Chapter 31
“I knew that whole agreeable Midwest girl thing was an act,” Viv says, appraising me. “But I didn’t realize you were also a snoop.”
“I’m not snooping.” I feel the need to defend myself even though I watched this woman orchestrate a murder on camera. “Piper told me where to find her phone. She wanted me to see this.”
Viv nods, thoughtful. “She’s the one that taught me that trick, you know.
Secretly recording stuff. That’s Piper’s thing: finding leverage to use against other people.
She told you where to find it?” Viv asks, leaning against Piper’s footboard, looking for all the world like she had stumbled upon me doing a puzzle and is politely feigning interest.
“Yes. Earlier. Before she jumped.”
“Jumped,” Viv repeats. “So you lied?”
I nod. “She didn’t fall. I think she couldn’t stand being around you anymore. And after seeing that video, I think she was eaten alive by the guilt. She was swimming to the island, but I don’t know if she intended to make it there.”
“Despite her muscles, she’s the weakest one,” Viv says sadly.
“I was afraid she’d break eventually, but I was trying to be supportive.
And I think she was trying too. Until now, I guess.
” Viv puts a hand on her hip, nodding at me.
“That’s how Piper got this job, you know.
She met Trey at a club. He took her to a VIP room, felt her up.
She recorded it. Said she was going to release the video and say he took advantage of a drunk girl if he didn’t give her a job.
The crazy thing was she had planned it; she wasn’t even drunk. ”
“She told me you found her after she quit surfing,” I reply, shocked. “Helped her become a real fashion influencer.”
“Yes,” Viv scoffs. “Because she blackmailed Trey. Honestly, though, I was impressed. I didn’t hold it against her; I thought it was ballsy. I welcomed her with open arms. She was clearly desperate for a job, and I can work with desperate. Even if she and Trey started off on the wrong foot.”
Well, this explains why Trey didn’t try very hard to save Piper when she went overboard.
I do a double take, finally noticing Viv’s outfit, which is nothing like her usual fits.
She’s wearing shiny, water-resistant joggers and a sweat-wicking running sweater, plus black rain boots.
Her hair is normally blow-dried and loose, but now it’s tied back in a severe ponytail that makes her face appear strangely bare.
“Wait, why are you dressed like that?” I ask, eyeing her attire. “Oh. You’re going to look for her. Aren’t you?”
There’s a slight shake to Viv’s voice when she replies, “What if she needs help? I can’t leave her alone out there.”
The astonishing thing is that she sounds sincere. But Piper went into the water ages ago; Viv has to know there’s no way she’s still alive out there. I peer at Viv’s face in the dark. Something’s wrong—it’s hard to pinpoint, but her expression is almost feverish.
Piper’s phone starts to dim, and I quickly tap on the screen to wake it back up out of habit. As I do, I notice two little pillars tucked away on the upper right-hand corner of the screen next to the battery life symbol.
Piper’s phone has two bars of service.
I have to literally bite my lip to keep from exclaiming, to keep from asking Viv if her phone has a signal too.
I know mine doesn’t—it proclaimed “No Service” when I used it as a light to look through Piper’s bedside drawer.
But Piper must have a different provider, one that somehow has a weak signal even in this storm.
Which means I have a slight advantage. As long as Viv doesn’t realize it. She’s not making any moves to confiscate the phone yet, but she’s seen the video. There’s no way she’ll let me leave with it.
“What’s going on?” Viv asks, interrupting my vertiginous thoughts. “Your face is doing something weird.” She steps to the side, as if to move around the bed.
I hold my hand up. “I realized something.”
“Oh?” Viv pauses, watching me.
My brain cycles through different options, trying to figure out what will distract her enough to allow me time to figure out what to do with Piper’s phone.
“I know why you hired me. You thought I’d be the one girl Trey Bardi would have no interest in.
Not on the level of the other girls on Empress, right? ”
“Of course not,” Viv replies, shaking her head. “I hired you because you were exactly what we were looking for. A breath of fresh air. A rebranding. Or so I thought.”
I make sure to keep my eyes on Viv as I slowly reach out and pull Piper’s phone closer to me on the floor.
The video is up on the screen, dark and paused.
I have limited time and few options. I could try to place a call to 911, pray it goes through, pray whoever hears our garbled voices doesn’t hang up, busy with other calls during the storm. Or I could try something different.
“Well, if you were hoping he wouldn’t hit on me, I have bad news for you,” I say, only half-present in the conversation now. “I’m surprised Carl didn’t try something either since he was messing around with both Fiona and Ashley.”
“Please,” Viv scoffs. “They were distractions after Elena.”
My mouth forms a grim line. I had suspected this. I saw Carl’s text to Elena—not that I’m going to reveal to Viv that I have Elena’s phone too. “So Carl was also with her?” I confirm.
“Elena loved him,” Viv says. “They met when she first moved down here and there was an instant connection, but when she wanted to get serious, he freaked out. Cheated on her with Fiona, and then decided he wanted to date Ashley instead. When Ashley dumped him, Carl went back to Fiona.”
“And then he cheated on Fiona with Ashley,” I outline. “I’m sorry he’s dead, but he was gross.”
“Yeah, great investor though,” Viv says. She smiles. “Elena was the one who finally roped him in. After her, he got very involved with this company.”
“For someone who considers their coworkers their family, the level of incest you’ve cultivated on this boat knows no bounds,” I say, resuming my sly tapping on the phone. I’ve hit the share icon at the bottom of the screen. Glancing down, I tap on “Messages.”
“Don’t judge. It works for us.”
“Does it? Elena, Carl, and Piper are dead, Viv. Did it ever occur to you that’s because of how things are run around here?”
“Piper isn’t dead,” Viv hisses.
I pull up a blank message on the screen, tucking the phone slightly under the bed frame so Viv can’t see what I’m doing. My eyes flicker back and forth from her to the screen, and I hope it’s dark enough that she can’t tell what I’m doing.
Carefully, painstakingly slowly, I tap in the ten-digit phone number that is tattooed on my brain, memorized the same way I memorized my Social Security number and zip code.
The video is big. I have no idea if it will go through, but I have to try. I hit the “Send” button.
“I think you need to face the facts about Piper,” I continue.
“You want to know the real reason I hired you?” Viv spits, trying to change the topic.
“Go for it,” I say, glad for her distraction.
“Because you were desperate,” Viv says. “Desperate and pathetic. Like all the others were when they came to me. I can work with desperate. In fact, I prefer it. It makes it easier to mold obedient and prosperous employees. You might not agree with how I run things on Empress, but I am good at my job. I’ve made this company millions, and I’ve made our girls social media stars. All I ask for in return is loyalty.”
“Oh, sure,” I reply, voice heavy with sarcasm, chancing a glance down to see a thin green bar creep across the text message screen, indicating the video is struggling to send.
“A deal with the devil. I’m familiar with that trope.
I do read a lot, you know. You offer fame in exchange for our souls. No big deal.”
“I take care of my girls,” Viv snaps.
“You killed one of them. And you forced the rest to go along with it.”
Viv growls, frustrated. “It was for their own good. I was saving their lives and jobs. But I made mistakes, I can admit that. You’re one of them. I think you’ll be swept overboard during the storm. No one would question that.”
Her words sink in as the green bar jumps forward, closer to the opposite side of the screen. The video is sending! It’s going through!
But… “Wait, what do you mean?”
Viv crosses her arms. “Oh, Char. You know how this ends. Especially after seeing that video.”
My legs are starting to cramp, but I suddenly can’t move. “You’re gonna kill me, Viv? Like you killed Elena?”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen! It was Piper’s fault!
” Viv exhales, as if trying to get herself back under control.
When Viv speaks again, she sounds calmer.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen, I swear.
I was doing her a kindness, at the end. You saw her.
She wasn’t going to survive that wound. She was suffering. ”
“You’re not a doctor,” I retort. “You don’t know that. You were pissed she was sleeping with your man.”
“No, I was pissed she was leaving me!”
“Have you seen her? Since she died?” The words blurt from my mouth.
Viv pales. “Wh-What?”
“Elena. Have you seen her on the boat since she died?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Viv snarls.
She’s thrown, but I don’t think she’s lying. The quick images of Elena I thought I saw before must have truly been in my mind. Or perhaps orchestrated by Piper, somehow, to get me involved.
I glance down. The green bar on the phone disappears. The video sent. Somehow, miraculously, it made it through. I want to pump my fist but clamp down on that impulse. Instead, I delete the whole text thread from Piper’s phone. Like it never happened. Like I never sent the video at all.
I put the phone back down on the floor, giving Viv my full attention.
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask her again.