21. April

21

APRIL

JANUARY 2, 3:45 P.M.

I shouldn't be here. Taking in the Tulane University campus, I already feel like a shrimp in a sea of collegiate green. Not to mention this plan is totally doomed, because I don't even know her name. If I want to find the girl from the Pierrot bathroom, I don't have anything to go on besides her face and the certainty deep in my gut: now that Piper and Vivian are out, she's my only shot at finding the truth.

Hiking up my camera strap, I scan the courtyard. It's still technically Tulane's winter break, so it's not too crowded. A few students are milling around, jogging by, or snapping pictures of a tree covered with Mardi Gras beads that hang from the branches like rainbow moss.

Margot was supposed to be here with them. Right now, she should be burrowed in the most oversized Tulane sweatshirt imaginable, getting ready for sorority rush or buying her books for the new semester with a massive coffee in hand. Maybe I'd even be with her, learning all the new names and stories from her freshman year.

Now, when I picture her, there's only one image I can conjure up: her face that night. The anger in her eyes, aimed at me like a weapon.

"Excuse me."

A student steps past me, and with a rush of embarrassment, I realize I'm stopped dead in the middle of the path.

"Sorry," I mumble, but they're already long gone.

And suddenly, it's too much, being here in what should have been Margot's future. I'm about to give up and go scurrying back to my car when I see her.

She's ditched the ball gown for platform boots, space buns, and a vintage Bowie shirt that would look try-hard on anyone else, but it's unmistakably her. The girl from the bathroom. She's standing at a bike rack, locking hers up, her hair an even more otherworldly reddish-purple in the sun.

And then she sees me. Her brow furrows before her eyes widen in recognition.

This was a bad idea. One of my worst, actually, and all the nerve is leaving me as quickly as the heat rushing to my face. I scramble in the opposite direction, but I barely make it a few steps before I hear her.

"You're one of the Beaumont girls."

"No," I say, clinging to the possibility that if I walk fast enough, I might develop the power of teleportation.

I don't know how she's so quick in those boots, but in a matter of seconds, she's at my side, her mouth turned down into a scowl.

"What are you doing here?"

"Nothing."

"Are you stalking me?"

"No."

"Do you use words with more than two syllables?"

"Y—" I clamp my mouth shut, face burning. "Occasionally."

She laughs, surprisingly genuine. We're stopped under the bead tree, and I hope that, by some miracle, the shade hides how red and sweaty I must look. I don't think it does, though, because now that she's really looking at me, it's with something like concern, maybe even pity.

"What are you doing here?" she repeats.

It hits me again how close we must be in age. She's too self-assured to be a freshman, I think, but if I had to bet, there's no way she's older than a sophomore.

"I need to talk to you," I tell her.

"Well, you're not doing a very good job."

Her tone is flat, but the corner of her mouth twitches into a slight smile, and somehow, I find the courage to tell her my name.

"I'm April."

She watches me like she's not sure if she should trust me with hers.

"Renee," she says finally. "Look, if you're going to ask me about the other night—"

"You knew Margot." I'm surprised by the ease with which my voice comes now—maybe because I'm desperate. Or maybe because Renee reminds me of her, with her sort-of-raspy voice and tired wisdom, like she's already got the world all figured out and she's sorry to be the one to tell you it sucks.

She chews her lip, not confirming. Waiting.

"You saw Lily, too," I press. "Lily LeBlanc. The blond girl who was asking about Margot. She's missing."

Renee lets out a breath.

"I know," she says. "I looked her up after y'all told me her name. Saw a news report."

"Then you know how important this is. She could be in danger, and Margot—I think something might have happened to her. I know the reports all said she overdosed, but I think someone at the Pierrot—"

At the mention of it, Renee's gaze darts over her shoulder, and I tense. I don't want to put her at risk, but I have to know, and I'm worried I've already scared her off.

Her eyes meet mine. Bright green and probing.

"You were her friend?" she asks finally. "Margot's?"

I nod.

Renee sighs.

"Come on," she says.

"Where?" I ask.

She looks at me like it's obvious. "We can talk. Just not out here." She scans the space around us, the bending oak trees. "I figure we should be careful who's listening."

Renee lives in a dorm that looks sort of like a motel, situated on the second floor with an outdoor walkway overlooking a green courtyard. Inside, it's nicer than it looks—white brick walls tacked with band posters, a bed with deep-purple covers, fairy lights dangling overhead.

"A single?" I ask, because I don't know what else to say.

"Perks of being an RA."

"Do you like it?"

She shrugs. "I like the free housing. Not so much the dealing with drunk and crying freshmen. But you've probably figured out by now that I'm not exactly flush with cash."

Renee hops onto her bed, unlacing her boots. She nods for me to take a seat, so I sink awkwardly into her beanbag chair. My heart is beating fast, but I know I have to bring it up.

"That's why you go to the Pierrot, right?" I ask. "You said he pays. The guy who takes you."

Renee drops a boot onto the ground with a heavy thud. "A damn pretty penny."

"Who is he?"

The other boot thuds to the ground. She eyes me. "I signed a shit ton of NDAs."

A chill slinks down my spine.

Renee must notice, because she adds, "He's harmless, though. Don't worry. He doesn't even try to kiss me or anything. Mostly, I think he just wants a little young thing to parade around for his friends."

Somehow, that doesn't make me feel any better.

"What about the other women?" I ask. "Who are they?"

"Girls like me, I guess. Ones who need the money bad enough to keep our mouths shut."

"But Margot didn't need money," I say. "Why was she there?"

Renee watches me for a moment.

"What happened to your friends?" she asks, sidestepping my question. "The other debutantes?"

I grit my teeth, tensing at the memory of the levee. "I don't know if I'd call them my friends."

Renee is silent.

"Please," I beg, when she still hasn't said anything. "This is the closest I've gotten to answers, and I just—"

It rushes back to me like a gasp of cold water. The way Margot looked at me that night, her hand around the lighter. Desperate. Please.

"Something happened," I say. "The last night I ever saw her, I could tell something had happened. She was angry and reckless, but she wouldn't tell me what was going on. And I just—I need to know. Because if I don't… then all I'll know is that she needed me, and I left her."

And there it is: the truth. The dark, creeping thought I haven't been able to voice, not even to Piper or Vivian. Some part of me still can't say all of it out loud—what we did that night, the thing I know the Jester might be holding over me, even though it feels like it matters so little now.

Renee brings her legs up on the bed, pulling her knees to her chest.

"I always thought it seemed wrong," she says. "The overdose thing. I only really talked to Margot a few times, but I've known addicts, and I didn't think that was her. She seemed so… I don't know. Bright. Fun. And she had this fuck-you attitude, but under all that, there was this… joy. Like even though life is full of shit, she was so fucking glad to be alive."

Tears sting my eyes. I've never heard someone describe her so sharply, so truthfully. I would snap a picture of those words if I could, just so I could hold them close.

"I didn't know Margot was a Les Masques girl until after she died," Renee continues. "I still have no idea how she got into the Pierrot in the first place, if anyone there recognized her."

"But one of the men brought her," I say.

"Yeah. I don't really know anything about him, but…" She hesitates, and I clock the moment she decides to trust me with whatever she's about to say. "Things seemed different between them. Most of the women, it's clear it's transactional, but this guy and Margot… I'm pretty sure they were, like, together."

The memory flashes again: Margot hiding her phone from me. The secretive smile pulling at her lips as she bent over the screen. I was sure that she was texting Lily, that they were laughing at me, conspiring about how to ditch my deadweight.

Now, though, the image shifts, sharpening into higher resolution.

"When did you meet Margot?" I ask.

"Last fall, I think," she says. "Maybe end of summer."

Exactly when Margot was hiding those texts—just before she'd started pulling away, disappearing, busy whenever I tried to hang out. I'd always assumed it was Lily. I knew it was Lily. As a photographer, you're supposed to be good at details, weaving images together into a coherent composition, and that was the one that made the most sense. The only one that made sense.

But what if I had been dead wrong?

"Is there anything else you can tell me about him?" I press. "What he looked like, or…?"

"He was the type who always kept his mask on. But…" Renee hesitates. "It was this wolf mask."

There's a shift like a storm moving through the room, static all over my skin. The Rougarou's voice curls into my memory like smoke. The other one was seventeen, wasn't she?

"I saw him," I say. "On the balcony. I mentioned Margot, and he knew her."

My heart pounds as I wrack my brain for any details I remember about him—his voice, his eyes—but it's like my memory is a deep black pool, so wide and dark that I can't see the bottom.

"Shit," Renee says.

"Have you ever talked to him?" I ask. "Do you have any idea who he could be?"

Renee shakes her head. "I see him every so often, but he's never talked to me or anything, not since Margot died. He barely even looked at me before. I try to stay away, 'cause he gives me a weird vibe, but I never thought…" She pauses, dread deepening on her face. "Do you think he really might have done something to her?"

I don't answer. I don't have to. Because it's dawning on both of us now, the horrible truth: I came face-to-face with Margot's killer. I could have torn off his mask, pushed him up against the balcony railing, demanded that he tell me what he did to her.

But I didn't.

I did what Margot always feared I would, what I ended up doing to her in the end.

I ran.