Chapter 37
The next day, the storm breaks.
The night before, I made my way to the small island house. It had no electricity due to the hurricane, and one of the windows had shattered, but otherwise it withstood the worst of the weather, and it was a safe place to shelter.
I didn’t see any signs of Piper or Vivienne.
When Trey and the influencers dock the motorboat on Ligia the next day, shocked to find me alive, they explain that Trey woke to find Viv missing. When the others discovered that both the tender and I were gone too, Rachel had the brilliant idea to light up the whole boat like a beacon.
Trey unearths a radio in the beach house and calls for help, and within two hours, the island is swarming with the Coast Guard and the police.
“So you don’t know what happened to Ms. Rockland after you both were thrown from the boat?” Detective Juarez asks me after I finish catching him up.
“No. I don’t even know for sure that she went overboard,” I admit. “We must have smashed into a rock. But I guess it’s possible she managed to stay onboard. Maybe she’s okay.”
Detective Juarez raises his brows in a way that makes it very clear he’s not holding his breath.
We’ve been sitting in one of the beach house’s bedrooms for almost an hour.
His partner is talking to Trey Bardi in the other room, and the Empress influencers are up next.
The Coast Guard is zipping around the island and the surrounding waters, looking for any signs of Piper and Viv now that the storm has passed.
“And you said there’s a phone in your bedside table on the boat?” Detective Juarez reconfirms. He’s asked me this three times already. “Elena Roma’s phone? And there’s evidence that Ms. Rockland killed her?”
“That’s right. There’s a bloody fingerprint on the phone. It’s Viv’s. I’m sorry,” I add. “I touched the phone before I noticed it.”
I remember how, in the video, Viv wiped the blood off Piper’s face and then ran off to break into Elena’s phone. She must have hidden the phone later, but stealthy Piper found it and planted it for me to find. She was smart to do so—now I have tangible evidence against Viv for the cops.
The video Piper recorded of Elena’s murder is gone.
Viv permanently deleted it, and then threw my phone into the ocean for good measure, not knowing I sent the video to Sage’s phone instead of my own.
Of course, if I went home and turned on Sage’s phone, hidden in my closet, I’d have access to the video again.
But I’m in no hurry to do that, and the police don’t need to know about it.
All our secrets will stay buried in one safe place, forgotten and covered up.
Empress, meanwhile, has been cordoned off. The whole yacht is considered a crime scene.
I told Juarez what happened to Elena in the video I saw.
But I lied. I didn’t mention the other girls.
I made it sound like only Piper and Viv were involved, with Piper secretly filming the murder.
I told him Viv deleted the video and destroyed my phone, and that she forced me out into the ocean to look for Piper, who jumped overboard due to guilt.
Piper’s phone, confiscated by Viv, is missing too.
Probably at the bottom of the ocean somewhere.
I don’t mention Sage’s phone and the evidence on it. And I don’t confess to my part in famous author/fraud Sage Tartnet’s death.
That secret stays mine.
“One more thing,” I say. “You need to look into Trey Bardi. Viv told me he helped cover up Elena’s murder.”
The detective pauses, and for a fraction of a second, a frown flickers across his face. “I see. All right. Thanks for letting me know.”
I remember Trey’s deep pockets, his insistence that he can get away with things others can’t because of his money and privilege. And I know, instantly, he won’t take any blame for Elena’s death or anything else that happened on Empress.
Before nightfall, the Coast Guard discovers Elena Roma’s decomposing body, face-first in a sandbank on the northeast side of the island, a free weight tied to her ankles.
It’s horrible, but not a shock. Viv told Piper to drop Elena’s body away from the island, but it doesn’t surprise me that Piper, who clearly had immense regret over the murder, disobeyed, leaving Elena closer, where she might one day be found.
Since Piper planted Elena’s bracelet in the water under the yacht, it makes sense that she half-assed her friend’s “burial” too, in a misguided attempt to clear the way for potential justice in the future.
At least Elena will get a proper resting place now.
Trey puts us all up in a hotel on Islamorada after pinning everything on Vivienne, telling the cops she lied to him and he didn’t know the extent of what happened with Elena.
There’s no proof otherwise, so they believe him, especially after Viv’s shoplifting records confirm it was her fingerprint on Elena’s recovered phone.
We stay at the hotel for a week, answering more questions, getting medical attention.
Thankfully, my nose isn’t broken, and after a few days, the swelling goes down and I can breathe normally.
Fiona’s in a severe state of shock, and Rachel is very dehydrated, but the rest of us make it out okay. At least physically.
I use the hotel’s phone to call my sister, too exhausted to tell her everything, but assuring her I’m alive and safe.
Trey, either not knowing or not caring that I tipped the cops off to his involvement in Elena’s murder, shows up at my door, handing me a small white box. A brand-new phone. Latest model, already paid for.
“You should check your Instagram account,” he says, making no move to come inside my room, a departure from his behavior on Empress.
It’s exactly what I expected: Viv’s video went viral. My page blew up. My phone is stuffed with messages—those who believe me, those who don’t, those who have heard about the hurricane and murder investigation and want to know what the hell happened on Empress.
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.”