If that was my family, I’d want to escape them, too, Lauren wrote back.

And Ronnie said, How does an office assistant afford an Audi?

Exactly! Andrea replied.

Andrea wished there was someone else in the office to call for questions, but as far as she knew, Carson and Piper ran Silver Swans as a two-person team. There was a parent-heavy board of directors, but they seemed to only step in for audits and approvals—half of the people didn’t even live in Raisin Beach. Could she call another teacher, maybe? But what teacher would even tell her anything at this point, especially if they had an inkling she’d been one of the moms found in that hallway?

She looked up Piper’s social media, but Piper’s Facebook and Instagram—she didn’t have a Twitter account—were carefully curated to the Silver Swans brand. On Instagram, Piper posed with teachers, parents, students, and quasi-famous people who popped in to give lectures. She ran parenting groups on Facebook. Andrea scrolled back through her account, curious if Piper had always been so polished and together, but both her accounts had been created five years before, right around the time she started at Silver Swans.

Who was Piper before that? There were a few posts of her son, but they were mostly school pictures, nothing candid.

Her phone beeped, and her heart jumped as it had done regularly since she’d been at the police station. Lauren had sent another text to both Andrea and Ronnie. So get this. I think the Jean from Piper’s email is a dude. Jean, like Les Miz’s Jean Valjean.

Interesting, Andrea wrote back. Did you find out anything else?

He’s an exec at Hulu. The documentary is still happening. But Hulu etc. dropped out.

A text from Ronnie appeared. Wow. Because of Piper being attacked?

Nope. It happened before the attack. This producer I talked to says Hulu etc. left because of some sort of issue with Piper.

Like what? Andrea typed.

I don’t know what. Also, when I asked how the doc was being funded, the producer said that Piper was paying for it herself. But don’t documentaries cost a lot?

Andrea popped her head back into the living room to check on Arthur—he was looking at something in a heavy Richard Scarry picture book. It wasn’t unthinkable to produce a documentary yourself. People in her father’s circle put up cash to make films all the time. One had gone on to become a quasi-important producer, handing over tons of money until he finally got a film that did modestly well at the box office. Perhaps Piper was just drawing from private savings. What was weird, though, was that she hadn’t been honest with the parents about Hulu dropping out. You’d think they would have gotten an email, something.