by Sara Shepard
“Yeah.” Lauren’s face was ashen. “Me too.”
“Mine was in child’s printing. I worried my kid did it, though I didn’t see how that was possible. And just now, I was in the hall,” Ronnie went on, “and there Piper was, putting something in your kid’s backpack. I just wonder if it’s connected.”
Lauren stared angrily at the red door to the classrooms. “What did I do to this woman?”
“Piper?” Andrea was clutching her head like she thought it might pop off. “Jesus. You should have seen the way she was twisting things yesterday morning! Making me think my kid was a bully in training and had repressed anger issues. I nearly called a therapist today!”
“Maybe that’s why she made it look like kid’s writing,” Ronnie said. “So we’d second-guess ourselves. We’d figure it was our kids doing it—and that they’re unhappy, so we’d leave.”
“My note wasn’t in kid’s printing,” Lauren pointed out. “But then again, my kid’s too young to hold a pencil, so . . .”
“But why force us out?” Andrea asked. “Me, I understand. But why you?” She was looking at Ronnie. “What would they have against you? If you don’t want to say, that’s fine, but I just don’t understand what’s at play here.”
It was the kind of day where the sun kept shifting behind clouds, causing sudden temperature drops and changes in the shadows. “I’m not sure,” Ronnie admitted, and that was kind of the truth. “But I think it’s because of my job. I dance. For men. I’m one of those, um, Topless Maids.”
Lauren and Andrea blinked. Ronnie kept talking, her face flaming hot. This was the first time she’d explained this to anyone in Raisin Beach. “My partner doesn’t know. The kindergarten teacher. And obviously my daughter doesn’t. And I’m careful—I don’t take any clients in town. But maybe someone saw me and said something.”
“So what?” Lauren finally said. “It’s a legal profession, isn’t it? You have a right to do whatever you want.”
Ronnie shrugged. It did seem petty. Then again, maybe that wasn’t all Piper knew. Jerrod. Vanessa. What she’d done. That scared her even more.
Ronnie looked at Lauren. “Why would you be getting notes?”
Lauren shrugged. “Something’s been happening to me. Ever since I had my baby, I’ve . . . I don’t know, I’ve had a hard time controlling my anger.” She looked wrecked. “The doctor calls it postpartum rage. I get so worked up, and it’s not even me in my body . . . and then sometimes, I . . .” She swallowed hard. Her eyes were suddenly wet with tears. “Sorry. I haven’t really told many people this. I haven’t even told my mom.”
“Oh my God,” Ronnie whispered.
“I’m so sorry,” Andrea said.
“I’ve got it under control, sort of, but I’m thinking someone saw me, maybe, in the middle of an episode. And reported it to the school, I don’t know.” She looked back at the loft building, which had an imposing, fortress-like quality to it. “Piper gave me the oddest look at the breakfast. Like she already knew.”
“She’s trying to run you out of the school because of a postpartum condition?” Andrea looked appalled.
“I wrote to her, explaining myself,” Lauren said. “About the rage, but also that I wanted to be part of the documentary. And you know what happened? She sent a reply to her assistant—you know, the one we thought was her kid?” She looked at Andrea, and Andrea nodded. “She didn’t mean to forward the email to me, but I got it anyway. She basically said I was nuts.”
“What?” Andrea said.
“I wonder if this has to do with the documentary?” Ronnie suggested. “Like, maybe Silver Swans doesn’t want us representing the school. It would be easier if we left.”
“Like, you mean,” Lauren started, “if one of your . . . clients, or whatever, saw you as a parent on the Silver Swans documentary, they would tell the press, and that might reflect poorly on the school?”
“Maybe,” Ronnie said.
“It shouldn’t, but maybe in Piper’s warped logic it would. And maybe that’s the case with me, too?” Lauren paced. “I’m angry, I’m a loose cannon. They want us all weeded out so when the filmmakers come, they’ll be documenting the school Piper wants to reflect, maybe the community she wants to reflect.”
“That isn’t fair,” Ronnie said. “This is the best thing for my daughter. There’s nowhere else I could afford to send her that’s half as good.”
“Arthur loves it, too,” Andrea admitted.
“It’s a good school, with caring staff,” Lauren said. “But this thing with Piper is madness.” She put her hands on her hips and looked toward the office door, which was locked. “Maybe we stage a coup.”
“A what?” Andrea asked.
“There’s got to be proof that Piper’s executing some cleansing initiatives on some of us. Maybe there’s some sort of evidence in her office. A list. We could grab it, make it public.”
Ronnie took a few steps back. “I’m not breaking in. What if she’s there?”
“You just said she was in the classroom hall. For all we know, she’s roaming around the rest of the school, dropping more notes into more backpacks. What if other parents are getting notes? We’d be doing this for the good of the community!”
Ronnie glanced warily at the closed door. “I can’t do anything that’ll get me in trouble.”
“Because of your job?”
Ronnie ran her tongue over her teeth. It was probably better to leave it at that.
Lauren looked like she wanted to say something but then seemed cowed. “Of course. I get it. It is nuts.”
But then, behind them, they heard a jingle of keys. A man in a janitorial jumpsuit ambled to the office door, barely sending them a glance. He tapped in a code on the keypad, and the bolt released. When he pulled on the door, it opened. Ronnie and the others stared as he disappeared inside and then, only a few seconds later, reappeared carrying what looked to be a wet vac. “The thing is,” he was saying, speaking to someone over the phone through a pair of AirPods. “. . . Jesus, Marie, can you give me a break?” He passed by without noticing them again.
Lauren’s gaze darted to the heavy office door; it was swinging closed. With lightning reflexes, she shot forward before the bolt caught.
“Lauren!” Ronnie hissed. “What the hell?”
Lauren glanced over her shoulder, held the door open, and gestured inside. “It’s a sign. It’ll only take a second.”
“What?” Ronnie cried. “No!”
Lauren didn’t seem to hear. She disappeared through the door and into the dark hallway. Ronnie glanced at Andrea in alarm. They had only a few seconds to react before the door swung shut again, and later, after it was all over, Ronnie would ask herself why she went in at all. She barely knew Lauren, and yet she was the closest thing Ronnie had to a friend.
Ronnie leaned forward and caught the door but then turned back to Andrea, feeling a tremble in her throat. “I’ve . . . done something. Something really bad. If I get caught . . . it won’t be good.”
Andrea held her gaze, her expression just as terrified. “Same.”
They stared at each other before slipping past the heavy door.
* * *
• • •
The hallway was dark and cool and smelled like a rose candle. Ronnie and Andrea were at a crossroads—they could go straight, but there was a hallway that ran perpendicular to them as well.
Andrea had pushed in front and was walking straight. “Her office is this way. C’mon.” She took a few more steps. “Lauren?” she called out in a whisper. “Lauren?”
There was no answer. Andrea and Ronnie exchanged an uneasy look.
They passed several rooms. One held books and boxes. The next, a small kitchen. The third was an office with three computer monitors set up like some sort of surveillance station. It was a surveillance station, Ronnie realized�
�one camera showed a view of the playground, children playing. Another was a shot of the red door that led to the classrooms. A third watched a central indoor space that was used for ride-on vehicle play when the weather was bad.
There were books on the shelves and stacks of printer paper in a corner. A green crossing-guard vest hung from a coat stand, and Ronnie thought of Carson accosting her about Silver Swans being a walking-only zone. This must be his domain.
“Over here,” Andrea whispered.
Andrea was farther down the hall, staring at an open door. Ronnie rushed to her and peeked inside. Piper’s office was decorated with white furniture; a white rug; a giant, bean-shaped desk; and a sleek Apple computer. Lauren was hunched over the desk, furiously typing on the slim white keyboard.
“Lauren,” Ronnie begged. “What on earth . . . ?”
“I used to be in tech,” Lauren mumbled. “I bet I can crack her password.” She gestured around the room. “See if you can find some physical evidence. A list of names. Maybe there are a whole bunch of us she wants gone.”
Andrea didn’t move. “I’m not setting foot in there.”
Lauren hit the enter button several times, then glanced cursorily at Ronnie. “Will you? Please?”
Ronnie glanced down the hall again. Who was to say Piper wasn’t on her way back? Where was Carson?
Then she looked back at the big filing cabinets in the corner. Against her better judgment, she did want to search. It wasn’t a list she wanted to find, though. She needed to know what Piper knew about her.
Her mind again snapped back to the memory of Vanessa on the ground in her dirty house. Ronnie’s sister wasn’t moving. “Nessie,” Ronnie whispered, jostling Esme in her arms. She knelt down. Put her face to her sister’s mouth and felt shallow breath on her cheek. Vanessa was alive, anyway. For now. “Nessie,” she whispered again. Vanessa didn’t stir. “Vanessa,” Ronnie repeated, tears blurring her vision. “Wake up. Please.”
A thud came from the back room. Ronnie straightened. Jerrod had come to. In moments, he would find them. “I’m sorry,” she told her sister.
On her drive out of town, she’d wept hysterically, certain that her sister had died and that Jerrod was alive and furious. At a rest stop, Esme was fussy—she didn’t want to be changed, she refused the cut-up apple Ronnie offered. As they sat in a booth around truckers and traveling families, Esme started wailing, and Ronnie was stricken with terror, certain people would know that this wasn’t her child. Esme was wailing because she’d been taken away from her parents, surely, even though that house was a deathtrap, a slowly boiling pot of water and Esme a frog.
Ronnie had waited for the police to swarm, but they didn’t. Instead, families glanced at her exhaustedly but sometimes commiseratively. When she carried Esme back to the car, the little girl cheered up. They played a two-year-old’s version of I Spy. Esme smiled.
As time passed, and when no one came searching for her, when lightning didn’t strike her down, when the sun rose every morning and Esme started to speak in full sentences and reach for her and call her Mama, it all felt divined. Ronnie hadn’t meant to take Esme away from Vanessa. Jesus, of course not. But she couldn’t deny things were better because she had.
But Piper can’t know any of that, she told herself now. It’s impossible.
Still, Ronnie stepped into the office. Everything was so white and clean that Ronnie feared her shoe treads would leave incriminating marks. She beelined for a filing cabinet along the wall. It looked like it might hold important information. Pulling her sleeve over her hand, she carefully pulled open the top drawer, but she found only tax forms and other paperwork.
“Ronnie!”
She turned. Andrea, still hovering in the hallway, pointed to a drawer in Piper’s desk. “That drawer was locked. Maybe you can find a key.”
Ronnie moved to the desk Andrea had indicated. The drawer was locked, but the drawer under Piper’s keyboard wasn’t. Ronnie pulled it out and stared at the carefully organized paper clips, Post-its, and pens. She plunged her hand deep inside the desk, feeling the underside of the work surface. She couldn’t say how she knew she’d find a key taped there, but there it was.
A noise sounded from down the long hall. Footsteps. A murmur. Ronnie shot up. “We should leave,” she told Lauren.
“I just need another minute.” Lauren’s fingers flew. “I’m almost there.” She glanced at the key in Ronnie’s palm. “What’s that to?”
The key was small and silver and had an unusual square head. With shaking hands, Ronnie plunged it into the locked drawer’s keyhole. It opened easily. Inside were a few unmarked file folders. Ronnie lifted the top of the first one and found an Excel spreadsheet full of numbers. No names, just numbers. She inspected it closer. Were these social security numbers? She searched for her own but couldn’t find it.
An engine roared outside. A door slammed. Parents already? Ronnie wondered. But then she remembered hearing something about how the two- and three-year-olds were on an abbreviated schedule to get them used to being in school. She’d completely forgotten about this little complication.
Merry voices rose, mothers traipsing off to retrieve their kids. She thought of Piper, standing in the hallway, greeting all of them. Or maybe Piper was on her way back here to grab something . . .
“Lauren,” she warned.
Andrea had heard the parents, too. “I’m just going to . . .” Then she disappeared down the hall. Ronnie paused over the open drawer. She wanted to go with her.
“I’m in!” Lauren whispered suddenly. “I’m in her email!”
“Holy shit,” Ronnie said, staring at the emails on the screen. This felt too real suddenly. Dangerous.
Lauren clicked the mouse. “Weird. I can only see her drafts, but this one is to Carson. Not sent yet. ‘We need to figure out what to do about Jean,’ ” she read. She looked at Ronnie. “Who’s Jean? Another mom?” Gritting her teeth, she looked into the hall. “So there are others.”
And then, abruptly, she exited out of the email and stormed from the office.
“Lauren?” Ronnie straightened from what she was doing, startled. “Lauren, what are you . . . ?”
But then she heard the scream.
Ronnie’s breath froze in her chest. She fumbled with the paper she’d found, trying to shove it back into the drawer, but the paper stuck to her fingers, so she folded the thing up and jammed it into her jacket pocket. She rammed the drawer shut again, hurriedly locking it and throwing the key back into the drawer under Piper’s keyboard. She was sweating now. Her palms were slippery. Another thump. The patter of footsteps.
When Ronnie stepped into the hall, it was empty. But she heard more footsteps. The clatter of someone running. The hair on her forearms rose. She could sense someone was close. Watching? Waiting?
“Andrea?” she whispered. “Lauren?”
Nothing. Ronnie stepped down the hall. And then, another sound: an intake of breath. Forced breath. Choking. “Andrea?” she whispered again, feeling her whole body tense up. “Lauren?”
When she passed the second open door, she realized something was lying on the ground only a few feet away. Ronnie suppressed a gasp. Andrea had fallen, her legs curled under. She wasn’t moving.
“Oh my God!” Ronnie cried, dropping to her knees, pressing her hand to Andrea’s cheek. She was warm. “Andrea!” she cried. Andrea didn’t respond. Ronnie looked around—at the other offices, at the big, bolted door, down the dark hallways. “Lauren? Lauren!”
The words froze in her throat, then, and she shot to her feet. There was something—someone—lying on the other side of Andrea that she hadn’t seen. Disjointed images flashed before her eyes. A graceful patent-leather heel. A mound of hip, a swath of dark hair. No, Ronnie heard a voice in her mind scream. She was just about to put the thought together of who this was, just about to understand what was h
appening, when she felt something sharp jab the soft spot of her throat. And she whirled around again, seeing faces—Lauren’s, Andrea’s, Jerrod’s, his eyes blazing with fury.
And then everything went black.
Thirteen
Andrea opened her eyes. She was lying on her side on the ground. Her head ached. It was hard to breathe. Somewhere nearby came a ragged sucking sound. Above her, a fluorescent light flickered. Far off, she could hear sounds of more car doors slamming, and high, cheerful female voices. She curled and uncurled her fingers. They were clasped around the handle of her handbag. Why was she holding her handbag?
She sat up in horror, realizing. She was on the floor of the Silver Swans offices. There was Piper’s office door at the end of the hall, still ajar. What had happened?
She turned her head. A body lay next to her—their fingers were nearly touching. Andrea recoiled, but the figure didn’t react. This person was on her back, her chest rising and falling unevenly. She was the source of that sucking, snorting sound.
Andrea’s brain kicked into gear; she realized who it was. Piper.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she whispered, scuttling away.
Two hands clamped on her shoulders and she shrieked. There was Lauren, her skin ashen, beads of sweat on her brow. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes darting to Piper. “Oh my God, Andrea, we have to get out of here. Now.”
“But . . .” Andrea glanced back at Piper. Was she conscious? Why was she breathing like that? And what was that splotch on the floor next to her head? Blood? Then she noticed more blood on the wall. A spatter of it, head-height. There was more blood on the floor and scattered around Piper’s body. Andrea looked at her hands in dismay. They were clean.
“What’s going on?” she whispered. She turned to Lauren, the panic rising. “What the hell happened?”
“I-I’m not sure. I ran and hid back there.” Lauren pointed to a little alcove down one of the offshoot halls. “I heard thuds—I don’t know who it was.”
