Chapter 5

My parents nearly murdered the hospital staff when they discovered that Piper's phone was missing from the plastic bag with the rest of her belongings.

They didn't know that the hospital staff had nothing to do with it.

I took Piper's phone. I couldn't let my parents see the last text I'd sent her. I couldn't let them realize that I may have been responsible for what had happened.

But right now, I want to see what else is on her phone. Maybe Jacey—or whoever did this—didn't stop at threats in my sister's bag. Maybe the proof that someone was harassing her is on that phone.

As soon as my parents leave for the hospital after dinner, I head to my closet and dig the phone out from where I buried it at the bottom of a box of old soccer gear.

A sick feeling rises in my stomach as I pull it free. The screen is cracked and still coated in a fine layer of dirt. I connect it to a charger, shutting my eyes and hoping it still works.

When I open my eyes, the phone is lit. I exhale in relief, but then a realization hits me: Piper's phone is password protected, and we haven't shared passwords in years.

Knowing my sister, her password is something too obscure for the CIA to crack. This is where one of my parents' normally annoying family rules suddenly becomes not annoying. We have to share our passwords with them.

I head to my parents' room and snoop around in Mom's top dresser drawer until my fingers brush a note card containing every password for every device my family has owned in the last ten years.

Back in my room, I unlock Piper's phone using the series of letters and numbers that I'm guessing make up some chemical formula. My fingers shake as I navigate the texts, finding nothing new after mine, which I delete. I move on to the calls, scrolling past the six missed ones from Mom when dinnertime came around and Piper was nowhere to be seen. It was thanks to Mom's calls that Piper was discovered. Some hikers heard the phone ringing while they were taking in the sunset. They realized someone had fallen and called 911.

Before those calls, though, things get weird.

On the day Piper fell, she received three calls from someone named Alex. Two answered, one missed.

Alex? I rack my brain, but can't think of a single person named Alex in my grade or Piper's. But then a thought nails me in the gut, and I nearly drop Piper's already-damaged phone.

I do know an Alexandra . And she's in Survival Club.

Does Alexandra go by Alex? If she does—and if she's the person in Piper's contacts—then she might've been the last person to talk to my sister before her fall. Alex, whoever she is, was certainly the last person to speak to Piper over the phone. Had she known what my sister was planning? Had Piper given any indication?

My finger hovers over her name. Before I can talk myself out of it, I hold my breath and press call. Then I wait.

It rings twice before someone picks up. No answer. Only breathing.

My heart jerks. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I have no prepared speech to get this person to talk to me. "H-hello. This is Savannah Sulli—"

Three beeps sound in my ear, jostling me like an explosion. Then nothing but silence.

***

I should take Piper's phone to the cops. Someone knows more than they're saying. Alex was the last person to speak to my sister before she fell. She might be able to tell us something about Piper's state of mind that day. About what happened.

But the cops will see my text. Sure, I deleted it, but they have ways of recovering it. Don't they?

What if they start to think I had something to do with Piper's fall? Or what if they just write me off? After all, the cops never even came around to ask questions. My parents can keep telling themselves that what happened to Piper was an accident, but everyone else—the cops included—see Piper's fall as something else. That spot is known as Suicide Point. My sister wasn't the first person to have that kind of "accident" there.

No, if I want the cops to listen, I'm going to have to get Piper's bag from the equipment locker and show it to them. Then I'm going to have to figure out how Alex plays into things. If I can prove she was there with Piper or spoke to her, maybe the cops will take Piper's file and stick a new label on it.

There's a tug in my chest as my mind wanders back to a different kind of file, one lying open on Piper's desk. She was typing away, mostly ignoring me. It was Saturday, two weeks into the school year. Late afternoon, but I was still in my pajamas, sprawled out on her bed.

"You know we should split the money, right?" I gazed at the debate trophies lining the mantel, outshined only by the journalism awards plastered all over the wall. When she'd joined the paper, Dad got so excited that he went out and bought her one of those old-fashioned pocket recorders. She started bringing it with her everywhere, even though she could've just used the app on her phone, pausing in the school halls to babble into it like a private eye.

When I told Dad I'd made varsity soccer as a freshman, he only squinted and told me to keep my options open.

"That's the fair thing to do," I continued, picking at the embroidery on the quilt Grandma had made when Piper was born. "If I have to earn the money to go to my tournament, you should have to earn some too."

"But you heard Mom," Piper answered, never breaking momentum on the keyboard. "I don't have time." Of course she was just parroting Mom. I bit back a retort; I had to play nice if I was going to make her see reason. Plus, it was hard to fight her on this point in my pajama-clad state.

"We still have a couple of months. We could earn the money together." I poked a decorative pillow on her bed, and dust motes spun up into the air.

"Doing what?" She punched a few more keys and then started flipping through a textbook.

"Lemonade stand?" I offered.

"Funny, Vanna." Piper's the only person who's ever called me that. She gave me the nickname when she was two years old, not because she couldn't pronounce my full name but because Wheel of Fortune was on TV and she realized my name and Vanna White's name had some syllables in common. I pretend to hate it, but I don't.

"I'm still thinking." I flipped onto my stomach and examined the chipped pink paint on my nails. "Got any nail polish?"

Piper stopped reading to tilt her head at me.

"Kidding. I don't have time to paint my nails either. Because I'm thinking of a way for us to make money. Lots and lots of it. What are you working on, anyway?"

"AP World Literature. But these," she said, pointing to a file folder stuffed with papers, "are last week's chemistry tests, which I have to grade this weekend for Mr. Davis."

"Wow, I thought being a TA meant getting out of class to make copies in the teacher's lounge. Why can't he grade the tests himself?"

"I offered. It's just multiple choice. But I didn't realize Mrs. Sanderson was going to give us a ten-page essay over the weekend or that my physics group was going to have to meet all day Sunday for a project." She sighed, and the sunlight from the window caught on some loose strands of frizzy, white-blond hair, casting her in an ethereal glow. Perfectly fitting: Piper the angel.

"Well, maybe I can grade the tests. I help you, we split the money?" I winked obnoxiously. "There's an answer key, right?"

Piper looked at me, considering it. She glanced back at the stack of tests. "I don't know, Savannah. That might be a conflict of interest."

"You really think I'm going to change my answers? You grade my test, then."

"No, it's just that Mr. Davis is trusting me with this. If there are mistakes in the grades…"

"I won't make any mistakes. I'll even log them for you."

She shook her head. Another wave came loose from her ponytail. "You can't. I had to get his password to access the grading program. There's no way I can share it with anyone."

"Okay, fine. Don't give me the special password. But let me help with the grading, and I'll think of a way for us to make the money. And we'll all live happily ever after."

Piper eyed the file folder again, her chest rising slowly.

Now, I take a shuddering breath, suffocated by the memory.

Nothing I find is going to change what happened on September sixteenth. It won't fix what I did. It won't make my parents snap out of their depression.

But I have to know if Piper did it because of me or if something else happened to her. And I'm going to start with Alex.