Chapter Forty-Eight Piper

Chapter Forty-Eight

Piper

Now: Monday, 6:25 a.m.

You weren't recording that, right?

Delaney's voice from the tinny phone speakers cracks through the silence of the room.

I knew she was a mean girl, but the video introduces a whole new dimension to Delaney's awfulness. No wonder she was trying to convince Liam to leave me for dead. I'm the very kind of person whose life is comparatively worthless to someone like her. Like Darwinism or whatever.

So eloquently put.

"Liam, that was years ago. I was young, and stupid—"

"Stop." Liam's voice is like a bullet. Delaney shuts up for once. "You really think that way about people? Poor people?"

Delaney shrugs, as best she can with her arms tied behind her back. Meanwhile, I'm fascinated by her face. The way she can't exactly settle on an expression, like a humanoid robot that's malfunctioned. How did I miss it before? Finally she calms, and it's almost like I can see the wheels turning inside her head. Doing the math on which emotion will serve her best.

I think back to the other day when I saw her trip outside. The performance she put on in the snow, when I saw her, clear as day, trip herself rather than let Camille win. And then she asked me about it! She is the bogeyman from every true crime story. The thing you fear in the dark when you should be looking in the light. Evil in plain sight.

Delaney is watching us. Her eyes scan Willa, Liam, and me, like an apex predator. Unworried, with absolute confidence.

I can't tell if it's a bluff.

I need to distract her. Many MurderGals episodes feature long confessions from sociopathic killers, happy to chat about their misdeeds. Delaney seems the type.

"Were you always planning on killing everyone?" I ask out of the blue. Delaney's cold eyes snap to mine. The edge of her mouth curls in a half smile.

"You know, I wasn't totally sure at first. The original plan was to out whoever screwed me over with Yale, so I could punish them later. Silva was the one who wanted to expose everyone's dirty little secrets and, I don't know, make them feel bad about it or something. Make them want to be better people. It was weak, but I needed her cooperation."

"That's why you took our phones. Constructed the whole digital detox conceit."

Delaney demurs at Willa's interjection, hardly breaking stride. "You plan for every contingency, of course. The hardest part was making the deaths look like accidents. I think I did a pretty amazing job, if I do say so myself." Delaney blooms into a full grin.

Liam and Willa are silent with horror. Me, I let the quiet swell and grow, encouraging Delaney to fill it. She does.

"Declan was an experiment. To see if it would work. If I could go through with it. The Al'more, hiding his EpiPen…there was so much left to chance. But it all worked out beautifully. Like fate. From there…I mean, why let all my planning go to waste? I improvised a bit, lodging an icicle in the sauna door to keep it closed, which, again, was pretty brilliant. Wyatt was the easiest. And Cam…" She trails off, almost wistful.

"I really thought she sent that video, you know. Otherwise, I'd planned to take her to the end. So technically it's your fault she's dead, Wills."

She locks her gaze on Willa, and I take the opportunity to inch closer to the fireplace.

"You're going to have to live with that. How you keep killing people because you're a selfish coward."

Willa sputters in disbelief, outrage, or guilt. It's hard to tell which. Liam's eyes dart between his girlfriend, the murderer, and his sidepiece, apparently also a murderer. Not a great track record as far as first relationships go.

"Del." There's a plea to the way Liam says her name. Unsureness flits across her features. Not actual guilt, of course. As long as Delaney Moss thinks she might sway Liam, we're in imminent danger.

"But Silva wasn't planned," I prod.

Delaney huffs. "She caught on annoyingly fast. I was hoping she'd be stupider than that. I wanted her alive a bit longer. Long enough to pin it all on her. But Camille works too."

"Works?"

Delaney has to crane her neck to pin me with her hard stare. My calves knock against the brick ledge of the fireplace as I instinctively jump back. But Delaney doesn't question why I'm so interested in the mantel behind her. Her attention remains myopic. On herself and her own cleverness.

"You all really think you can pin any of this on me?" Delaney scoffs. "There's zero proof, which was the whole point. None of this can be traced back to me. Aside from the house, but Eden and Camille were my best friends. They used me to get access to this place. Eden rigged that card deck in order to play with us like she used to with all her alt bully accounts. And when Cam realized who drugged her at that party, she snapped."

It's incredible how Delaney transforms, her flat tone replaced with animated hysteria. We're getting a preview of how she'll act for the cops, the media, the public. Cold, hard realization washes over Liam's features. He gets it now. His girlfriend doesn't plan on letting anyone who can contradict her narrative get out of this alive. "How will you explain the emails with Silva, then?" I dare ask. Poke the proverbial bear. "And everything with Yale?"

Delaney twitches, like a broken pixel flashing on a pristine screen, then calms. "You mean [email protected]? I'm not premed, Piper. And that email address only ever communicated with our guidance counselor from an IP address connected to Liam's house."

"What the—" Liam's face falls, and I slide half a foot to myleft.

"How does that work with Camille as the fall guy, though?"

Another twitch. And the slightest hitch in Delaney's voice, although Willa did poison her with Visine…. I've either rattled her or she's about to vomit.

"It was a contingency is all. I was never going to make you my fall guy," she directs at Liam, so practiced at sounding utterly convincing. "I was just being careful. None of the trip planning itself is in writing."

Liam appears half-convinced. Shit. He might Gone Girl his way out of this thing. Play boyfriend, then husband, to wackadoo Delaney for the rest of his life.

"At the end of the day…," Delaney continues, her attention locked on her boyfriend. She's making her case to one person, and one only. "No one else knows about Yale. It doesn't even have to come up. My record is spotless. Social media, school, friends…I'm pretty, popular. I have the perfect boyfriend."

Willa squeaks a sound mixed with outrage and hurt when Liam does not contradict her.

"What do they say? Occam's razor? The most simple, straightforward solution is the way to go. Camille lost big that night. She was vengeful." Delaney swivels back to me, boyfriend seemingly on lock. "You know that better than anyone, Piper. And her victims? None of us liked them, let's be honest. No one is going to think that hard about what happened on this trip."

Tick, tock, tick, tock. The bear clock fills the space as Delaney's cold, hard logic swirls in the air.

"You sure about that?"

"What?" Delaney is sharp. I'm sharper.

"They'll cover our story on all the podcasts, probably get a Dateline episode, maybe a Netflix documentary. It could even end up being made into a movie. Does it bother you that Camille will get all the credit? The competitive gymnast who snapped—it's a compelling angle."

"It's fine." The word is clipped. Short. "I'll be the main character."

"Will you? They'll probably blend a bunch of our traits and backstories together. I think they call it a composite character? Most people won't even know our names. But Camille Sutter. She'll go down in history. The methodical killer who was able to wipe out half a field trip in two days. Plus her victims, Declan, Eden, Wyatt…with all their online presence, all that footage? They'll live forever."

After a minute that feels like an hour, Delaney speaks. "I see what you're doing. Impressive, if pointless. I don't need all the credit for this weekend. I planned everything perfectly, just the way I wanted it. And that hasn't changed. Now, you have a choice."

Go along with a killer or die.

That's the thing, though. Delaney did plan this weekend meticulously. The isolated location, the gullible chaperone, each person on her revenge checklist.

Except me. Delaney doesn't know me that well. How I respond under pressure.

Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

Delaney Moss is banking on one of the latter three.

It happens as if in slow motion. Her fingers flexing. Then she rolls her wrists. Movement ripples like a wave, up to Delaney's shoulders. And then, effortlessly, she unwraps her restraints and in a single move grabs the chair before it can clatter to the floor, swings it, and broadsides Liam. Then she lunges at Willa, all nails and teeth.

I'm forgotten by the fireplace. Underestimated. Delaney is sure she can easily take out the injured girl, the afterthought.

The girl who wasn't supposed to be here.

Delaney Moss has no clue that I am a fucking fighter.

So she doesn't see it coming when I smash the bear clock into the back of her skull.