Chapter 26 #2
Besides, I’m not forgetting Piper’s involvement with Elena’s bracelet; this talk might give me the opportunity to find the truth.
“I’m going to go get Piper,” I announce to the others. “She needs to eat. And drink water.”
“She’ll bite your head off,” Viv warns as I turn to leave. “You shouldn’t disrupt her sleep.”
Frankly, I’m more concerned about Piper maybe being a murderer, but she saved me in the water the other day. If she wanted me dead, she could have easily killed me then. I try not to think about the violence and anger required to destroy the bridge as I leave the others behind.
When I get to the top level of the yacht, I’m about to turn down the hall to Piper’s room when movement catches my eye—something shifts on the roof deck outside the rain-speckled glass doors.
It’s dark up here. Weak gray light, diluted and shrouded, filters inside and makes the trendy space look eerie and haunted.
“What the hell?” I move closer to the doors, edging past the couches.
Whatever is outside moves again, a dark blotch. As I get closer, my heart clenches and jumps, lodging under my collarbone. A person. Someone is on the deck. In this storm.
I race over to the sliding doors, the floor in front of them spackled with rain, and snap the doors open so hard they try to ricochet back in place. The wind hits me full in the face, splashing what feels like an entire ocean wave over my head.
I take a step backward, pummeled so hard that I almost slip on the wet floor. But I push outside anyway, swiping rain from my eyes, leaving the doors open, already soaked to my skin. The air is both swampy and chilly, and somewhere farther off, there is a rolling grumble of thunder.
Piper stands in the middle of the roof deck, arms wide, face tilted to the sky.
Her eyes are closed, her mouth is open as if she’s trying to drink the heavens.
Her toned, tanned body is slick with water; she’s not wearing any clothes, only a black sports bra and a pair of black underwear.
Her bare feet make no noise as she moves forward, closer and closer toward the edge of the deck.
“Piper!” I shriek her name into the wind and it snatches it, tossing it overboard.
I don’t know if the storm has been downgraded yet or if we’re still in the midst of a hurricane, but something tells me we wouldn’t be standing if the weather was at its peak, so I take heart from that as I step forward, headed toward Piper.
I don’t want to run; I’m too afraid, but I need to move quickly.
Piper hasn’t noticed me, and she’s closer to the edge now.
“Piper!”
When I catch up to her, her eyes are still closed, mouth open. I wonder how drunk she is to be able to do this with no fear, no comprehension of how dangerous it is. My hand fastens on her upper arm, and I drag her sideways until we’re standing under the wide awning at the back of the deck.
Piper’s eyes are open now, her face wet and makeup-free. She allows me to pull her away from the rooftop edge, but there’s a longing in her face I don’t like. She doesn’t look drunk. Her steps are steady. What is she doing then, if she’s not in some blacked-out stupor?
We stand dripping next to patio furniture, which is bolted down, and the massive grill, which is built into the deck and hasn’t gone anywhere either.
There’s very little coverage under the awning; we’re getting pelted with rain and slashed by the wind, but it’s marginally better than standing in the brunt of it.
“We have to get you inside,” I yell over a crack of thunder that demands attention in the distance.
Piper turns her face to the ocean, which is a writhing iron mass of waves. “Thunder is a good sign,” she says. I have to inch up right next to her mouth to hear her. “It doesn’t usually thunder during hurricanes. We’re past the worst of it.”
“You think so?” I shout back. “’Cause this seems pretty fucking terrible to me.”
“We deserve worse.”
I have to get her inside before she flies off the roof. Before we both do. “Come on, please. Let’s get you dry.”
We are impossibly high up and exposed on the roof deck.
Ligia is a brushstroke of black rising from the water; even though it’s morning, the sky is dim and the light is bleak.
The waves below us heave and twist, leaving giant eddies in the water surrounding Empress.
I look out to the horizon, the horizon I can’t see, praying I’ll spot a rescue boat chugging its way toward us.
But there is nothing but gray, and the world out here smells like salt and ozone.
Suddenly, the wind drops as if someone has unplugged a particularly aggressive fan. For a minute, all I can hear are the waves crashing below us and the rain pattering against the deck. And Piper, who is emitting strange snuffling sounds.
She’s crying. It’s not a pretty cry either; her face is twisted, her chest is heaving—she’s clearly trying to restrain herself, but the sobs demand to be released from her body.
I recall hearing her in the shower right before confronting Viv about the video.
I brushed off Piper’s tears at the time, thinking she was upset about the storm and maybe a bit drunk.
“Piper, whoa, hey, it’s okay,” I say, stepping closer and rubbing my hand against her shoulder. “What’s going on? Is it…is it Carl?”
“Carl?” Piper asks, shaking my hand off. She swallows, forcefully, several times in quick succession, and then looks at me. Her tears are impossible to distinguish from the rain. “I don’t give a shit about Carl.”
There’s a fierce expression on her face as she chokes down her sobs. She’s so close to me. And she’s so strong. Would I be able to defend myself from her if it came down to that?
“Why are you out here?” I ask her.
“No one is coming to save us,” Piper replies, staring off over my shoulder. “Just like no one came to save her.”
“Elena?” I ask, immediately taking a step back. I can hear her better now that the wind has stopped howling, and I don’t want to be so close.
“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.”