Chapter Twenty-Three Piper

Chapter Twenty-Three

Piper

Now: Saturday, 6:22 p.m.

The basement level is freezing, far from the living room fire; the powerless house is becoming more frigid with each passing minute. But no one dashes upstairs for sweaters and mittens: we're on a mission. I stuff my hands deeper inside my hoodie for warmth.

Delaney takes the lead, swiping the flashlight's beam across Silva's room; it catches on a pile of discarded clothes on top of the bedspread. Eden's. She must have changed here before heading to the sauna. Now she's cold and dead in the room next to this one.

Between the six of us, it's a quick search of the small apartment. The cables aren't here.

"She probably hid them somewhere else," Wyatt says. "It has to be Silva. It's the only thing that makes sense. Sick revenge."

"Then why didn't she kill you already?" Delaney teases, holding fast to her accident theory.

"She found Dec and Eden alone first?" Wyatt spitballs. He catches sight of the phone in Delaney's hand. "Come on, let's check Eden's phone. What didn't she want Silva to see?"

Wyatt drags Delaney over to the bed, sits down hard next to her. We gather around, the light from the lock screen a beacon in the near dark. The Emergency SOS texting system still stubbornly refuses to locate a satellite in the storm.

"I need the passcode," Delaney says. She turns to Camille, who's hovering behind. "Do you know it?"

Camille shakes her head. "I'm not telling you. It's wrong."

I'm surprised Delaney doesn't already know Eden's code. Isn't that something you share with your best friend? I wouldn't know. I've never had one.

"We can't exactly use her face, can we?" Delaney responds, surprisingly tart.

"Cam, come on. We need to look." Wyatt tries to talk sense into her.

Then Liam chimes in. "It could be important."

Delaney sighs and tries again, nicer this time. "I think Eden would want us to, if it means we can figure out what happened to her, especially if it—" She hesitates. Takes a deep breath. "If it wasn't an accident."

We all share a moment of silence, stewing in the unspoken implication.

And finally Camille cracks. "Fine, it's oh-two-one-three-two-one. Happy?"

"Elated," Delaney returns cheekily. She's already unlocked Eden's phone, fingers probing at the screen. Unease spikes through me. Delaney's being a little too take-charge for my tastes.

"Let me." I nudge in, grabbing for the phone, but she whips it out of my grasp.

"No," she says, scooting off the bed.

"Why not? What are you hiding?"

" Me? Why do you want it so bad?" Delaney volleys back.

"Stop! We don't have time for this." Liam reaches out, his stern expression clear. Hand it over. Delaney surrenders the phone.

We huddle around Liam. We have to be quick. The battery icon is already glowing red.

Eden's home screen offers a sad snapshot of her life: there are apps for weight tracking and photo filters that edit her face and body to oblivion.

"Where should we start?" Liam asks, index finger poised over the screen.

"With no internet connection, we'll have to stick to things downloaded to her phone," I say. It sucks because social media could hold so many clues.

"So messages or photos." Delaney leans in, finger hovering, itching to take control.

"We'll start with texts." Liam makes the executive decision.

Liam taps into the green Messages bubble, but everything appears normal. There are text threads with Declan, Delaney, Camille, Eden's mom, her publicist. A few spam threads in bold, not yet cleared away. Nothing worth stealing your phone backfor.

Back on the home screen, Liam hesitates over the photos icon. "Maybe one of her friends should check. In case there are sensitive photos." Delaney doesn't have to be asked twice as Wyatt leans forward a bit too eagerly.

She taps into photos, immediately going to albums, then selfies. There's nothing notable there. Or in any of her personal photos beyond a lot of sexy-pouty faces both solo and with her friends.

"What about her screenshots?" Willa pipes up from behind. "Maybe she was keeping receipts on something. Or someone."

It's one of those takes-one-to-know-one statements, one that earns Willa more than a few looks. You think a person is one thing… Delaney navigates as directed, and there, right on top, is a row of images: a DM conversation rendered in miniature. She taps on the most recent one, magnifying the exchange. Instagram's signature icon flags the source.

"?‘Hope you have an amazing weekend with nothing but your thoughts,'?" Delaney reads out from the white-on-black bubble at the bottom of the screen. "?‘You can think about what a petty, fake bitch you are. And maybe you'll sweat out your secrets.'?"

"Ho-ly shit," Wyatt utters.

"Look at the time stamp." Liam points.

Yesterday at 6:06 a.m.

"We were still at the airport," Delaney editorializes. Then, unprompted, she taps back to the album, and on the first screenshot of the conversation. The thread started weeks ago.

Willa leans in close to take over the reading.

I know what you did last summer.

Just kidding. But I do know what you did. All the people you've pretended to be. Sock-puppet bullying is a bad look. Maybe you should be on Catfish instead of your mom's show. A real breakout role for you, finally.

Delaney reads out Eden's response.

Who the fuck is this? What are you talking about?

I'm someone who doesn't like backstabbing snakes. Cowards who hide behind alt accounts.

Your account is fake as fuck, so what's good, bitch?

I snort a laugh at Eden's dated slang. Trying so hard to seem hard.

For her part, Willa adds in a derisive laugh before reading the answer out loud.

Oh I'm good. Very good. Karma's a bitch, Eden. Or should I call you Cassie?

There's a pregnant pause as Delaney reaches the end of the screenshot and has to backtrack to pull up the next one. It's worth the wait for the extra oomph Delaney gives the reading:

I—I don't know what you're talking about?

Suuuuuure

Willa really draws the word out, just like the extra vowels in the reply on the screen.

One word: receipts. I have them all. Maybe one day my finger will slip and they'll end up online. Who knows. You don't pay your publicist enough for the shitstorm coming your way.

"?‘Fuck you,'?" Delaney says, so hard that there's a collective flinch. "That's it. Until the message at the airport yesterday." She navigates back to the screenshots folder.

"Tap on that one," I direct, pointing to a familiar grid layout. Delaney jerks the phone away from my finger.

"Yeah, I know," she snaps. She enlarges the image.

The phone throws up a low-battery warning. Delaney flicks it away, but we know our time is short.

The screenshot displays a profile picture that matches the one from the DM with Eden. She's pretty in a generic Americana kind of way. It's hard to tell because the image is so small, but it looks a touch too polished, like a stock image or an AI-generated one. The account name next to the icon is TheBitterTruth. But the more user-friendly name on the profile is Alethea Perra.

"Her last name means ‘bitch,'?" Wyatt snorts. "It's slang Spanish, but yeah."

"And Alethea is a Greek name that means ‘truth,'?" I fill in, as though that clears up anything.

"Wait, I recognize that name," Camille says, voice chilly with fear. "I think she messaged me, too. I blocked her, though. I'm pretty sure."

The images on the feed are cut off, but Delaney quickly locates more screenshots, a full grid of photos. They're calculatedly picturesque, yet generic. No selfies or anything too personal, though it's undeniably Los Angeles. There are sun-soaked mansions flanked by tilting palm trees, cloudless cornflower-blue skies framing an empty skate park, a sneaker-shop storefront on Fairfax Avenue, Santa Monica Pier, the hills of Malibu. Stock images mixed with amateur photography, from the look of it.

"Guys, that's our school." Willa points to an oblique shot of a red cup poised on top of a rustic picnic table. "That's the quad."

We squint at the image as Delaney pinches the screen to make it bigger.

"In the corner," Willa says. "Look at the trash can. That's from the art club's campus rehab two years ago. Whitley Holloway painted it to look like Starry Night. "

Delaney snorts. "Basic."

Then she releases her fingers and the full screenshot bounces back into view. Liam leans in, and when he moves to manipulate the screen himself, Delaney doesn't object. He zooms close to the last photo in the grid. The creases around his mouth deepen into a frown. "Anyone recognize that?"

The image pixelates at this magnification, but the essentials are there. It's a house, one of those angular modern monstrosities you see millionaire influencers post about all the time. It has floor-to-ceiling windows that reflect a blindingly blue sky, and picturesque hills rising up behind it.

Willa gasps, and Delaney mutters an oh god under her breath.

At once I sense an understanding spread through the group.

"Is someone going to clue me in?" I ask.

"Don't you recognize it? That's Declan's house," Delaney finally says. "Swaghouse."

And then the screen goes black.