“Hey.” Taylor poked her head in my open door. “You’d better come here.”
I followed her to Wren and Poppy’s room, doom hovering in my chest. Wren and Keira were sitting on Poppy’s bed, bent over her splayed-open suitcase. It felt gross and wrong, like an invasion.
“What are you doing?” I asked sharply.
Keira brought something over to me. “Look.”
It was a New York State driver’s license. For a second I expected to see Wren’s face looking back. But instead it was Poppy. Her hair was different—dark brown and shoulder-length. But it was definitely her.
“Look at the name.” Taylor stood over my shoulder.
“Zoe Canard.” This didn’t make sense. I looked up at Taylor, then Keira, who had settled back on the bed next to Wren. “What the hell?”
“She’s not Poppy.” Keira took the license. “Her name’s Zoe Canard. And she lives in upstate New York. Way upstate. North of here.”
“What—why?” I asked. The mystery was expanding. I felt a ripple of hysteria creep up my shoulder blades.
“Unclear.” Taylor gestured to the suitcase. “We found it in an inner pocket. Credit cards, too, with the same name.”
“You just happened to be searching her stuff?” I asked.
“I was looking for contact information,” Wren said and coughed. “Her phone’s locked. We need to get ahold of her family.”
“Right.” I sat heavily on the floor. My brain turned this new fact around, fiddling with it like a Rubik’s Cube. “Maybe Poppy was her pen name?”
Taylor rubbed her chin. “But then why wouldn’t she use her real name with us?”
Wren stared into space, clutching a crumpled tissue in her lap. Her nose was red and raw, her skin pale. Beside her, Keira chewed her thumbnail, staring at the license.
“Did she tell you anything?” I asked. “Wren?”
She met my eyes. “No.”
“Poppy was from Atlanta,” Taylor said. “Born and raised. Remember? That’s what she told us, anyway.”
It didn’t strike me until I was back in my room, my head spinning.
What Poppy had said to me on the stairs.
She’s not who she claims to be.
Had Poppy—or Zoe, apparently—been speaking about herself?
Chapter 23
Dinnertime. I wasn’t hungry, but someone said we needed to eat to keep up our strength, so I followed the group downstairs. Then the food smells hit and my stomach revved like a lawn mower. Roza’s chair remained empty.
I ate mechanically, without tasting anything. My mind kept looping over this new piece of the riddle. So Poppy wasn’t actually Poppy. Had she lied to get into the retreat? How on earth had she managed to do that?
Chitra came out to check on us. “Are you girls all right?” Dark bags hung under her eyes.
“Not really.” Taylor sighed. We’d agreed to keep the info about Poppy between us, for now. We’d share it with the police, but we didn’t know how Roza, Yana, or Chitra would react.
“When are the police coming tomorrow?” Keira set down her fork.
“I think Roza said the morning?” Taylor watched her.
“Good,” Keira said. “I’m leaving with them.”
“Via snowmobile?” Taylor asked. “What about your stuff?”
“Yana can mail it. Or not. I don’t care.” She pushed her plate away. “I just want to get the hell out of here.”
* * *
“Alex?”
I woke with a start. I was in bed, my e-reader on my chest. I’d been certain I wouldn’t be able to sleep for hours. But apparently I’d passed out immediately.
Wren stood at the door. She’d turned my main light on.
“What’s up?” I rubbed my eyes.
“I have to talk to you.”
“Sure.” I sat up, crossing my legs. The situation meant that we’d made an unspoken truce, that we’d set all our issues to the side. And I hated to admit it, but the circumstances—a disappearance, a likely death—were making our conflict seem almost trite.
“I wanted to show you something.” Wren looked wan but better than she had earlier in the day. She plopped down on the bed, handing a book to me.
“The Knowing,” I read from the cover. Underneath the author name—Soo-jin Park—were the words Advance Reader’s Copy.
I recognized this book.
At work, there was a table near the elevators that held advance copies of the novels published by my company’s literary wing. I’d seen this book in the pile maybe six months ago. After picking it up to read the back I’d put it down. I wasn’t reading any novels at the time, as they only served to remind me of my own writer’s block.
“Where’d you get this?” I asked.
“Just read the back.” She watched as I did so.
Min-seo is visiting family in Busan when she meets a woman at a café who tells her about a small group in the mountains who have found a god. The woman tells her that this is not metaphorical: the god exists. She has seen him. An investigative journalist, Min-seo decides to track down this group to find out what’s really going on. But what she discovers will change everything she thought she knew about life. In this thrilling debut, Soo-jin Park explores issues of family, friendship, and faith.
“It’s her book,” My chest ached like the wind had been knocked out of me. “The book Poppy—Zoe—was writing. Finding God in the cave.” That’s why the story had sounded familiar to me during our first writing group session, when we’d shared our book ideas.
“She’s been copying it.” Wren turned to the front page. “Changing the location and names. But most of it’s word for word.”
“But why? What does that mean?”
“That she’s not a writer.” Wren stared at me. “She’s not supposed to be here.”
“You think she lied to get in?” I asked. “That she used a fake name?”
“Maybe,” Wren said. “But if her goal was to get in here… I mean, what are the odds that she’d win a spot that way? Out of thousands of applicants.”
“So she didn’t try to get in.” I drummed my fingers on my leg. “She waited until the winners were picked and convinced one of them—the real Poppy—not to come?”
“That has to be it.” Wren’s eyes widened. “Right?”
“But how would Zoe know?” I asked. “They kept the winners a secret.”
“Well, the winners weren’t allowed to announce it on social media, but I’m sure they told some people. I mean, I told Evan. I had to tell my boss. So maybe Zoe found out through one of Poppy’s connections.”
“Okay.” Adrenaline threaded through me. “So say Zoe hears that this girl she’s somehow connected with got into Roza’s retreat. She convinces Poppy to let her go in her place? Apart from the odds of this girl agreeing, how would it even be possible?”
“I don’t know.” Wren shrugged. “It’s not like they asked us for ID to get in the door.”
“Social media?”