Cross My Heart

Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

Piper’s expression is so intense I lean away from her, back pressed to the chair.

“Too late?” I repeat, throat tightening. I laugh to loosen it. “What do you mean?”

But she doesn’t answer that. Instead, she says, “I met Daphne here. At the library.”

She gestures to the walls, beige and blank, and her gaze softens as she studies them, as if her memory of that day is projected over my head.

“We were hosting an open mic night—something we’d done dozens of times. But this was the first time Daphne came. And right away, I was starstruck.”

“Because she was Morgan’s wife?”

Piper’s eyes snap onto me. “Hell no. I didn’t care about Morgan Thorne. I know that’s basically blasphemous for someone in this town, but I’ve always been skeptical of anything that’s massively popular. If it appeals to that many people, it can’t have much substance.”

I bristle at that, reminded of Brad. His taste skewed so indie that, in solidarity, I actually stopped listening to Taylor Swift, whose music he dismissed as “sparkly breakup songs.”

“Honestly, I knew so little about Morgan Thorne,” Piper continues, “that until I met Daphne, I assumed he was a woman.”

When I only frown in response, Piper sighs, as if annoyed she has to explain: “His protagonists are always women. And his name is Morgan—which can be a woman’s name—so I just figured Morgan Thorne had to be a woman. Otherwise, he was appropriating women’s voices and stories. Which: now I know, that’s exactly what he did.”

“Wait.” The desire to defend him nearly lifts me out of my chair. “He can’t help what his name is.”

Distaste flicks across Piper’s face—now I’ve disappointed her.

“He knows what he’s doing. Women made his genre what it is. Gillian Flynn with Gone Girl , Paula Hawkins with The Girl on the Train . So when readers see someone named Morgan writing thrillers about women, they’re going to assume the author is a woman. Daphne even said that when Someone at the Door first came out, he didn’t have his photo on his book or website, and his bio didn’t use any pronouns. It’s a disgusting sales grab.”

She sticks her finger in her mouth, pretending to gag, and it’s so childish that it suddenly clicks for me who she was at Burnham High. I saw her do that same gesture my senior year, when she and some other girls mocked a freshman named Winnie, who often dressed like she’d just left a Renaissance Faire and, that day, had brownie stuck in her braces. As Winnie blinked back tears, I touched her arm and improvised: I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Your dad’s still getting us backstage at Gaga tonight, right? Most of the girls’ jaws dropped open, but Piper rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed.

Now it makes sense, her aversion to Morgan. In the last minute, she’s accused him of manipulation, appropriation, and writing books that lack any substance—but it seems she’s always been prejudiced against popular artists.

“All that is to say,” Piper adds, “I wasn’t starstruck about Daphne because of who her husband was. I was starstruck because of her . She was a writer, too, you know.”

I blink, taken aback. “No, actually, I didn’t know that. I just know she was a professor. At Emerson?” I try to seem foggy on the details, like I didn’t study every sentence of her obituary, which made no mention of a writing career.

“Yes, but she was also a poet. An amazing one. When I read her debut collection, I highlighted so many lines that some pages were completely yellow. She had another book, too, which won an award.”

“Wow. I had no idea.” I’m careful to sound more impressed than surprised, but the truth is: I’m caught off guard by the information. This never came up when I searched her name. Even in Morgan’s second message, when he shared that his wife liked “writing poetry on the weekends,” he tacked it onto the end of a list of Daphne’s hobbies. As if she filled a notebook or two with quaint, cursive musings—not penned entire collections.

This is good information, though. It’s making me glad I worked so hard to polish my messages to Morgan—he clearly likes women who have a way with words. I should write more often, buy a few Moleskine journals. Maybe he and I could have writing dates together, sneak smiles above our notebooks as I weave him into my stories.

“She published under her maiden name, Whittaker,” Piper says—which explains, I guess, why I never saw her work online. “But I’m not surprised you had no idea. Poets aren’t exactly known outside the poetry community, even if they’ve published a lot. Unless they’re, like, Instagram or TikTok famous.”

She does it again, the fake gag, and I try to keep the irritation off my face. After catching her taunting Winnie back in high school, I spent weeks coaching Winnie to ignore mean girls like Piper.

“But when Daphne came to open mic, she blew everyone away,” Piper says. “There was this pause after she read. Just… stunned silence before everyone erupted. They were applauding so loud our director heard it from two floors away. And Daphne looked shell-shocked. Like she wasn’t used to so much noise. Like she couldn’t believe she’d inspired it.

“I went up to her, afterward, told her how much I loved her work, and she was so humble about it. She kept saying, ‘I wasn’t sure I should even come,’ which I thought meant—well, because she’s Daphne Whittaker. Leagues above the average open mic performer. But then I got the sense that what she really meant was: she didn’t think she had anything to offer in coming. Didn’t realize her work would be so well-received. And of course, now I know why she felt that way. It was because of Morgan.”

She coughs up his name like phlegm. Then she scrapes her nail across a gouge in the table, inspecting the imperfection, her brows sinking deep.

“Daphne and I became friends after that. We’d meet up for coffee, go for walks. We became very close very fast—which was a dream to me, having an actual relationship with a writer I loved. But on Daphne’s end, it seemed like there was something… urgent to our friendship. Like she knew we had to get close quickly. Because otherwise, we wouldn’t have time to get close at all.”

Her fingernail, still scratching, stutters against the table. “Turns out, that entire time we’d been getting to know each other—about two weeks—Morgan had been away on some book tour. And when he came back, everything changed. It was harder to see her. Harder to make plans. Harder just to get a response to my texts.”

There’s a dull, haunted edge to Piper’s voice, as if Daphne’s availability, or lack thereof, was a symptom of something horrible.

“Isn’t that just married life?” I suggest, thinking of Nina and Alex. I talk to my best friend almost daily, but I haven’t actually seen her since the end of April. “You have certain routines with your partner, and the rest of your social life sort of… molds around it?”

“Sure. That’s what I thought too. At first. But when we did meet up again, she was… different. On edge. Her eyes were always darting around, like she needed to be hyperaware of her surroundings. And she kept getting calls from Morgan, checking to see where she was, when she’d be home. Like he was keeping tabs.”

Piper says this last part with so much weight I have to replay the words in my head, just in case I missed something. But it doesn’t sound sinister to me, Morgan checking in with Daphne; it sounds sweet. Some of my exes went entire days without initiating contact. I’d try to hold out, wait for them to want me first, but in the end, I always caved, nudging them about making plans. With Brad, it was different—for a while, at least. Until my dress became a ghost. Until he made me feel like a ghost myself: unseen, unheard, but still a pestering presence. I’m actually envious of Daphne; even when she was married to Morgan, he continued to pursue her.

Maybe that’s the secret to something that lasts: if you love someone, you never give up the chase.

“I asked Daphne if everything was okay at home,” Piper continues, “and she snapped right out of it. Like she realized she’d revealed too much. And she said it was nothing like that, it was just: the anniversary was coming up and—”

Piper stops, her mouth tightening, as if realizing she, too, revealed too much.

“Her and Morgan’s anniversary?” I ask.

Piper shakes her head, silent a few more moments, her eyes fastened to the table. “The anniversary of her sister’s murder.”

I pull in a breath so jagged I nearly choke on it. “Oh god, that’s awful.”

“Yeah. It happened when Daphne was only twelve.”

In an instant, tears coat my vision. I clench my teeth against the sting. I’d guessed her sister’s death, alluded to in Daphne’s obituary, was the childhood trauma Morgan mentioned, but I imagined something like cancer or a car accident as the cause. Never even thought of murder. It’s so tragic I can almost feel it in my chest, the weight of Daphne’s pain like a brick where my heart should be.

“What—” I start, unsure how to ask the question. “Who killed her?”

Piper scrapes harder at the table, her gaze fixed to her finger.

“They don’t know. It’s a horrible story. Daphne’s parents were out of town for the night, and they’d left her older sister in charge. Daphne thought she heard footsteps on the porch, so she got up to look, told her sister, ‘There’s someone at the door,’ and that was the last thing she ever said to her—because one second later, the glass in the door was smashed. A hand reached in for the lock. And Daphne ran out the back and just kept going. Through the woods. Into other neighborhoods. She said she thought her sister was behind her, but when she finally stopped to pound on someone’s door for help, she realized she was alone.” Piper swallows. “Her sister never made it out of the house.”

I sink inward, rubbing my ribs. I feel Daphne’s horror, sudden and searing, like a cramp in my side.

“She was shot,” Piper says. “But the police think it was meant to be a simple robbery. The house was dark—they’d been watching a movie—so the intruder probably hadn’t expected anyone to be home.”

Intruder. It’s a word that conjures danger, violation, and still, it isn’t nearly sharp enough. I can’t help but imagine it—the safety of their night together, Daphne and her sister cocooned on the couch, TV screen glowing before them. And then: the muted thump of shoes outside. Daphne cleaving the curtains to glimpse a person on the porch. A stranger at the door.

My spine snaps straight, a piece of the story slotting into place. “Wait. The last thing she said to her sister was ‘There’s someone at the door’?”

It’s almost identical to the title of Morgan’s debut. Someone at the Door. The first word has been carved away, but the rest of Daphne’s sentence remains intact. And not just intact: preserved. On book covers. On title pages. In the opening credits of a film.

“Yes.” Piper grips me with her gaze. “That’s why I told you that story. So you’d see what he did to her, that son of a bitch, naming his novel that.”

“It… must be a coincidence,” I say. Because Morgan’s book isn’t about an intruder. It’s about a woman who knocks on a couple’s door, introduces herself as their new neighbor over cookies and conversation, then vanishes, leaving behind a note addressed to the wife: Your husband isn’t who you think he is.

“It’s not,” Piper says, resolute.

But it has to be. Otherwise, it would be too cruel. Every time Daphne heard that title, it would sound to her like glass breaking, like a door banging open.

“She asked him about it once,” Piper continues, “and he said it hadn’t even crossed his mind—those being her last words to her sister. He said it was just a phrase he liked because it felt ominous when attached to a thriller. Yeah fucking right! That sentence has haunted me ever since Daphne told me about it. But Morgan, her husband , conveniently forgot it?”

I bite my lip, absorbing her argument. She’s right that the sentence, the significance of it, should be burned into Morgan’s memory. But what would he gain from doing that to Daphne?

Piper taps her phone to check the time. “He was always careless with her feelings. Like, she went to so many of his book events, but he never went to any of her readings. She played it off like it didn’t bother her, like oh, he’s just not that into this stuff, he only reads a few poets and I’m no Pound or Sexton, haha! But of course it hurt.” Piper shakes her head, exhaling through a tight, cold smile. “I swear, I never even saw Morgan and Daphne together, but I got such bad vibes from him.”

I tense at that— bad vibes —the phrase Edith referenced in her text. When I read it, I assumed Piper had some awkward interactions with him, glimpsed things that didn’t sit quite right. But no: it’s all speculation, just Piper filling in the gaps about an an author—a person—she’d already made assumptions about as soon as she learned he was a man.

“So… you never even met Morgan?” I ask.

“Never. I went to Daphne’s funeral, of course.” The corners of Piper’s eyes pinch. “But I never got a chance to talk to him. People were fawning all over him, offering the poor widower a shoulder to cry on—as if he hadn’t killed her in the first place.”

“Whoa— What?” I pitch forward, hands on the table.

“He doesn’t have an alibi. He told police he was writing in his office with music on, so he didn’t hear Daphne fall or cry out—which is the flimsiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

I straighten, her words grazing a memory. But I shake my head, brush the half-formed thought away. “You seriously think he murdered her?”

Piper crosses her arms, smug in her silence, and I think of the comments on YouTube, on Instagram, the random string of numbers and letters.

They could have come from Piper.

“But,” I start, “even if everything you’ve said is true—”

“It is true.”

“Even if Morgan wasn’t… supportive of Daphne’s writing, or was… inconsiderate when titling his novel, that doesn’t mean he—”

“You’re using the wrong words,” Piper cuts in. “Morgan wasn’t unsupportive or inconsiderate . He belittled Daphne’s work. Used her trauma as plot . Because I’ve read his books since she died, and it’s not just Someone at the Door . Daphne’s past is all over Morgan’s work. Would you want your friend—the one seeing Morgan—to be treated the way Daphne was?”

I open my mouth, but when my answer isn’t immediate, she forges ahead. “And you didn’t see her, those last couple weeks before she died. She was really… scared. Completely freaked out about something. She just wouldn’t tell me what it was.” Piper leans on one elbow as she rubs her right temple. “She kept dismissing her own mind: ‘I don’t know, I might be imagining things.’ After she died, I went to the police with my concerns, but they didn’t give a shit, especially since she hadn’t told me what she might be imagining. But I knew it had to do with Morgan. Every dark emotion she had in those months always had to do with him.”

“But—” I hesitate, wanting to be sensitive. Tears swim in Piper’s eyes, the wound of losing her friend cut open again by our conversation. I keep my voice soft, my question slow. “Did she actually say that her… dark emotions were about him?”

“She couldn’t! Daphne’s default was to protect Morgan. Defend him. Because that’s what people like him do. They trick you into thinking you need them. Because if you’re as worthless as they make you feel but they still demand you stay, then—they must be amazing, right? They have to be, if they’re willing to slum it with someone like you.”

I pull back a little. Someone like you . I know Piper’s speaking in general, that you doesn’t actually mean me, Rosie Lachlan. But there’s something about the way she says it—or maybe just what she says—that vibrates beneath my skin, striking an uncomfortable chord.

“So,” Piper adds, “I’m sure of it. Daphne was scared of him at the end. He’d done something that freaked her out. And before I could find out what it was”—she stops, gaze drilling into mine as if desperate to fill me with her belief—“she was murdered.”

The text comes as I’m walking Bumper, my headlamp slicing through the dark.

How’d it go with Piper?

I stare at Edith’s question, then drop my hand to my side. I’m so exhausted I don’t even bother tugging Bumper when he slows, when he noses the ground so long it’s like he’s sniffing for someone buried beneath the soil.

I take stock of our surroundings. We’ve already passed my favorite house, the yellow one with the stained-glass window above the door, but I drifted by it without even noticing. The library tired me out more than I expected, and afterward, work was relentless. One bride had a breakdown because her future mother-in-law, who was paying for her dress, demanded veto power over the woman’s choice; another decided, at her second fitting, that the silhouette she’d picked was completely wrong and nearly ripped off the gown. I snuck breaks between appointments, slumped in a chair, hand over my heart, which seemed to race at random. Delayed adrenaline from my indignation at Piper’s fiery, fervent claims.

I glance at the text again, Edith’s question waiting for an answer I’m not sure how to articulate.

Piper tried to paint Morgan as cold and controlling—maybe even cruel: dismissing his wife’s writing; restricting her time with friends; threading her trauma into his books. But one thing that portrait lacked was proof. By Piper’s own admission, Daphne never said a bad word about her husband. And Piper never even interacted with him.

But I have.

And I sensed nothing sinister in his presence. Nothing worrying in his words.

It does still strike me as strange that I had no idea Daphne was a writer. Even Morgan’s Wikipedia page makes no mention of the poet Daphne Whittaker, lacking a section for Personal Life altogether. Maybe if I’d looked deeper, I would have found the information somewhere, but with few hits for Daphne Thorne on Google and social media, it wasn’t long before I pivoted my focus from her to Morgan. I’m going to remedy that, though. As soon as I got home from work tonight, I put in an order at Burnham Bookshop for both Daphne Whittaker collections. It’ll be a few days before they come in, but I’m hoping they’ll give me further insight into who she was—and maybe, if she wrote about Morgan, what made her marriage tick.

Still, it’s that possibility, the two of them writing about each other, that nudges me to another thought. Even her obituary, which I assume Morgan wrote, only mentioned that Daphne “loved poetry,” and when I read that line, I figured it meant she loved reading poetry, didn’t once consider she wrote it, too.

Piper would say that was deliberate. That he was minimizing his wife’s legacy. But I shake my head, pulling Bumper along, because it’s hard to trust any of Piper’s opinions—including that Morgan was unsupportive of Daphne—when, in her mind, Morgan’s as guilty of that as he is of murder.

I’m sure it helps Piper to have someone to blame. Otherwise, her friend’s death was too senseless, too random, a fall that never would have happened if Daphne’s foot was only inches from whatever tripped her up. There must be a strange kind of comfort in what Piper sees as Morgan’s “flimsy” alibi.

Admittedly, though, I’m confused about it myself. If he told police he didn’t hear Daphne fall because he was working in his office with music on, then why did he tell me he needs “complete silence” to write? He even mentioned he can hear Sickle’s scratching—from three rooms away—while he works, and compared to a scream or thud, a scratch is just a whisper. So if it’s true he can’t write to music, wouldn’t he have heard the crash of her body, or at least a yelp of pain?

Then again, maybe he can’t listen to music anymore . I bet it’s a trauma response, a fear he developed after Daphne’s accident; I bet there’s a throb in his gut, blows of guilt and anguish when he thinks of how he didn’t—couldn’t—hear her. Of course he needs silence now to write. It’s like me, unable to listen to Florence & the Machine because I’d been spinning to “Cosmic Love” only minutes before Brad spoke the words that blackened my world.

I return to my phone, where Edith waits for a verdict on my chat with Piper.

It went well! Thanks again for setting it up. The “bad vibes” Piper got aren’t really based on anything substantial.

Of course, I can’t mention that, from my limited experience with Morgan, everything Piper said about him actually seems pretty far-fetched. With me, he’s been kind, thoughtful, funny, each of us laughing so easily at the other’s jokes. He’s been vulnerable and curious, too: I’d love to know more about you , he said on DonorConnect—and in that same message, he spoke so tenderly about his wife that, when I first read it, it was hard not to fall a little in love with her myself. I adore that she crocheted hats for Sickle, that she loved baking only one specific kind of bread. It makes me wonder—if given the chance—what Morgan might tell someone about me. What details of mine he’d highlight. What he’d find in me worth loving.

After Brad, I didn’t believe I was good enough for anyone. I thought I’d sickened myself from the inside out, that even my skin was permanently tarnished, that no one could look at me, ever again, and find something shining. But when I close my eyes, I still see Morgan’s words on my screen: I think you’re remarkable.

It’s not that I’m an authority on Morgan. I haven’t known him long enough to be sure of who he is. But that only seems like a reason to try to know him better. To see how close I can get.

As if sensing my thoughts, Bumper stops again, and this time, it’s at a stretch of grass he’s beginning to know well. I click off my headlamp, look across the lawn to the house glowing golden in the dark. Inside, Morgan’s watching TV, and from the massive screen mounted above his fireplace, I recognize an episode of Friends .

There’s something so comforting in this view—so simple and ordinary and familiar—and I allow myself to indulge in it, watching with Morgan as Ross, Rachel, and Chandler struggle to carry a couch to Ross’s apartment. And though I can’t hear the words from here, I see David Schwimmer hit his line, “PIVOT,” delivering it with such drama and precision that, even outside, I can’t help but smile. In his living room, Morgan tilts his head back, and I hear his laughter—in my memory, anyway, because I finally know what it sounds like: a rumble deep in his throat, like a distant roll of thunder.

My phone chimes—a reply from Edith—pulling me from the scene.

Oh, good. Sorry if I worried you for no reason then! Do you think your friend will keep seeing Morgan?

Bumper tugs on his leash, impatient to continue our walk. I look up from my phone—and register that I’ve strayed from the curb. Without noticing, I’ve walked halfway up Morgan’s driveway, as if the heart in my chest is still pulled to his, two magnets never meant to separate.

I remain in place as I type my response to Edith.

Yeah. She definitely will.