“She didn’t deserve that. She was a good person.”
Was.This is it. This is what I need. “Did Trey kill her?”
Piper looks back at me, eyes narrowed. “You have no idea what you walked into, do you?”
Rainwater rolls down my cheeks, splattering my lounge wear, which is already soaked through and clinging uncomfortably to my skin. “It’d help if you could enlighten me.”
Piper shakes her head sadly. “I tried.”
“The bracelet.”
She nods. “And the phone. I beat you to the crew area when the storm started—there are more ways than one to travel around the inside of this boat. I left the phone for you, busted the cabin door so it’d make noise and you’d go look.”
“Are you behind the haunting too?” I exclaim, eager now. Finally, an explanation. The less attractive areas of the boat are hidden. There could be other secret staircases and entrances I don’t know about. “How did you do it?”
Piper ignores my questions. “I’m sorry this freak storm got in the way. But I did try.”
“Piper,” I say slowly, catching up. “You had Elena’s phone. And you knew her bracelet was in the ocean?”
“Of course I knew,” Piper says. “I put it there.”
Chapter 27
“You…you killed Elena?” I ask, my voice wavering.
“You still don’t understand,” Piper says, sighing. She looks off to Ligia, eyes hazy.
“Help me understand. Please, Piper.”
She glances back at me, and there is real sympathy in her eyes, a gentleness I haven’t seen from her before. “I am sorry you got swept up in this. Collateral damage.”
My stomach drops, and something she said a minute ago floats back to the front of my brain. “Hang on. Piper. You said no one was coming for us. Did you…didyoudestroy the bridge?”
“I had to,” Piper says sadly. “When the storm started, I thought it could be a way to start over. Clean away what happened. We don’t deserve to be rescued.”
“The storm is quieting,” I point out. “And someone will come for us eventually.”
“No,” Piper corrects me, and her voice is changing now, turning deeper and more guttural. “They won’t. I called the Coast Guard before I destroyed everything and told the emergency line that we were already evacuating and there was no need to send assistance.”
The whites of her eyes are bulging, little legs of red creeping through them. Her voice is pitching, raising with fervor. “I said we had transport back to the mainland thanks to Trey’s deep pockets, and they should divert any resources to people who really needed them. Then I took a hammer and smashed everything to pieces.”
“No…” I groan. “No, we would have heard that.”
“The bridge is soundproof when the door is closed,” Piper explains. “You think Trey wants all the rich people hearing the beeping instruments and radio calls whenever the yacht needs maintenance or needs to be moved? Once that door is shut, no sound is getting out.”
“Jesus, Piper, why would you do that?”
“Because we don’t deserve this,” she repeats. Her voice is broken and sharp, pieces of pottery scattered on the deck.
“Tell me what happened.”
Instead of answering, Piper suddenly steps forward, wrapping her arms around me tightly. I flinch, expecting an attack, but instead she hugs me, fiercely, her neck pressed against my face. Ican smell her—sweat and alcohol and something faintly floral, a perfume that has almost washed away.
Piper squeezes me closer. “Top drawer of the end table next to my bed,” she murmurs in my ear, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up, despite the rain’s attempts to flatten it. “2-0-3-3-5-5.”
“What—”
She releases me, and I stagger backward. Piper spins away, her bare flesh stretching as her muscles bunch together, and she launches herself toward the side of the yacht.
