Page 59 of Gilt

“Accidents aren’t always innocent,” Mom says. The shiver running through me turns into a full chill that settles deep in my bones. She isn’t talking about me and what happened at the West penthouse. She’s talking about Becca.

“I’m going to be fine,” I promise her softly. I only hope I can make good on that claim.

“We’ll talk about this later.” She picks her book back up and returns her attention to the dog-eared page. I’ve been dismissed, but I’m not free to go.

“When are you coming home?” Josie asks as soon as FaceTime connects. Half of her head is covered in Bantu knots, while the rest of her hair is recklessly curly. Josie, like her hair, is a study in contrasts. Both prim and responsible with a wild streak that carves a bigger path through her personality with each passing year. I plop onto my bed with my computer.

“Hello to you, too.” The glare of afternoon sun makes it hard to see the screen, so I shimmy toward the headboard.

“It’s a serious question, Em. I need you to come home. I need your help.”

Her panic raises my eyebrows. Josie Deckard doesn’t need anything—at least not from me. She could use a little validation or maybe a call from her absent father, but she certainly isn’t the type to ask for help.

“What’s going on?” If she isn’t having a melodramatic moment, I might be forced to make good on the threat I made to my mom to leave Palm Springs sooner rather than later.

“There’s just a lot of stuff going on,” she says. “Leighton is still in the coma, and they’ve hauled in half of Belle Mère for questioning in the West murder.”

“At least they’re still looking for suspects,” I interject. It doesn’t take an advanced degree in forensics and criminology to see that the FBI has already pinned Nathaniel West’s murder on his son. It isn’t something I want to consider because I need to believe that Jameson West is innocent. I told him I believed he was, and I did believe it at the time. Also, because he’s my boyfriend. Or was my boyfriend. I’m not entirely sure about that now. I rub absently at the still-healing cuts covering my forearm. Jameson couldn’t have been the one to push Leighton and me through that window, which helps his case with me. If someone wanted to shut us up that badly, they were probably hiding something. However, I’d never gotten the full story from Leighton about who she was protecting. I’d overheard her telling Monroe that she wouldn’t tell anyone about him. I assumed she was talking about Jameson, but the only thing she managed to tell me was that she was protecting Jonas. Then someone shoved both of us through a plate-glass window. No one can claim the Wests don’t throw killer parties.

“It’s more than that,” Josie interrupts my thoughts. “Do you have your phone?”

I hold it up, and she breathes a heavy sigh that is definitely not one of relief.

“I sent you a message on Instagram,” she says.

“Snap a pic of your lunch to share with me? Did you pin some bikini-ready summer workouts, too?” I ask dryly as I slide past the lock screen on my phone.

In my Instagram messages, I find her note. Clinking on the link she sent, I’m taken to an account I’ve never seen before. But even though I don’t recognize the username—TheDealer— the photos are full of people I know.

“Check out the fifth one down,” Josie says in a quiet voice. My eyes flicker back to the computer screen, only to find her own eyes clenched shut. When I reach the photo, it takes a moment for me to see past the blurriness of the picture. It had clearly been taken from some distance. Someone else might not recognize the girl with the wild mop of curls and the petite figure, but I know my best friend when I see her. I don’t know the man she’s with, though.

“What is this?” I ask in confusion.

“That’s Tom,” she says. “Or maybe Aaron, I don’t remember. It’s not important.”

“It’s important enough that you called me freaking out in the middle of the afternoon to beg me to come home. Who is this guy, Josie?”

“Who do you think?” she asks in measured syllables.

“Oh.” Realization dawns on me. Despite how often she ditches me to hook up with random men, I haven’t seen her in action until now. “Did you and he ...”

I suddenly wish that I was playing Madlibs, so I could finish that sentence with something innocent or benign. Did you and he save a kitten? Did you and he play miniature golf? Instead, my mind fills in the blank with visions of a rendezvous that would make E. L. James blush.

“Yes,” she answers pointedly, putting me out of my misery.

“How did someone take a picture?” I ask. While Josie might be working through a daddy complex, she’s not stupid. A stream of selfies will destroy her life as much as it will this man’s. She doesn’t take pics of her hook-ups, and she doesn’t allow them to either.

“Look closer,” she whispers. I scroll through the feed and realize it isn’t your typical narcissistic teen feed. No selfies. No documenting every minute detail of a single day. All the pictures on this account are of other people—other people we know. Each one is an odd mix of photojournalism and surveillance camera.

“Do you know who took these?” I ask her.

I can’t stop looking. It’s almost addictive, and I catch myself wondering if I’ll make an appearance. The photos are captioned with initials and a location but nothing else.

“My mom is going to kill me,” Josie moans, ignoring my question.

“How is she even going to see these? Your mom’s not really social media savvy.”

I don’t admit that I understand what has her so freaked out. Just the existence of that photo reveals a side of Josie that she keeps under wraps. If this whole feed is full of photos of our Belle Mère cohorts, more than a few people might have already seen it.