24. Piper

24

PIPER

JANUARY 2, 4:15 P.M.

When I get home, luck is on my side: Mom's and Dad's cars are both missing from the driveway. The one I share with Wyatt is here, but I'll just have to hope he's shut up in his room like he's always been lately.

This is something I need to do on my own.

As I walk into the house, I resist the urge to check my phone to see if Aiden texted. He wanted to come with me, but I shook him off. I was too angry at him for telling me the truth, and even angrier at myself for not being able to handle it.

So handle it, I command myself silently. And I am. I will. All I need is more proof, something to show Aiden he was wrong about my dad being in the Pierrot.

With a deep breath, I push open the door to Dad's office.

I've always loved this room—the smell of the old books lining his shelves, musty and comforting. Most days, Dad works from his office in the Garden District, so he mostly uses this one for the occasional telehealth session or anything else he needs to get done after the workday. Sometimes, though, I think it's his hideaway from the rest of us, which I can understand. Being a Johnson can be overwhelming.

Unless he's not just hiding from you, says a voice in my head that sounds too much like my own. He's hiding himself. The things he doesn't want you to know.

I give that voice a swift kick in the throat and tell myself not to panic until I have to.

Settling myself into Dad's desk chair, I tap the mouse of his desktop computer, waking the screen. Instantly, guilt floods my system. His screen saver is a picture of all four of us, one of the family shots Mom wrangled us into taking before the ball. But this one isn't the perfect portrait Mom posted to her Instagram. It's candid: Mom is backing away from the camera, frozen in a hilarious look of surprise because the self-timer went off earlier than she was expecting. Wyatt's losing his battle with an amused smile, and I have a look of pure shock, a white glove pressed to my mouth. And Dad is looking down at me and Wyatt, hands in his suit pockets and undeniable love in his eyes.

A dull ache starts up at the back of my throat. The Dad I see in this picture can't just be a mask, a role he's playing to hide the villain inside. He loves us. He's a good person, and I need to prove it.

I type in the password we've always used for everything, and it works. I'm doing this. And now that I've started, I know I have to keep going.

His desktop is pretty standard and organized, folders for work and taxes and not much else. I click on his browser, still open to the portal he uses for patients. There won't be anything about the Pierrot in here, but something scratches at the back of my brain. I navigate to the search bar and type in Margot Landry, stopping before I hit ENTER . Doing this will definitely violate about a hundred different HIPAA laws, but no one has to know. And it's hardly the worst thing I've done lately.

I hit ENTER , and Margot's profile populates the page. After some clicking around, I find the notes from her sessions.

I hesitate. This is wrong in so many ways, but then again, can you really violate a dead girl's privacy?

Yes, my conscience says, but it's not quite as loud as a different, darker thought. If Dad thought Margot was a danger to herself, then maybe that will prove there isn't some kind of conspiracy going on. Only what we already knew: Margot had problems, and Margot died. The Pierrot didn't necessarily have anything to do with it.

I open the notes from her most recent session, December 20th of last year, a little over a week before the ball. But reading through it, there's nothing out of the ordinary. From Dad's description, it seems like Margot was a normal girl who struggled with anxiety, which he prescribed medication for. Nothing here suggests a girl on the verge of self-destruction. He wrote that she reported some alcohol consumption since her last session, but no drug use.

I drum my nails on the mouse pad. Margot wouldn't necessarily admit to having a drug problem, but Dad would have noted if something was off, wouldn't he? I click back to previous sessions, but it's more of the same. Dad's notes are brief, but none of it paints the picture of a girl who would be dead before the New Year.

Steeling myself, I open a new tab and navigate to Dad's email. His personal account is already logged in. In the search bar, I type Pierrot and hit ENTER . When no results come up in his inbox, I'm relieved. It's not much proof, though. I highly doubt they'd send anything with a subject line as useful as "Murder Cover-Up Action Items."

Going back to the search bar, I type Margot Landry.

This time, there's one result. It's an email Dad sent last January, a week after Margot died. The recipient: Detective Marty Rutherford.

Marty,

Attached is my most recent progress report for Margot Landry. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do to help.

Best,

Stephen

Detective Rutherford worked on Margot's case.

It makes sense—it's literally his job—but a needling feeling won't let me go.

I click on the attachment, and it fills the screen. It's just one page, labeled with Dad's full name at the top. Underneath, the date of the exam—December 20th of the year Margot died—followed by her name and a summary of the session.

Ms. Landry has exhibited significant regression in the past few sessions. Symptoms of anxiety and depression seem to be worsening, and she described feeling out of control. She also admitted to use of unprescribed drugs, including opiates.

Adrenaline buzzes, making my hands shaky as I click back to the patient portal. Dad didn't write any of this in his notes from that session. He definitely didn't mention unprescribed drugs. I keep reading the rest of the report he sent to Marty, including the medication notes I don't understand, hoping something will make it make sense.

And then, at the bottom, I catch the final line.

I have shared this information with Ms. Landry's parents, as I am deeply concerned for her well-being. She exhibits signs of psychosis, and I fear that if intervention is not made at home as well as in sessions, she may put her own life in danger.

Everything around me starts to shift. I hold onto the edge of the desk, forcing my lungs to keep up with the frantic pace of my heart.

Think, Piper. Be logical. Because there has to be some logic to this, some explanation besides the dark ones working their way into my head. I check over Dad's notes again, compare them to this report, but it's like they describe two completely different Margots—one who was dealing with the normal struggles of a girl our age, and another who was a danger to herself and others. A girl who couldn't be trusted.

And now I can't deny what's happening here: Dad lied. He falsified this report and sent it to Marty to—what?

I shut my eyes, and memories flood in, lit up by a harsh new light. Dad slumped on the living-room couch as the news played a story about Margot, his eyes glazed and his glass sweating on the table. The quiet sounds of Dad crying behind his locked bathroom door, so muffled and unfamiliar it made me feel like the floor was unsteady under my feet.

I thought Dad felt guilty because he lost a patient, because he couldn't save her from herself. But now, in this new version of reality, there are no shadows to hide in. Only the terrible question, the one that's starting to look like the truth: what if Dad felt guilty not because he couldn't save her life, but because he took it?

Hot tears burn my eyes, and I realize, suddenly, that I'm angry. At Dad, yes, but also at Lily—for disappearing, for making me want to dig around in places I don't belong. But most of all, I'm angry at myself. Because I couldn't let this go. I kept pushing, kept digging, even when I knew I would find things I didn't want to see.

Isn't it time we let the dead stay buried?

Now I've dug so deep that I don't think my hands will ever be clean again.

But I can't just sit here. I wipe my eyes, take a breath, and delete Margot's name from the search history in both Dad's email and his patient portal. I close out of his email, leaving the patient-portal tab open, like it was before. Then I put the desktop to sleep and tuck Dad's chair back in where I found it. All traces of me erased.

I'm walking to the door when it swings open, Wyatt standing on the other side.

I freeze, wracking my brain for some kind of explanation. But then I see the look of absolute fear on his face, and I know instantly it has nothing to do with me snooping around Dad's office. Dread curls out from my center, reaching all the way to my toes.

"What's wrong?"

"Mom just called." He sounds younger than he is. Petrified. "She's at the police station."

"What? Wh—"

But before I can even get out the "why," he tells me, in a voice as distant and frightened as I feel.

"It's Dad. They arrested him."

brEAKING: NOPD MAKES ARREST IN THE DEATH OF MARGOT LANDRY

New Orleans— The New Orleans Police Department has made an arrest in connection with the death of Margot Landry, 17, which was ruled an overdose last year. Dr. Stephen Johnson, a prominent local psychiatrist, was taken into custody this afternoon after new evidence led police to revisit the case. As of the publishing of this article, no specific charges have been made. This is a developing story.