“We won’t open the door if a stranger rings the bell,” Matthew promised.
“We won’t open any packages,” James said.
“We won’t shoot Nerf guns in the house,” Johnny added. “Only the backyard.”
“If we need anything, we’ll ask Lillian next door or Miles,” Luke said, reciting yet another rule from the list Piper had given them an hour earlier.
“We won’t let Travis out of his crate until you come home, even though it seems really mean to keep him locked up,” Bella said.
“And we will stop, drop, and roll if we accidentally immolate ourselves,” Matthew added. “But that won’t happen, because we willnotplay with matches.”
“I think they’ve got this,” Kiersten said, glancing at Piper. “We will literally be down the block. For an hour. We have cell phones. They can call us.”
“Caitlin, Matthew, and Guinevere are very ’sponsible thirteen-year-olds,” Bella added earnestly.
Rosamund smiled. “I think they’ll be fine.”
“Okay. Okay.” Piper raised her hands in surrender. She couldn’t fight the mothersandthe kids. “Just begood. You know how I—”
“Worry,” all the kids said in unison.
She gave the group a sheepish smile. “Fine. I am now turning my default setting to semi-relaxed.”
Caitlin rolled her eyes. “Mom. You came from the factory without that setting.”
She rolled her eyes back at Caitlin, who giggled and trouped into the backyard with the other kids to play Red Light, Green Light, Dynamite, Boom, a retro game from Rosamund’s childhood that they had appropriated.
“Let’s get this over with.” Piper lifted her chin, forcefully expelling from her mind the ten thousand worst-case scenarios housed there, involving everything from kidnapping to natural gas explosions.
Kiersten ran next door to her own house and stashed the diary in the bag of birdseed. Then they headed down the sidewalk toward Aspen’s house as Piper tried to ignore the fact that her feet already hurt.Every time she wore these shoes, she regretted it. And yet every time she wore this dress, she wore these shoes because they looked nice.
If doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result was the definition of insanity, then high-heeled shoes were proof of mental instability.
Her eyes narrowed at the long line of cars parked up and down Beaverbrook Lane as she minced forward in her heels. So much for Chip’s fears that no one would show up for Aspen’s party.
A burst of anxiety knifed at her gut, driving away petty concerns about her clothes, her hair, her damn shoes.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.
Someone had even parked their Mercedes in front of the fire hydrant due to the scarcity of spaces.
“Let’s hope the kids don’t play with matches,” Rosamund muttered under her breath.
Piper gripped her purse, feeling the comforting outline of the handgun stashed inside. Then they climbed the steps, walked through the already open door, and entered the Influencer’s house.
Chapter Eighty-Five
Kiersten
Kiersten suddenly felt as though she’d been thrust into an advertisement for something she was not qualified to sell. Hipness, maybe. Or youth. Or cellulite-free thighs.
Young women wandered through the house, teetering in impossibly high heels, while cell phones recorded each step, raised above the gathering by long skinny arms or with selfie sticks, snapping photos of everything ... the buffet, the other guests, the balloons spilling around the fireplace mantle, teapots filled with flowers, a young woman dressed like the Mad Hatter, and another like the Queen of Hearts.
Small groups posed for pictures, knees bent, lips puckered, cheeks sucked inward. And on the backside of the house in a white tent, she spotted Aspen wearing a blue dress with a white apron, her long blond hair held back with a headband, a picture-perfect Alice in Wonderland.
A waiter appeared holding a silver tray filled with champagne flutes containing a red liquid. A little tag hung from each flute with the wordsDrink mespelled out in Edwardian script.
“Champagne punch?” he asked.
