“I was in the hotel gym,” Isabel said. “They have the best Wi-Fi there.”
“I was in the bar,” I said. Usually I would’ve blabbed about it to anyone I met—that I had a total “moment” with Rupert Kirke on the roof of The Rondack, where he put his arms around me, saved my life, and said I had lovely eyes—but for some reason I was reluctant to tell my own friends. Maybe it was because they didn’t feel like friends anymore. Anyway, none of them would’ve believed me. Saying I was in the bar was a lot more plausible than meeting the love of your life on a hotel rooftop.
We all turned toward Erin, waiting for her to tell us where she was when Rupert P. died, but she stayed silent. I didn’t have time to worry about her silence, because what was creeping me out more was the way she stared at me: steady, unwavering. Like she was seeing right through my lie.
“What if none of us did it?” I said quickly.
“What?” Erin said.
“Look.” I pointed to Rupert P.’s arms. “The way he was tied up, his gag was linked to his hands. When we left the room he would’ve been trying to get his hands loose. What if, the more he tried to free his hands, the more it tightened the gag? What if it slipped off his mouth, down to his neck, and he—”
“Accidentally strangled himself to death?” Erin said.
“Quite frankly.”
“You really think that’s what happened?” Isabel asked me.
“It’s the only explanation we’ve got. The alternative is one of us is a murderer.”
Isabel nodded and started pacing. “Okay. Now that that’s out of the way, we gotta figure out how to get rid of the body.”
“What?” the three of us responded.
“What, you all thought we could just leave him here? Should we tie the tights around his neck into a nice little bow for the police to find? We need to get him back to his room and let someone else deal with him.”
“We can’t move him to the boys’ room. They’re already back from the show,” I said.
“And how do you know?” Isabel asked.
Because I met Rupert K. on the roof. “I mean, if Apple’s back from the concert, then they must be too.”
“She’s right,” Erin said. “They probably are.”
“We need to get rid of Rupert P. before he starts to rot,” Isabel said.
“We aren’t touching his body,” I said. “We need to call the police.”
You’d think I’d just announced that the remaining Ruperts had just broken up.
“Have several seats, will you?” Isabel said. “Your arms must be tired of carrying around that huge fucking moral compass of yours. We call the police now and your homecoming court will be a parade of the juvie circuit. I swear, sometimes I think you get off on being a self-righteous buzzkill.”
“If Rupert P. did die accidentally, then the police will see that and we won’t get into trouble. Not much, at least. The only reason you wouldn’t want to call the police is if he didn’t die accidentally.”
“I could swear you just accused me of murder.”
I didn’t respond to that, because maybe I kind of had. “You’re awfully insistent on getting rid of all the evidence.”
I looked over at Erin, wishing she’d back me up. But I already knew she wouldn’t. She just stood in the corner, her gaze on nothing and no one in particular. She was almost as devoid of color as Rupert P. was.
“We should have a vote,” Isabel said, starting to pace again.
“Another vote?” I was good in a crisis, but I didn’t know how far that would take me when it came to standing up to Isabel. It felt like she’d taken the reins somehow, and while Erin had the motive to kill Rupert P.—and might have done it—I still would have preferred her leadership over Isabel’s any day.
Isabel was already across the room, grabbing the book from the drawer in the nightstand again.
We all wrote down our votes again. Put the crumpled pieces of paper into Apple’s ski cap again. I read them out loud again.
The first vote. “Move the body.”
The second. “Call the police.”
The third. “Move him.”
The fourth vote. “Move the body.”
It was like déjà vu, only worse. This was actually real.
I opened the door and walked out into the other room. Rupert P. was in his chair, dead, but still watching me. A shiver ran through my whole body. I couldn’t be there any longer. I left.
I now lived in a world where murdering a boy band member was as acceptable as asking for his autograph.
Okay, I know we didn’t technically murder him. Maybe. But he died under mysterious circumstances that we were directly responsible for. Rupert P., however ugly and shitty a person he was—mayherestinpeace—did not deserve to die.
It was too much to think about.
Obviously, I went back to the hotel bar.