There was no explaining. Roger’s father assumed what he wanted to assume. Hotel security was right behind him, and they called the police because, apparently, Roger’s family had reported him missing. Roger was pulled away, but Andrea still remembered the imploring, deeply repentant look he shot her over his shoulder. But Andrea didn’t blame him. How could she? He was just a kid. Just trying to figure out his life.

Now, on the floor, Piper let out another gurgle. Andrea pressed the green phone button on her device’s screen. “We have to help her. We can’t just stand here.”

“Andrea,” Ronnie said meekly. “I can’t be part of any sort of investigation. I can’t have my name released.”

“But we haven’t done anything. Okay, we’re in this hallway, but we found her like this. Someone else must have come through that door after we did.”

“You don’t understand.” Ronnie’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “I’ve hurt someone, in the past. Esme’s father. It . . .” She paused, then shook her head as if casting off the thought. “. . . I fled before I could explain it was self-defense. But if the police figure out that I’m that person, if they connect me to that—”

“It’s okay,” Andrea interrupted, touching Ronnie’s arm. Ronnie was in a sort of C-shape, her head bent toward her legs. “I don’t want them to know who I am, either. My dad’s this guy named Robert Vandermeer, he’s all over the press. I kind of moved to get away from him, away from that life.”

Ronnie was staring at her, her tears suddenly dried up. “So what do we do, then?”

“I could call the police.”

Lauren was now more than twenty feet from Piper’s body, her small frame pivoted sideways almost like she was poised to make a quick escape. “I could call 911. And admit I found her. If it means protecting you two.”

“No way,” Andrea said, though she was touched that Lauren had offered. “There’s got to be another way out of this building. A back door. We could find it, and then we could call 911 together. And even if for some reason they find out we were there, we say we were all in here, and we give them a benign reason. We were going to approach Piper about a . . . a special guest program at the school. We wanted to form a committee.”

“A committee,” Ronnie repeated.

“Of parents,” Andrea went on. She was winging it. “Silver Swans seems like an open-door-policy kind of place, and the door was literally open. And we walked in . . . and there was Piper. We had nothing to do with it. It was just terrible luck.”