5. Piper

5

PIPER

DECEMBER 30, 11:55 A.M.

In the long list of things that piss me off, being left on read has got to crack the top ten, especially when it's about something this cryptic.

Meet me at the Deus Den tomorrow at noon. We need to talk about Margot.

When Lily sent the message last night, I responded immediately to ask for more details, but she still hasn't gotten back to me, despite the very clear READ AT 9:50 P.M. banner beneath my text—which, as far as I'm concerned, could be classified as an act of psychological warfare.

I send her another text:

I'm here

Five minutes early, I mentally add. Not that anyone's counting.

Shielding my eyes from the sun, I look up at the Den. From the outside, it's nothing special, just a long warehouse building with a high arched ceiling. But inside, the place is magical. Or it used to be. I haven't been here since I was little enough that Dad still held our hands as he walked me and Wyatt down the long aisles of floats, pointing out the one he'd be riding on in the parade: the Fool's Float, one of the first and most historic in the lineup, with the big laughing jester at the helm.

The floats used to scare Wyatt so much that he'd cry at the giant papier-maché creatures staring down at him, but I loved them. I always ran ahead, eager to touch the gold-leaf flames and see if they'd really burn me, half-afraid they would.

I still love when Dad tells that story. Maybe because, for once, the roles are reversed: I'm the fun one, the carefree one, while Wyatt hangs back, overthinking.

I check my phone again, but Lily still hasn't read the message. I sigh. She's never been punctual, which she usually gets away with on account of being, well, Lily—pretty and popular and charming, all qualities that don't come naturally to me. Tardiness is also high on the list of things that piss me off, but I try to tamp down the frustration.

I'm not sure why Lily has summoned me to the Den, of all places, but if she knows something about who projected Margot Landry all over the ballroom last night, then this is an opportunity I can't pass up—even if it means waiting alone on a sketchy-looking street just off the highway.

"Piper?"

I spin around at the unexpected voice, instinctively grabbing for the pepper spray in my purse.

"Oh my god, it's me!" Vivian Atkins holds her hands up, blocking her eyes.

I lower the spray, suspicious. For all the times Vivian has been at our house with my brother and their friends, I don't think we've ever really exchanged more than a casual hello.

"In my defense, you snuck up on me."

"Wait." She squints at my hand. "Is that bedazzled ?"

I glance at my pepper spray, which is pink and—yes, okay, fine —sparkly, but I won't give her the satisfaction of embarrassment. "It was the cheapest one."

"Frugal of you." With a look of what can only be described as sociological fascination on her face, Vivian crosses her arms over her Beaumont soccer hoodie. "What are you doing here?"

I debate coming up with a lie, but then I notice the time—noon on the dot—and I wonder if this is purely coincidental.

"Did Lily text you, too?" I ask.

Vivian frowns. "Yeah. Wait, did she also text—"

Before she can finish, shoes shuffle on the sidewalk behind us, and we both turn to find April Whitman approaching the Den gate. She blinks at us, looking like a meerkat with her wide brown eyes and dangling arms, that ever-present camera slung over her shoulder.

"Um," she says. "Sorry, I…"

"Got a text from Lily? Welcome to the club," I finish, because it looks like the sheer act of talking is making April so nervous, she might explode. Which maybe it is. Already, this might be more words than I've heard her say in nearly thirteen years of going to school together.

I check the time on my Apple Watch.

"It's 12:02," I say. "She's late."

As I look up again, I catch Vivian making an expression I'm used to—one transmitting a very clear Chill out, Piper. All of Wyatt's little posse look at me like that, like it's some sort of crime to actually care about anything besides sports or hooking up or whoever scored the booze for this weekend.

I straighten my spine. "Should we go in?"

"Wait. Just—what did Lily say in her text to y'all?"

Vivian still looks skeptical, like she can't believe her best friend would deign to text the rest of us. Although to be fair, she might have a point. It's not like Lily has been seeking out my company lately, and I've never seen her even speak to April. There's nothing tying us together, besides school and Les Masques.

So this must be about the latter.

"She said we needed to talk about Margot, didn't she? This is probably about last night." I pause, watching Vivian's confused expression. "Did she tell y'all something different?"

April shakes her head.

"No," Vivian says.

"Well, then." I gesture at the gate. "Shall we? She could already be inside."

Doubtful, I think, but still, I'm not exactly dying to wait here in this awkward trio. I pull the gate handle. It doesn't budge.

"It's locked," Vivian says, oh so helpfully. "There's a code or something."

April fidgets with a piece of mousy-brown hair, cut bluntly just above her shoulders with choppy bangs she no doubt sheared herself. She looks even more eager to escape than usual—I'm sure because she can't bear to spend another second with anything or anyone debutante-related. Then, to my surprise, she steps up to the keypad and starts punching in numbers.

"Wait," I start. "You shouldn't—"

The keypad flashes green, and when April pushes, the gate swings open.

Vivian and I stare, open-mouthed.

"How did you know the code?" I ask.

"My dad." She hikes up her camera strap and steps inside. "He let me come shoot the floats for a project last year."

"And you just… remembered the code a year later?" I ask, still slightly in disbelief. I'm one of the best math students at Beaumont, but even I have trouble memorizing phone numbers, let alone a code I've only used once in my life.

April shrugs, red-faced. "I remember stuff."

I want to ask why she's not higher up in the class rank, but that would probably be considered rude, and anyway, she's already walking up to the warehouse door. It opens, unlocked, and we follow her inside, our footsteps echoing on the concrete floor of the big yawning space.

During Mardi Gras season, artists and Deus members are here most days, putting the finishing touches on the floats and making sure their parade throws are in order. Now, though, we're still about a week away from the official beginning of Carnival—the weeks-long period leading up to Mardi Gras Day—so the building is eerily quiet, empty except for the huge floats and their half-finished creatures staring down at us. I'm a little surprised, really, that they'd leave it all unattended after the vandalism last year.

"Hello?" Vivian calls out.

Silence.

My Apple Watch dings, and I look down at the screen. An email notification from Lily. Weird. She's never emailed me except to send drafts of her college essays.

And then I clock the subject line: Delete After Reading.

I click to open it and see the other recipients. "Y'all?"

They both turn to look at me.

"Check your email."

Vivian frowns. "Why?"

I thrust my phone in her direction. She gets closer to see it, April leaning in beside her.

If you're getting this, something went wrong.

Check the darkroom. April knows where.

I'm sorry.

Xx L

Before I can even say anything, Vivian has her phone out and pressed to her ear.

"Are you calling her?" I ask.

She doesn't have to answer. I hear it cut straight to Lily's voicemail greeting, tinny through Vivian's speaker.

"Hi, this is Lily, leave a message."

Vivian hangs up and dials again.

"Hi, this is—"

She jabs the END CALL button and types out a text instead.

"It won't send," Vivian says. "Like her phone is off, or something."

I turn to April. "What does that mean, ‘check the darkroom'?"

"I—" Her voice cuts out sharply, like someone shut off the volume. April's eyes are trained on a spot of concrete floor a few feet away, the space cluttered with cardboard boxes, paint cans, and papier-maché flowers still waiting to be attached to their floats.

And then I see what she's really looking at. A glimmer of something, catching the sun as it streams through the high warehouse windows. April bends down to pick it up, lifting it high enough for us to see the teardrop diamond on the gold chain.

I've seen that necklace before. I don't need April's weird mathematical memory to remember where, either. Lily wears it every day, absent-mindedly fidgeting with the diamond, like she can't help showing it off.

"Is that…"

"Lily's." Vivian finishes my thought. She turns around, taking in the space around us. "Lily!"

But there's no answer.

A creeping dread starts up beneath my skin, like whenever I know I'm forgetting something on a test, only this is much worse—because right now, I'm not drawing a blank. It's the opposite. I have a feeling I know exactly what's about to happen.

"I'm calling her mom," Vivian announces, already holding the phone back to her ear.

Her foot taps frantically as it rings, the tone droning on until it's broken by a muffled "Hello?"

"Mrs. LeBlanc? It's Vivian. I'm here at the Den with Piper and April, and we're—" She pauses, listening as Lily's mom says something I can't make out. "The Deus Den, yeah. I'll put them on speaker, hold on." She does. "So Lily asked us to meet her here, but—"

"Wait, you heard from Lily?" Mrs. LeBlanc's voice is panicked, and the dread sinks its claws deeper. "When?"

"Last night," Vivian says. "And just now. She sent us this weird email, but she's not here, and we found her necklace. Has she—have you heard from her today?"

Lily's mom is quiet for what must only be a second or two, but already, I know. I can feel her answer in the weight of her silence, the crackle of her voice as it comes through the speaker again.

"I need y'all to stay right there. Don't move, okay? George and I are on the way."

"But have you seen—"

"No. We…" Lily's mom takes a breath. "We haven't seen her since the ball."