Wren chewed on her lower lip. “Do you think Roza—or her team—are that thorough? Did they really look into the lives of the women they let in? You think they’re that concerned about optics if they accepted almost all white girls?”
“True.” I remembered my surprise the first day at seeing that Keira was the only woman of color in the group.
“And even if they did check social media, Poppy could’ve set her profile to private.”
“Zoe clearly dyed her hair,” I said. “So maybe the real Poppy’s blond.”
“Makes sense.” Wren glanced up. “But what about the background check?”
“That’s easy,” I said. “If they did a background check on Poppy, they’d just find info on the actual Poppy.”
“Damn. Yeah.”
“You were close with her,” I said. “And you didn’t get a sense of anything weird?”
“Not at all.” Wren shook her head, baffled. “She seemed totally normal.”
I had a flash of being on the steps with Poppy—Zoe—last night. I’d asked why Poppy why she was there. And she’d told me; she’d given me an answer:
Proof… Of what she does. That she’s not who she claims to be.
And then: Over here. It’s this wall.
“We have to go downstairs.” The words rushed out of my mouth.
Wren looked up from the book. “Why?”
“She was looking for something. She said, ‘She’s not who she claims to be.’ For a second I wondered if she was talking about herself. But I don’t think so, not in the third person like that. I think she scammed her way into the retreat to get proof of something. So when she said that, she must’ve been talking about someone else. Maybe Roza?”
“Wait.” Wren’s eyes narrowed. “You’re just sharing this now?”
“But I told you guys that she was looking for something.” Hadn’t I? I tried to think back, but the last fourteen hours were a blur.
“You didn’t mention she was looking for proof of some identity con. That seems like important information.”
A familiar irritation rankled me. “It’s not like I’m keeping secrets. I’m trying to figure this all out as we go along too.”
“Okay, look.” She held up her hands. “Let’s just go to the basement.”
* * *
As Wren and I descended the steps, the immense incongruity struck me: after two weeks of being each other’s nemeses, we were now a team, following clues like the Hardy Boys.
I never could’ve imagined it. Not in a million years.
I led Wren where Zoe had gone, off the stairs to the left. Winding through the ubiquitous junk, we reached boxes stacked high against a cinder block wall.
“I remember hearing her pushing boxes around.” I moved my phone’s light over the cardboard shapes. “Did someone put these back?”
“Maybe there’s something in them?” Wren asked.
“But she mentioned the wall.”
“The wall?” Wren sniffled. “This is ridiculous. She was on LSD. She was probably just saying things.”
“Let’s just move the boxes away from the wall and see. Maybe there’s writing or something.” I winced at the sharp scraping sound the boxes made against the cement floor. After a second, Wren joined me. Some of the towers were heavy and we had to disassemble them box by box. When we finished, we were both sweating. We’d formed a little aisle between the boxes and the cinder block wall, which was cold with some damp, wet spots. It was dark, nearly pitch-black, and Wren shone her phone to check: no writing.
“Nope,” she said. “Nothing.”
“I see that.” Did I sense a hint of satisfaction in Wren’s voice? That I hadn’t been right?
“Where were you again?” Wren asked. “When this was all going on.”
“I was at the other end of the basement.”
“Doing what?”
“Nothing.” I tried to calm my snappish tone. “I was wandering around hallucinating. I thought I was in a forest.”
“Okay.” Wren was pointing her light at the ground; her face in shadow. “And then?”
“What do you mean? That was it.” Why was she questioning me like this, like I was suddenly a suspect in Zoe’s disappearance?
“You said you fell asleep down here. When did you go back upstairs?”
“I don’t remember.” I felt a pinprick of fear.
“I know you.” Wren’s voice was barely above a whisper. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
We were silent in a sudden standoff.
“Okay.” I felt a burst of defiance. “I had sex with a demon, and then I passed out, and then I woke up in my bed. I don’t remember coming back upstairs.”
Her breath whooshed out. “Demon? What are you talking about?”
“It was just a hallucination. Like I said.”
“So you were really out of it,” she said.
“Of course I was.” I bristled. “We were all out of it.”
“True, but only one of us was down here with Poppy—I mean Zoe—when she went missing.”
“You don’t know that,” I said. “I could’ve gone up before that happened. Either way, it’s not like I had anything to do with it. It’s not my fault she went outside.” My cheeks burned.
“Well… I don’t know. We can do really messed-up shit when we’re wasted.”
I glared at her. “Why don’t you just say it?”
“Say what?” She had the audacity to sound confused.
“That—according to you—I’m an unstable psychopath.”
She scoffed. “Alex—”
“Just stop. I know you told Roza you wanted to take out a restraining order against me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re really going to deny it to me? That you said that?”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t have the energy to argue with you, okay?” She laughed, humorless. “Jesus Christ. We’ve been looking for a body, Alex. But again, we have to talk about you. How I’ve been so mean to you. How I’ve wronged you. It never ends.”
“That’s not true,” I cried. “If you want to talk about acting like a victim—”
“I don’t. That’s actually the last thing I want to talk about.” She raised her flashlight and I threw up my hands to shield my eyes. “I’m going upstairs.” She stalked past me.
I listened to her make her way to the stairs, then run up the steps. I leaned my forehead against the cool concrete blocks, taking deep breaths, trying to quell the rage. And as quickly as it had surged, it ebbed away. In its place was desolation, a dark well with no bottom.
Just twenty-four hours before, everything had been running along so smoothly. It hadn’t been easy, scrambling to write a novel in close quarters with Wren. But everything made sense. The game was so straightforward.
And now… I didn’t know what to believe. Could it really be true that Zoe was a frozen corpse, hidden somewhere under the snow? Could a fox or squirrel be running over her at this very minute?