Chapter Thirty-Four Piper

Chapter Thirty-Four

Piper

Now: Sunday, 6:34 a.m.

Once more we convene our fucked-up student council to discuss the matter of the sabotaged snowmobile and skis. And the body upstairs. Not to mention our phones still drying on the table. Nor the fact that Delaney has pegged me as prime suspect.

I'm not surprised.

"I call this meeting to order," Delaney says, echoing our roles from yesterday. Really? I think.

"Why were you out of bed last night when Wyatt was trapped in his room?" Delaney starts right off, eyes burning through me like a laser. So this is less ASB and more mock trial. And Delaney has me dead to rights. I wondered if anyone had noticed that I arrived at the bunk room from downstairs, not up.

"And where's the key, Piper? I know you have it. You locked Wyatt in his room after closing the flue to his fireplace, and then went downstairs to—what? Sabotage the skis and snowmobile?"

"I'm glad you think so highly of me, but I didn't kill anyone. And you said it last night: I wasn't even meant to be here. I don't have a motive, let alone means and opportunity." I sound more confident than I am. Sarcasm shellacked over creeping unease.

Delaney huffs. "We get it. You're injured. That doesn't preclude you from being a killer. Each of the deaths was weird. Indirect, not physical, except for Silva. All you need is one good strong arm to brain someone. And I know for a fact you were awake the night Declan died."

"By that logic, any of you could have easily done it, too," I point out. "Each of us had time to slip away from the others in the last day and a half. But you're right. You caught me. I was awake the night Declan was poisoned. I switched Eden's precious oat milk for regular. She was shitting on me that whole first day, so I figured she could use a little shit herself. Go ahead and haul me off to jail."

"Ew," Liam mutters.

Delaney slowly puts down the mug she was sipping from.

"We're not getting anywhere!" Camille interrupts, and for once I agree with her. "We should check our phones. I have aniPhone 14. That's what you said we need to reach the satellite, right, Liam? The storm stopped. We might have a signalnow."

Delaney's mouth is a tight white line. "It's a waste of time. Even if we can reach someone, we're snowed in. We could all be dead before they get here. We need to get to the bottom of this now."

"I don't care. We have to try." Camille reaches to grab her device from the pile, but I stop her with my own hand.

"No one should open their own phone." It won't leave my brain that Silva wanted our phones for a reason. "Just in case. So none of us can delete any incriminating evidence or anything."

We all look at each other and then one by one select a foreign-looking phone.

I count us in. "Power on in three, two…"

We all press the small buttons simultaneously.

I watch, waiting, willing the little rectangular screen to glow. And after a beat, it does.

"Whose phone is this?" I raise the iPhone to the group.

"I think it's Declan's," Delaney says.

"Mine won't turn on." Camille keeps frantically pressing buttons, but the sleek device remains stubbornly still.

"That's my phone," Liam says with a sigh. Another one bites the dust. Willa's device meets the same fate, and Camille curses. She grabs for the last phone left on the towel: an Android with a generic black grip case.

Grateful I have one that turns on at all, I hit "Emergency" from the lock screen and lift the cell to my ear, desperately hoping 911 will pick up. But nothing happens when I dial out.

"I don't see the satellite texting option," I say, holding up the phone screen so everyone can see it.

"That's an iPhone 13, same as mine. It doesn't have that feature," Delaney replies.

"Wouldn't Declan have the latest iPhone?" asks Willa, brow furrowing with confusion.

"He lost his 14 on New Year's," Camille says. "It fell into a volcano."

We're too exhausted to ask Camille follow-up questions. Knowing Declan, it was likely a prank gone wrong. Or a stupid dare.

"So he brought an old phone." Liam connects the dots, then nods, as if he's made a decision. "If we can't call out, we should check the phones we have for messages from Alethea Perra."

"What does it matter now? She, or he "—Camille looks pointedly at Liam—"is going to kill us anyway." She sniffles. Still, she presses the power-on button for her mystery phone and perks up when the screen displays a multicolored G.

"But if we find messages, at least we can know why," I say. Quietly. Sensibly. Morbidly.

Liam must have Delaney's phone; he enters her passcode without saying a word.

"Anyone know Declan's passcode?" I wave the phone.

The group shakes their heads. I try a few combinations, but without him around, it's fruitless. I add it to the pile.

"Of course it is." We all look up to see Delaney holding what must be Willa's phone, based on Willa's terrified face. "You used Liam's birthday as your passcode. You're so pathetic. Let's see what else you're hiding." But after a few minutes she throws her phone in the ring as well. "Congratulations, Hawley, you're just as boring as I always knew you to be."

"I think I have something. Wyatt's passcode was his birthday," Willa says grimly. "And he has a text from the airport on Friday."

Do you think your friends actually like you?

Or do you think they just like what they can get from you?

"Ouch." Air hisses through my teeth.

"Wait, what number is that from?" Liam asks.

Willa taps around the screen. "Uh, three-two-three…"

"Six-four-seven? Yeah, okay, Delaney has a message too. ‘If only your friends knew what a two-faced bitch you are,'?" he reads aloud. "Charming. So these have to be from Alethea, then," Liam reasons.

"Or someone working with her," I add. "But those messages are so vague. Without everyone's phones, I'm not sure they'll mean anything."

Willa clears her throat noisily. "I thought of something. Well, realized it, actually. Hold on."

It's an awkward shuffle as Willa extricates herself from the bench. She sways on her feet, as if from a dizzy spell. It seems to pass quickly. Then she makes her way over to the couch before disappearing from view.

"Are you on the floor ?" Delaney asks, horrified.

A second later Willa pops back into view with a small navy box in hand. "It fell under the couch. I found it last night," she announces. Once she's back at the table, we see what she means.

The Oh, the Humanity! deck.

Willa spreads a bunch of white cards across the dining room table. I spot several from our game that first night. Was that only thirty-six hours ago?

"The texts were vague, rubbing salt in wounds," Willa says, awkwardly swinging her left leg wide to get back onto the bench. "I think these cards are our why."

Delaney furrows her brow. "You think the killer planted a card game?"

Willa ignores Delaney's skepticism, grabbing a stack of Post-its and a pen from a bowl at the center of the table. Sticky note by sticky note, Willa writes one of our names in neat all caps. Alive and dead. The hair on the back of my neck prickles when she writes out DECLAN, EDEN, WYATT. She lines the notes up on the table like columns on a spreadsheet.

Then it's time for cards literally on the table.

Willa plucks up a card and slides it under Declan's name.

I'm in the prime of my life, baby.

"So Declan's stupid TikTok phrase was in the deck. It doesn't mean anything." Delaney rolls her eyes.

But I think Willa might be onto something.

Spike everyone's drinks and enjoy the fallout.

That was the card in my hand the other night, the one that sent an electric shock through my heart. The reason I had to leave Warner Prep. And the reason I got that stupid nickname they gave me.

I locate the card now in the tangle on the table, scan the Post-its with my classmates' names on them. If that card was in this deck, and the deck was rigged, it means someone else on this trip was the culprit all those years ago. I wasn't supposed to be on the trip, after all. None of these are my secrets.

But the others…

Willa plucks another card from the pile, pulls it close. Her eyes dart over the words once, twice. She sighs, and finally slides it onto the table under Wyatt's sticky note.

Questionable consent.

Everyone sucks in a breath. No one will meet Willa's eyes.

"I'm assuming that's what that one means," she says, voice small. "And this one."

She slides another card under his name.

Part-time drug dealer.

"Wyatt's admissions supplement, the one Silva wrote about in her journal. I think it was about me."

"And Wyatt was our weed hookup," Camille utters breathlessly. "Oh my god."

"Doesn't that implicate you, then?" Delaney intones coldly. Her eyes are locked on Willa. "We're looking for motive, and those two cards are about what happened to you. You were sleeping in the room right next to Wyatt's last night. You haven't told anyone where you were when Declan died. And you were with us searching the garage. Maybe you'd been there before too."

Camille gasps. "Like Promising Young Woman. Straight-up revenge."

I think maybe Camille didn't finish watching that one. I don't have the heart to tell her how it ends.

Liam's body shakes with rage, but Willa stops him from jumping to her defense with a single look. It's tiny, but huge. I can't help but search Delaney's face for some reaction, but she's utterly blank.

"Wyatt was an entitled jerk," Willa says, shushing Camille before she can interject. "And he took my first kiss from me, yes, without my consent. I thought it was all done, ancient history. I can't believe he wrote a freaking essay about it." She shakes her head. "Thanks to Liam, it didn't go any further than a kiss." Willa falters, as if wanting to say more but unable to find the words. The fingers of one hand fly to the stone around her neck; the other clutches at her stomach. She settles for an emphatic head shake. "Think logically. Why would I murder Wyatt over it, let alone Declan and Eden, three years later? You have to have a big reason to kill four people, and to be a certain kind of person."

A big reason to kill and a certain kind of person jogs something loose for me. Another card grabs my eye. I place it underneath Camille's Post-it.

Failing a drug test.

"Is that a confession?" Camille shoots back. She picks up Spike everyone's drinks and enjoy the fallout and puts it under my name. I snatch it right back.

"That wasn't me, as I told you half a dozen times."

"And you've lied to my face half a dozen times. I know it was you. We all do."

"Yes, that's why you spread rumors all over school about it and used alt accounts to harass me on Instagram. Like an asshole."

"I lost my shot at the Olympics, Piper! Coach Beal never looked at me the same after that. I had to find a new coach. A new gym. As you know."

"Yeah, and it sucked, but again: It. Wasn't. Me." I grind out the last three words so hard my jaw hurts. My eyes catch on another familiar-looking card. Sock-puppet bullying. I hold it up. "This you?"

"No," Willa interjects, taking the heat off Camille. "That was in DMs to Eden, remember? It has to be her secret." She grabs the card from me and places it under Eden's Post-it.

Eden left those comments, reported my posts, sent my phone number to disgusting old men who texted me such vile things I had to change my number? That bitch. I almost feel bad for thinking it was Camille all these years. Almost.

I spot another card that didn't get played last night, but that sends a slice of cold fury through me.

"And what about this one?" I slide A subtle poison halfway between Camille and Eden. "Or did you forget about trying to poison me at the party?"

Camille rolls her eyes. "Of course I didn't. It's why you spiked our drinks, remember?"

"But I didn't, " I grind out. And we're going round in circles.

Delaney's been oddly silent. "Don't you see it?" she finally says. "All these cards are about the same thing."

And finally we arrive at what's been staring us in the face. I'm the first one to say it out loud.

"The party."