her Google Drive. All of Emma’s secrets are at my fingertips now.
Power, warm and electric, fills my body, wars with the sticky goo of self-loathing that pricks underneath my skin. I’m losing sight of myself, of the me I pretend I am most of the time—my best self—while the other Olivia settles in. The version of me who is not simply an Ivy but a damn good one. This is where I excel. At suspicion and hypothesis and investigation. Connecting dots and forming a picture and enacting my vengeance. I don’t like liars. I don’t like false friends.
It takes a while. Several false starts and stops. I’m not Mac-native. But then there it is. I restore the last backup and find a text thread that wasn’t on Emma’s phone. It’s months old, not up to date, the messages exchanged in the lead-up to Emma’s death lost forever. But it’s proof: Emma, Avery, Margot, and Sierra had a separate group text. It’s titled Rich Bitches.
With friends like these, indeed.
Emma’s Google Drive is easier to navigate. I find a spreadsheet labeled Move for Good. I have no clue what that is, but it’s at the top of the page when I sort by last modified, so it must be important.
First, I skim the column headers: donor name, pledge amount, date to pledge, pledge request, location. Then the names and donations. It’s a who’s who of Claflin Academy. Several jump out: Raj Jain, Chase Masters, Eden Hannon, Chris Hardin, Margot Kim, Avery Montfort. Avery’s name is highlighted yellow; I don’t know what that means. In total there are twenty names and donations in amounts that make my eyes water. Not one donation comes in under 10K. The highest one is 18K. I know Claflin kids are rich, but no way these students are making those sorts of donations for…what? A charity I know Emma wasn’t involved in?
The strangest data point is the “pledge request” column. I run my finger over the numbers. 1360. 1420. 1570. 1550. 31. 34. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My eyes rake over the date-to-pledge values. I know some of these dates. Too well. October 5. November 2. The dates I took the SAT to try to raise my score. February 8. The only spring testing date that wasn’t canceled because of COVID-19—the ACT when Jason Wang got poisoned.
SAT and ACT dates and scores. A laundry list of Claflin seniors. And a fuck-ton of money.
Emma was running a goddamn SAT scam.
Sound rushes in my ears as I push Emma’s laptop away from me like it’s poison. Breathe in, breathe out. I try to steady my racing thoughts.
I think back to all those times Emma kept me company at work. I’d leave her out in the bullpen while I made copies, stuffed faculty mailboxes, brewed coffee. Clues slam into me: Emma had a duplicate of my key. Chris Hardin said he needed to thank Emma for something on ED day. Tyler needed a new ID when he’d just had a replacement made in September. In time for the October test date, perhaps? Though, no—I pull Emma’s MacBook back into my lap and check—he’s not on the list. But I bet if I look up every one of the students on this list, I’ll find they had duplicate IDs printed shortly before their test date.
All you need to take the SAT or