6. Vivian

6

VIVIAN

DECEMBER 30, 12:30 P.M.

When we were little, Lily used to have this weird obsession with fairy tales. But not the G-rated Disney stuff. The dark versions. The real versions. She'd hold court in the playhouse on the Beaumont playground and tell the other kindergarten girls the stories like a secret. Stuff like Did you know that Ariel actually dies at the end of "The Little Mermaid"? Did you know that Cinderella's stepmother cut off the stepsisters' toes so they'd fit in the shoe, but they bled all over and that's how the Prince knew they lied?

That's how it feels, searching the Den with Lily's parents. Like one of those screwed-up stories, some version of "Hansel and Gretel" where instead of breadcrumbs, all we have to go on are Lily's email, her necklace, and a warehouse full of monsters.

We look through everything. The floats, the costume racks and closets, even behind the boxes of old Deus memorabilia. Mr. LeBlanc unlocks the storage room at the back of the warehouse and calls inside, but there's no answer.

Lily isn't here.

Her parents make some calls. They ask us if we can meet back at their house to talk to a detective. A detective, like some thing out of Sav's guilty-pleasure SVU episodes. And then I'm driving, thinking the whole time that this can't be real, because Lily wouldn't go missing. That's not what this is. She's just… not here. She's somewhere else.

But that email.

If you're getting this, something went wrong.

I'm sorry.

I park in the LeBlancs' driveway, closing my eyes for a second to pull myself together. Easy, Atkins, I hear Coach's voice in my head. Keep your head up. This is just a misunderstanding. Maybe Lily will even be inside, lounging on the sofa and wondering why we're all so freaked out.

But she isn't.

The empty house is freezing. It always is. I clench my teeth as I settle into my usual spot on the living-room sofa, where I wait, watching my phone like a lifeline for a text, another email, anything, but it never comes.

And then the detective is here.

Detective Rutherford looks more like a Hollywood exec than a cop, with his bright white teeth, salt-and-pepper hair, and perfectly pressed button-down. He's probably the same age as Lily's dad, early fifties, or maybe a few years younger, but it's hard to tell. He's aging well in a way that only rich guys can pull off, and I pick up a definite old-money vibe as he smiles and says, "Please. Call me Marty."

He also has an accent. Most of the people I know in New Orleans don't have more than a hint of one, but Call-Me-Marty has that specific Louisiana twang, Southern mixed with something almost like New York. He goes down the line, shaking each of our hands and asking our names before settling down in the chair across from us.

"Thank you so much for coming," Lily's mom tells him.

"Of course. Anything for my oldest pals."

"Marty's a friend of the family," Lily's mom explains. "Lily's godfather."

"Her daddy and I go all the way back to Vanderbilt," Marty adds. "To you girls, though, I'm probably another one of those old Deus dinosaurs." He gives a small chuckle. "Y'all looked lovely last night, by the way."

"Thank you." Piper adjusts her Vanderbilt quarter-zip, obviously eager for Marty to know she'll be at the alma mater, too. She's been wearing it nonstop since early decisions came out a few weeks ago, and I know it pisses Lily off, even though she'd never say it. Vanderbilt had been Lily's plan for ages, so we were all kind of shocked when she got rejected, especially since she's a legacy.

April and I don't say anything, but judging from the look on her face, I feel like we're thinking the same thing. This Marty guy seems way too chill about all this, like he's sure it'll be sorted out before the Johnsons' big New Year's Eve party tomorrow. And maybe it will. Or maybe this is just some sort of detective strategy to keep everyone calm.

If you're getting this…

"Marty's with the NOPD, but he's helping us out informally today," Lily's dad explains. He's standing behind us, anxious in a way that makes me even more anxious, because I've never seen him be anything but confident. "It's still a little early to, well…" He clears his throat. "We're just hoping to get this sorted as quickly as possible."

Like this is just an inconvenience, and Lily will be back any minute now. And maybe she will. She has to be.

Lily's mom nods, gripping her cardigan so tightly that her knuckles go white. Normally, Mrs. LeBlanc has this badass rich-lady elegance that Sav once described as almond mom, but make it fashion. Now, though, she just looks breakable, like she hasn't slept all night. Which, I realize, she probably hasn't.

"Please, girls, tell Marty anything you can," she says. "What you saw at the Den, and anything you might have heard from Lily since last night."

Marty gives us another Southern-charm smile. "That sound okay?"

We all nod silently, except for Piper, who gives a weirdly formal "Yes, sir."

Classic.

"Good," Marty says, shifting forward in his seat. "Now I understand y'all were at the Deus Den this morning. You were supposed to meet Lily there?"

"Right. She said—" Piper hesitates. "She said she wanted to talk about Margot."

April visibly tenses at the mention of her name. Marty, on the other hand, doesn't react, except for a small concerned frown.

"Margot Landry?"

We nod.

"Why would she want to talk to y'all about Margot Landry?" Marty asks.

I've been asking myself the same thing. All I know about Margot is what everyone knows: her family owned half the city, she was kind of a mess, and she was Queen of Les Masques last year. Then, the day after the ball, she died. An overdose, apparently.

She and Lily were friends, though, at least for a few months. They got close over the summer before our junior year, when both of their families were at their Mississippi houses. Usually, Lily's parents would let Sav and me tag along, but we'd both been busy that summer, Sav at a theater intensive, and me coaching kids' soccer at Beaumont's day camp, since I desperately needed the money and the résumé padding.

Pretty soon, though, I wished I had gone. Because when Lily got back, she and Margot were suddenly besties, making all these weekend plans that Lily never invited us to or even told us about. Sav and I had been kind of worried she'd ditch us completely.

But then, after junior year started, things were back to normal. Lily and Margot stopped hanging out. I don't really know what happened. Maybe Lily just lost interest, or she realized Margot was too intense. Sometimes, I think that whole thing was just Lily rebelling a little, being friends with someone older and cooler and more dangerous than me and Sav. Either way, it didn't last long. That December, Margot was Queen of Les Masques. And then she was gone.

After, Lily didn't talk about her much. No one did. It was like Margot became another ghost haunting Beaumont's old halls.

"We thought it might have had something to do with whoever sabotaged the ball last night," Piper finally answers for all of us. "Maybe Lily knew who did it."

Marty's smile flickers in a way that tells me Piper's baby-narc energy isn't working on him like it does on all the teachers at Beaumont. Which, in a way, I've got to respect.

"I appreciate that, of course," he says, "but you girls really shouldn't worry yourselves over a prank."

"You think it was a prank?"

Every stare in the room turns to April, who hasn't said a word since the Den. Even Marty looks like he'd almost forgotten she's sitting here. But he recovers quickly, giving April a kind look.

"A prank may not be the right word, no. What happened last night was certainly in poor taste. Cruel, even." He pauses, glancing at Lily's mom and then back at us. "Alice says y'all got an email from Lily. Is that right?"

Piper nods, getting out her phone. "Here, I can show you."

She hands it over, and Marty reads the email, making a small humming noise before handing it back.

"‘Check the darkroom,'" he repeats, a line creasing his eyebrows. "Any idea what Lily meant by that?"

April swallows. "I'm… not sure. I figure she means at Beaumont. Um. In the photo lab."

Marty softens, giving her a small smile. "You don't have to be shy, now. Y'all aren't in trouble." When April doesn't say anything else, he sighs. "I know this has been a stressful morning for y'all, but trust me, we're doing everything we can to bring her home safe. Cases like these, we usually have 'em back where they belong by nightfall."

"What do you mean, ‘cases like these'?" It comes out more sharply than I meant it to, but I can't stop myself. Already, I can hear what he's implying, the story he's about to spin: pretty rich white girl runs away for attention, realizes she can't hack it away from Mommy and Daddy, and makes it home in time for dinner. And maybe that's better than the alternative, but something deep in my bones knows that isn't what this is. Because if there's one thing Lily has never been, it's reckless.

"Well," Marty starts carefully. "If Lily's sending an email, it's a good sign she's not in danger. Her car is missing, too, right?"

"Yes," Mrs. LeBlanc says. "It wasn't here this morning."

Her car? That's new. If Lily took her car, then maybe she really did just run away. But that doesn't explain the email, her necklace on the ground.

"Another good sign," Marty continues. "If Lily took her phone and her car with her, then it's likely she just ran off. Maybe it was stress from the ball or her boyfriend. He drove her home, didn't he?" He looks to Lily's parents, who nod. "Maybe they got into a tiff on the way home. Trust me, girls, we see this stuff all the time."

Piper stiffens slightly, and I wonder if she knows something I don't. Were Lily and Wyatt fighting? The way Lily tensed up when Wyatt touched her last night, that weird anonymous text… God, it seems so obvious now. Something was going on, and Lily didn't tell me.

"But what if she didn't send that email?" Piper asks. "Someone could have easily gotten into her account. Or the email could have been prescheduled. She could still be in danger." She hesitates. "I respect your professional expertise, Detective Rutherford, but I do think we should consider the alternative."

Despite the light undertone of kiss-assery, Piper has a point. And I'm glad someone else is backing me up here.

Marty, on the other hand, is obviously trying to hide how quickly he's running out of patience.

"Of course," he says, "we'll be considering all possibilities. And I know, given the mention of Margot Landry and last year's tragedy, that this is all a little… worrisome." For a second, he looks uncertain, but then he's back to detective mode. "But like I said, I'm confident that we'll bring Lily home in no time. She's a good girl, and we're going to find her."

A good girl. Meaning, Lily isn't Margot. And he's got a point: Lily follows her parents' rules, even when they're overly strict. She's polite and nice, at least when she's supposed to be, and she'd never do anything as dangerous as what Margot used to do. She's the perfect debutante. She doesn't go missing.

And somehow, it doesn't help at all.

It comes out of nowhere: my head swimming, like I'm running too hard on an empty stomach.

The blood on Lily's dress. Margot's face floating over it like a ghost. Last night starts to warp into last year, those same pictures of Margot on the news, people whispering about her all over town. Lily isn't Margot, I know, but a new fear digs its claws in so tight that I know it won't let me go: Lily could be in danger, and the last thing we ever did was lie to each other.

I stand up, little starbursts in my vision.

"I'm sorry, I just—I think I need some air."

I rush out of the cold room and out of their cold house, stopping on the front porch. It's cool out here, too, but somehow not as bad. I sit on the marble porch steps, listening to the gurgle of the fountain on the patio, the rumble of the streetcar out on St. Charles. I try to breathe the way I do after a game, shedding the adrenaline, grounding myself.

Marty's probably right. Lily isn't missing. But even as I try to convince myself, it feels less like the truth and more like a fairy tale. One of the cheap ones, the kind Lily used to roll her eyes at.

I slide my hands into my hoodie pocket, pulling out my phone to reread the text Lily sent me last night.

Meet me at the Krewe of Deus Den tomorrow at noon. We need to talk about what you did.

Piper and April both said that Lily wanted to talk about Margot, so I went along with it. I didn't tell them my text was different for the same reason I didn't tell Marty.

Because he was right. It doesn't make sense that Lily would want to talk about Margot Landry, a girl I barely even knew. There's another reason Lily texted me, why she's been pulling away from me, maybe even why she disappeared, and I'm afraid I know exactly what it is.