Chapter Thirty-Nine Piper

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Piper

Now: Sunday, 11:01 a.m.

There is a knife missing from the butcher block in the kitchen.

I assume Camille doubled back to the ground floor to grab it when we weren't looking. It's time for weapons, and I have to wonder if everyone else is also secretly armed. But I know I'm not fighting my way out of this. My only hope is my brain.

Maybe this is like Clue, and each of them took the opportunity to do away with another person. Four people, each committing an individual murder. Which would circle me right back to Cam. Who is somewhere in this house with a butcher knife.

I find myself at the dining room table, staring at the Post-its with our names on them and those salacious secret cards. If "Alethea Perra" sent harassing texts to Eden and Wyatt, I bet Declan had some too. It's all related. Why can't I see it?

I need something to write with, I think. I search for the pen Willa was using before. It must have gotten knocked to the floor. I walk around the table and by the couch, where I find it caught in the rug. But that's not the only thing I find. Tucked under the coffee table is Silva's purple journal, forgotten with everything else going on.

It all comes back to our guidance counselor and chaperone. She set up this trip, so she has to be the missing link. I flip through the pages. From her journal it's clear she harbored a lot of bitterness and resentment over the spoiled, entitled kids at Warner Prep. Is that a good enough reason to go in on a murder plot, though?

Then I flip to another page to find some familiar names, each with a string of numbers beneath. Some four digits, others six. Phone passcodes?

Everyone is so attached to their phones. Our entire lives are on these things. I move Declan's and Wyatt's phones to the side. They're digital mausoleums now. Eden's is downstairs somewhere, long ago drained of power. And Silva…

Wait, did we find Silva's phone?

I assumed she took it with her when she left for our rescue, but now we know she never left.

It hits me like a lightning bolt. A missing piece. Something to search for clues. Silva was far too type A not to have a phone on this trip. An old-school journal is one thing, but phones have email, text messages, and so much more on them. You can grasp the best and worst of a person through their phone. With a device and passcode clearance, you can access the whole of their digital life.

I have to find it.

Overprepared Liam saves the day again. His luggage stands sentinel in Silva's deserted suite, where I find his mesh supply bag kitted with bandages, painkillers, and toothpaste slotted next to a portable charger and a travel-sized VapoRub. I smear a generous dab under each nostril. It's not the professional stuff, but it's better than nothing as I head back into the body room.

The pungent scent bleeds through the makeshift salve. Taking care to breathe through my mouth, I swing the beam of my flashlight across the arrangement of bodies. Still, I retch so hard my stomach muscles throb. I pick my way carefully over to Silva in the far corner. It's surreal, realizing I'm about to go through a dead person's pockets for the second time in twenty-four hours.

Either Silva's phone is here or the killer has it. Can't believe I'm pulling for the dead body.

Silva is in head-to-toe ski gear. A pool of blood has congealed black on the tile beside her. Her jacket is an off-putting shade of chartreuse, the kind of sick-looking green I imagine she picked up on deep clearance in the offseason. It would explain how the puffy down doesn't quite fit her. Or maybe it's that her body has bloated since she died.

Unlike Declan, she was dumped on her back, blank eyes staring up at the low, rustic wood-beamed ceiling. As much as I want to do that trick from the movies, where they abracadabra their hands over a dead person's eyelids to close them, there's no way I'm touching her face.

I retch. Focus, Piper. Dead body. Phone .

The jacket is easiest: two diagonal zip pockets cut into the sides. With freezing fingers that shake, I tug down the zipper on the left one. I fish my hand inside, but all I find is the remains of a disintegrated tissue. I repeat the process with the other pocket, which is empty.

Which leaves her pants. A similar diagonal zip cuts across the thigh closest to me. I pat the outside, feeling for the outline of a device. There's nothing there, nor on the other side.

Then something horrifying whispers in my ear: interior pockets. They make those in a lot of coats, specifically for your phone. I'm going to have to unzip Silva's jacket, bring myself one layer closer to her decaying flesh.

Just as I'm reaching for the top of the zipper under Silva's chin, I hear a thud. It's close. Out in the hallway? Shit. I left the door ajar, not wanting to be trapped in here with all the dead. It felt safer somehow, but now I feel horrifically exposed. I snap off the flashlight, hold my breath tight in my chest until it burns.

There's a creak, like footsteps close by. Or possibly above. I can't tell. Then a pause, as if whoever is outside is listening for company. Was it another body hitting the floor? Am I next?

I wait. There's another muddled thud, but it's far off. There's silence beyond the cracked door. I'm alone.

I need to get the hell out of here.

With a steadying breath, I yank down the jacket zipper, exposing a panel underneath. And…there! A mesh phone slot. With a shiny black device inside. I could weep for joy, but I make haste in retrieving the phone, slipping it into my own hoodie pocket before I can second-guess its condition.

I dash out of the room, and I don't stop running until I've emerged back into the light of the main floor. It's deserted, just like before, with no evidence that anyone else has come through since I left. Maybe I imagined the noise. I could have sworn I heard footsteps.

Over in the kitchen, I locate the knife block. Time to take a play out of Camille's book. Armed with a twelve-inch carving knife, I move to the dining table. I only set down the knife to fetch Silva's phone from my pocket. Depressing the power button on the side, I beg under my breath. Please turn on. Please.

It doesn't.

I'm not religious, but as I plug the charging cable into Liam's slim portable battery and connect it to Silva's phone, I say a small prayer: that I can get it to power on and somehow crack the passcode before night falls. I need to know who to hide from on this last cold, dark night.