Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters, #2)(97)

“You’re asking about hours of operation at a time like this?” Kirby griped, followed by the sound of her vape crackling in the background. “I don’t know, but it’s past midnight. If it’s not already closed, it will be soon.”

A black Lincoln pulled up along the curb. After double-checking the license plate number, Piper climbed inside and shut the door. “Wouldn’t breaking into the pool and having the time of our lives be, like, the best way to fight fire with fire? Adrian would be the guy who broke up with a legend.”

“Oh shit,” Kirby breathed. “You’re resurrecting Piper twenty fourteen.”

This was the answer, wasn’t it? There was no better time in her life than the year she turned twenty-one and ran absolutely buck wild through Los Angeles, making herself famous for being famous in the process. She was just in a rut, that was all. Maybe it was time to reclaim her crown. Maybe then she wouldn’t hear Adrian’s words looping over and over again in the back of her head, forcing her to consider that he might be right.

Am I just one of thousands?

Or am I the girl who breaks into a pool for a swim at one o’clock in the morning?

Piper nodded resolutely and leaned forward. “Can you take me to the Mondrian, instead, please?”

Kirby hooted down the line. “I’ll meet you there.”

“I’ve got a better idea.” Piper crossed her legs and fell back in the leather seat. “How about we have everyone meet us there?”





Chapter Two



Jail was a cold, dark place.

Piper stood in the very center of the cell shivering and hugging her elbows so she wouldn’t accidentally touch anything that might require a tetanus shot. Until this moment, the word “torture” had only been a vague description of something she’d never understand. But trying to not pee in the moldy toilet after roughly six mixed drinks was a torment no woman should ever know. The late-night Coachella bathroom situation had nothing on this grimy metal throne that mocked her from the corner of the cell.

“Excuse me?” Piper called, wobbling to the bars in her heels. There were no guards in sight, but she could hear the distinctive sounds of Candy Crush coming from nearby. “Hi, it’s me, Piper. Is there another bathroom I could use?”

“No, princess,” a woman’s voice called back, sounding very bored. “There isn’t.”

She bounced side to side, her bladder demanding to be evacuated. “Where do you go to the bathroom?”

A snort. “Where the other non-criminals go.”

Piper whined in her throat, although the lady guard went up a notch in her book for delivering such a savage response without hesitation. “I’m not a criminal,” Piper tried again. “This is all a misunderstanding.”

A trill of laughter echoed down the drab hallway of the police station. How many times had she passed the station on North Wilcox? Now she was an inmate.

But seriously, it had been one hell of a party.

The guard slowly appeared in front of Piper’s cell, fingers tucked into her beige uniform pants. Beige. Whoever was at the helm of law enforcement fashion should be sentenced for cruel and unusual punishment. “You call two hundred people breaking into a hotel pool after hours a misunderstanding?”

Piper crossed her legs and sucked in a breath through her nose. If she peed herself in Valentino, she would voluntarily remain in jail. “Would you believe the pool hours weren’t prominently posted?”

“Is that the argument your expensive lawyer is going to use?” The guard shook her head, visibly amused. “Someone had to shatter the glass door to get inside and let all the other rich kids in. Who did that? The invisible man?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” Piper vowed solemnly.

The guard sighed through a smile. “It’s too late for that, sweetheart. Your friend with the purple tips already named you as the ringleader.”

Kirby.

Had to be.

No one else at the party had purple tips. At least, Piper didn’t think so. Somewhere between the chicken fights in the pool and the illegal firecrackers being set off, she’d kind of lost track of the incoming guests. She should have known better than to trust Kirby, though. She and Piper were friends, but not good enough for her to lie to the police. The foundation of their relationship was commenting on each other’s social media posts and enabling each other to make ridiculous purchases, like a four-thousand-dollar purse shaped like a tube of lipstick. Most times, those kinds of surface-level friendships were valuable, but not tonight.

That’s why her one phone call had gone to Hannah.

Speaking of whom, where was her little sister? She’d made that call an hour ago.

Piper hopped side to side, dangerously close to using her hands to keep the urine contained. “Who is forcing you to wear beige pants?” she gasped. “Why aren’t they in here with me?”

“Fine.” The guard flashed a palm. “On this we can agree.”

“Literally any other color would be better. No pants would be better.” Trying to distract herself from the Chernobyl happening in her lower body, she rambled, as she was wont to do in uncomfortable situations. “You have a really cute figure, Officer, but it’s, like, a commandment that no one shall pull off nude khaki.”