But she cuts me off. “I was homeless for a few years. In and out of shelters. One night I got arrested for shoplifting. I did it on purpose, in front of the security guard, because it would be in the single digits that night and I needed somewhere warm to sleep.”
“Viv,” I say, not liking the tug of pity I’m feeling for her. “Slow down, relax.”
She barrels on, ignoring me, but moving around the bed frame now, coming closer. “I hitchhiked a ride to New York with a guy who could have been my grandfather, except I hope my real grandfather wouldn’t have made me give him a handy in the bathroom ofa gas station. Anyway, when I got to New York, I was eighteen and didn’t know anyone. Until I met Elena.”
I jolt back. “Wait, you knew each other for that long?”
“Aren’t you listening?” Viv complains. “That whole confrontation wasn’t because of aman; I know Trey’s MO. I didn’t care that he was using me to cheat on his wife, and I didn’t care that he had fifty other side pieces. But I wouldn’t let Elena go with him. He would get bored of her like the others, and then she’d be away fromEmpress, away from our family. I couldn’t let it happen!”
I grab Piper’s phone and use the mattress to pull myself to my feet, edging away from the bed to give myself space. Viv is still approaching. There’s something unhinged about her that I don’t want to mess with. Thinking she can go outside in this storm, thinking Piper is alive… Something in her mind has been knocked loose.
Viv continues. “Elena and I bonded when we met in New York. We got jobs at a fancy nightclub. We worked our way up. We went from coat-check girls to bottle service girls. We became go-go dancers. We roomed together, we followed glamorous girls on Instagram and tried to mimic their posts.”
“What happened?” I ask, stepping away again as Viv edges closer. “You said Elena didn’t joinEmpressuntil this year. You two separated?”
“She met someone,” Viv says, her voice squished, like she’s shoving it into a box it doesn’t quite fit in. “I told her not to be stupid. We had plans, dreams. We were going to become social media stars,have the most glamorous life. But she fell for him. And before I knew it, she was moving away with him.”
“So, she left you,” I say, the pieces fitting together. No wonder Viv freaked out when she heard Elena was planning to ditch her for yet another man;Viv’sman, at that. She’d probably reverted right back to that time in New York City, alone, left behind. “What did you do?”
Viv stops moving, noticing Piper’s phone in my hand, concentrating on it as she answers. “I met someone too, shortly after. He was very rich. Older. I met him at the club. He lived in Miami. He offered to take me there, show me his world. I saw an opportunity, and I took it. It obviously didn’t last, but I met Trey through him and the rest, as they say, is history. Elena and her man eventually broke up. She saw my social media, how it had grown, how I was making moves in Miami. We reconnected.”
Viv’s eyes glitter in the darkness, and I remember something from Elena’s page I noticed before the storm knocked out the service. “You made it look like Elena was going on a social media break and you deleted theEmpressposts from her page,” I say. “But you kept up the pictures of the two of you together.”
“I couldn’t get rid of them,” Viv whispers. “She was my best friend. I loved her. I wanted us to stay that way. Forever. On her page.”
She reaches behind her, pulls something small and dark from the cargo pocket of her pants. A pistol. So small it easily fits right in her dainty palm.
For a minute, I think it’s a joke. A toy. No real gun could possibly be that tiny, right? Viv handles it deftly, flicking the safety off, and reality sets in, hard and cold.
“Now,” Viv says, leveling the pistol at me, “give me that phone.”
Chapter 32
“Don’t do anything rash, okay? Here, take it.”
I edge forward, phone outstretched, my body craning away from the diminutive gun in Viv’s hand. I can’t see it clearly in the low lighting, but it’s almost laughably small. I can’t believe I’m being threatened with something that looks like a gun for dolls.
Viv leans forward and snatches Piper’s phone from my hand. “Stay right there,” she instructs me. Then she backs up, still pointing the gun at my face as she taps away at Piper’s phone. “There. Deleted.” She pauses, does a double take, lifting the phone screen higher to her face before lowering it and staring at me. “Her phone has service.”
“Really?”
“Jesus, you’re a bad liar.”
“I guess my subterfuge skills get a little wobbly when someone’spointing a fuckinggunat me.”
“This must mean the storm is passing,” Viv says thoughtfully, examining the phone. “We’ll have to move quickly. Now I’m sure Piper is out there.”
“What? Viv…” I don’t know if it’s smart to insist on bursting her bubble, but I can’t help it. “The storm might be dying down now, but it most certainly wasn’t when Piper wentinthe water.”
“I have to try,” Viv says through gritted teeth. “I have to save her.”
“I don’t understand. You reallywanther to be alive?” I’d have thought Viv would be eager to get out there and make sure Piperhadn’tmade it.
Viv’s expression is hurt. “Of course. I wanted to go after her earlier, but it was too dangerous, right? Now, maybe we’ve got a chance of finding her. I love her. Even if she recorded that…incident. She’s family.”
Something isn’t adding up. Viv should want Piper to disappear even more now. “No one else thinks she could have made it to Ligia,” I say instead. “And it’s been hours since she went in the water, Viv. What are you going to do if you can’t find her? The chances of her being alive are—”
“I’ll find her,” she cuts me off viciously. “I have to.”
