I delete the @ChaptersWithCharlie account, relief washing over me when I do.
My inbox is in a similar state, and I start mass deleting emails until I come upon one that makes my fingers halt. I know that name: Sage’s agent.
His email is short, perfunctory. He doesn’t say whether or not he believes my accusation about Sage, but he offers representation, if I’m interested. He says Sage’s publisher is still looking for someone to continue the series Sage started. Only this time, Sage’s agent offers more than ghostwriting. An “IP situation,” he calls it, with a promise to have my name on the cover of future books, along with Sage’s.
The publisher is willing to discuss how to handle the plagiarism aspect of your concerns.
I mark the email unread and continue deleting all the others.
If I was a better person, I would go home to Wisconsin and tell the truth about what I did to Sage. And maybe one day, I will. But not yet.
Which is exactly why I didn’t turn in the others. They were also partially responsible for Elena’s death, but I understood the impulse to do nothing after something horrible happens—something you could have stopped but chose not to.
If I wasn’t going to turn myself in, I wasn’t going to turn the other women in either.
Besides, they are suffering enough as it is. They’re clearly consumed with guilt. Viv was like a cult leader, and without her, they have suddenly woken up and turned against her.
Near the end of the week, Carl’s rushed autopsy comes back, and it turns out I was right. Carl died from secondary drowning, but the validation doesn’t please me. He was as bad as Trey, running through these women, treating them like playthings. He should have to answer for that behavior. Instead he died and got to become a tragic story.
And Viv—I’ve been thinking about her a lot. There’s been no sign of her or Piper, even a week later. Not a scrap of clothing or evidence of a tender wreckage. It hurts more than I thought it would. I don’t think Viv was mentally stable, and she clearly suffered abuse and neglect as a child and young adult. Viv didn’t kill Elena because she was jealous or possessive. She killed Elena because she was scared and rejected.
We don’t set out to do bad things because we don’t think of ourselves as bad people. But sometimes our best intentions cause trauma. Should we be punished for the rest of our lives for these ripple-effect mistakes? Or should we take into account things like Sage’s betrayal? Trey preying on his employees? Viv’s troubled and lonely childhood?
People are not the pages of a book, written in black and white, cleanly spelled out and stylized so that you know who is good and who is bad.
Maybe that’s the point.
* * *
My last day at the hotel, Ashley knocks on my door.
Her face is thin and worn, like she’s fading away layer by layer. But she nods at me, and I open the door wider and let her in. I haven’t really spoken to the others; everyone’s been too shaken and traumatized.
“What a mess,” Ashley says, flopping onto the ugly armchair by the hotel desk. “What’s your move after this?” The familiar biting tone is completely gone from her voice now, and she sounds more assured, more authentic, albeit tired.
I collapse on the bed. “Probably get some serious therapy.”
She smirks. “You could do that here.”
“In Florida?” I blink at her.
Ashley clears her throat, expression flattening. “They found Piper.”
My heart sinks. Ashley doesn’t have to say it. I can see it spelled out on her features, the way she holds her head, the tightness of her jaw.
“Oh, Ashley,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
“She wasn’t always like that, you know. Elena’s death changed her,” Ashley bites her lip, looks away. “It wasn’t her fault. Viv like…livedinside her head. Viv lived insideallour heads. She would play mind games. Limit the amount of food we could eat. Give compliments and then backhanded ones. And she was our manager. It was complicated. Piper… She tried her best.”
“Ashley,” I say earnestly, “I want you to know; I tried to stop her from jumping overboard, I really did.”
Ashley gathers herself, turns back to me. “Why didn’t you tell the truth? I know you blamed Viv and only Viv. Why? Why not tell them we were all there? We all killed her.”
“There’s nothing to implicate you guys,” I reply. I can’t discuss sending the video to Sage’s phone without admitting what I did to my former best friend. Telling Viv the truth was bad enough. “The only physical evidence they have is Viv’s bloody fingerprint on Elena’s phone. Viv’s prints were in the system. Shoplifting. So the rest of you are in the clear.”
I don’t tell Ashley that the only remaining copy of Piper’s video is waiting on Sage’s phone. I’ll never turn the video in. In fact, I might go back home and pitch Sage’s phone into Lake Michigan and be done with this whole thing.
“But Elena’s death was our fault,” Ashley says, eyes glazed. “We didn’t do enough.Ididn’t do enough.”
