Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
The patio stones were uneven beneath my feet, cracked and sloped from years of erosion. I'd meant to fix them when we first moved in. Another item added to the list of things I'd failed to do.
I wrapped my jean jacket tighter against the damp chill rolling off the lake and stared out at the horizon, the line blurred where water met sky. I tried not to think about Vivienne's daughter lying broken halfway down the bluff.
Behind me, footsteps crunched on gravel. I turned.
Vivienne stood at the corner of the house. Her face was pale in the fading light, dark circles marred her usually flawless complexion. Her ink-black hair hung limp and unkempt around her face.
"Vivienne. I'm so sorry."
Her features went slack. "Someone killed my baby."
"I know."
"I can't be at the house. Every corner reminds me of her. Every time I walk past her room... Daniel tries, but it's too much. I cannot be responsible for his grief and my own. I just can't do it right now."
I gestured to one of the mismatched metal patio chairs beside me, each painted a cheerful blue, purple, red, and green. Another Goodwill find. "Come, sit."
We settled into our seats. Vivienne refused my offers of tea, coffee, or water, so I simply sat beside her, waiting quietly, offering whatever comfort with my presence that I could.
She broke the silence first. "Don't say sorry. I can't stand hearing it anymore."
I clasped my hands in my lap. "Okay."
She stared out at the lake. "I'll never see her again. Never argue about stupid chores or laugh at inside jokes. She'll never roll her eyes at my lectures or sneak out past curfew. All those little moments... gone. How am I supposed to be a mother without a child?"
"I wish I had answers. I can't imagine what you're going through."
She turned to face me. A flicker of resentment in her gaze. Anger. "No one can."
I swallowed. She was right. I hadn't lost Mia, but I felt her slipping away. A dark shameful part of me was relieved it was Vivienne's daughter and not mine. Guilt gnawed at me for the traitorous thoughts, but I couldn't help it.
"I'm here for you," I offered. "Whatever you need."
An uncomfortable silence settled between us.
Apollo padded over and rested his head on Vivienne's knee.
She absentmindedly stroked his fur. "The detectives haven't told me much, but there's no sign of an outside intruder.
Nothing on the security cameras, not the neighbors', not Rowan's, and they've checked all the Ring cameras and security footage of everyone's homes.
They interviewed the community security team, too. "
She paused, her gaze fixed on the darkening horizon. "I can see it in their eyes, Dahlia. They won't say it out loud, but I know what they think."
My stomach knotted. "What do they think?"
She turned to look at me, her expression raw. "They suspect it's someone she knew. They think it's one of the girls."
I went still. One of the girls. Chloe. Alexis. Peyton. Zara.
And Mia.
"How could they think that?" My voice came out thin. "They were her friends. And they're practically babies, still kids."
Vivienne gave a sharp, bitter laugh. "Younger children have killed before. I looked it up on the internet. Bad idea."
My hands went cold. I clasped them tighter in my lap.
"I keep wondering what I missed."
"You didn't miss anything. You're a wonderful mother, Viv."
She ignored me. "There was an incident just before Christmas.
Leah came home with a chunk of her hair cut off, that beautiful, waist-length hair she'd been growing for years.
She was terrified, not embarrassed. Terrified.
She said Alexis cornered her after school in the bathroom and cut it with art scissors. "
I remembered the drastic change. Leah's long locks were abruptly cropped into a bob just before winter break. I thought it looked cute on her, edgy even. The new cut fit her full, round cheeks and accented her beautiful dark eyes.
"I demanded a meeting with the principal," Vivienne continued.
"Mrs. Nelson claimed she'd look into it, then a day later, she called back and said it was a misunderstanding.
The girls had talked and agreed it was mutual, that Leah had asked Alexis to do it.
" She shook her head in disgust. "When we talked to Leah again, she said the same thing.
That she'd wanted it cut, regretted it halfway through, and was upset with herself. Everyone had the same story."
"What do you think really happened?"
Viv snorted. "Someone got to her. Brooke, maybe.
You know she can't show any cracks, how everything always has to be perfect, even her kids.
The school wouldn't want the scandal, that's for sure.
But I know my daughter. The way Leah looked when she first came home, it wasn't regret or embarrassment. It was fear."
My chest tightened. I thought of Mia's silence, her withdrawn behavior. What things had she been afraid to tell me? What secrets had she been keeping, too?
"After that, Leah changed. She stopped wanting to go to school. Stopped drawing, stopped painting. I'd find her crying in her room, but she wouldn't tell me why. She kept a diary. I'd see her writing in it late at night, but I can't find it now, and I've searched everywhere."
My pulse quickened. "A diary? Do you think Mia knows where she kept it?"
"I don't know. The police didn't find it, either. They've already taken her phone, though Detective King told me they found nothing useful on it, just the usual teenage girl stuff, Instagram and TikTok. Whatever was bothering her, she only wrote it down in that diary."
"I'll ask Mia if she knows where it is."
Vivienne's hands twisted in her lap. "I kept asking what was wrong, kept pushing, but she shut me out.
I thought it was teenage moodiness, that it would pass, then a few days before the slumber party, she started acting happier.
When Chloe invited her to the sleepover, and Leah wanted to go, I thought maybe things had turned around, that I'd been overreacting.
I was wrong. I should have trusted my instincts and kept her home that night. "
"No, Viv. It's not your fault. Someone did this to Leah. Someone is responsible. Not you."
She looked away and wiped her eyes. "It's too late. Leah's gone. Nothing matters anymore."
"Justice still matters," I said. "The detectives will find whoever did this."
"Will they?" Her voice was hollow.
"Yes," I said with more conviction than I felt. I hoped with all my heart that it wasn't one of the girls, that it wasn't someone we knew, here in this community that was supposed to be safe.
I knew better than to believe bad things never happened to good people. So did Viv.
She studied me for a long moment, her brows lowered. "Brooke told me the police documented scratches on Mia's arms."
My pulse quickened. Why would Brooke tell Vivienne when Vivienne was already devastated and heartbroken?
I cleared my throat. "She said she got them from slipping into some thorn bushes during the photo shoot on the bluff," I said, trying not to sound defensive.
"She fell, and the branches scratched her. "
"Brooke said there was blood on her dress." Viv's voice was soft, but I caught the undercurrent of doubt, the sharpness in the words.
"From the scratches." Something niggled at me. I didn't know that for a fact, did I? Not for certain. Mia would have bled from the scratches, and the blood could have easily transferred to her dress.
It made sense. It was plausible.
Vivienne's gaze lingered on my face, searching for something I couldn't give her. Certainty. Closure. Absolution. Then her shoulders dropped, and she looked away.
"Mia loved Leah," I said.
She nodded. "If not for Mia this year, I don't know how Leah would have made it. Mia meant everything to her."
Relief flared in my chest. But something darker tainted it, something I couldn't explain or define yet. An oily sense of unease, a disquieting apprehension swirling deep in my gut.
We sat in silence, watching the sun sink lower, the sky bleeding pink, violet, and burnt orange across the water. I thought of Leah, how she loved to paint the lake, sunsets in particular, like the watercolor canvas of the lighthouse Mia had hung over her bed.
Once the sun had dipped below the horizon, Vivienne stood, brushing invisible dust from her jeans. "I should go. Daniel will wonder where I am."
I walked her around the side of the house as behind us, the last rays of sunlight transformed the entire lake into shades of copper and rose.
She paused at the edge of the driveway. "Thank you, Dahlia. For listening. For not looking at me like my grief is contagious."
"You're not alone in this. I mean that."
She nodded, her eyes glassy, and turned toward the street. I watched her shuffle away, her shoulders hunched against the evening chill, her whole being diminished somehow, until she disappeared around the corner.
I climbed the porch steps, weary and heartsick, ready to check on Mia and maybe find something mindless on TV. I should be productive and finish that damn article so I could pay the electric bill.
Inside, I checked the locks on the back door, then paused at the foot of the stairs. I touched the titanium ring beneath my shirt. Upstairs, everything was dark, silent.
I should let Mia sleep. But Vivienne's words kept circling in my brain: I keep wondering what I missed.
I climbed the stairs.
Mia's door was ajar, the way she’d always kept it. A part of her still scared of the dark. I inched it open.
She lay sprawled across her bed, still fully dressed in her jeans and hoodie, textbooks scattered around her like fallen leaves. Flash the sloth was tucked under one arm, her face turned toward the wall, her breathing deep and even. Her phone lay in one hand, its screen dark.
I tiptoed across the room, pulled the comforter from the foot of the bed, and spread it over her. She didn't stir. Apollo lifted his head from where he lay curled at her feet, then gave a soft woof and settled back down.
I smoothed a strand of hair from her cheek. My chest ached with the depth of my love for her. She was so young. So vulnerable.
My gaze drifted to her closet. The door was half-open, clothes spilling out in the haphazard manner only a teenager could achieve. In the corner, nearly hidden behind a pile of dirty clothes, I spotted the edge of her overnight bag. The sage-green duffle she'd taken to Rowan's house.
I thought of the press conference on TV. What Viv had said: They think it's one of the girls. How she kept wondering what she'd missed. What had I missed?
Before I could second-guess myself, I knelt and pulled the bag free. The zipper was half-open. Inside was a wadded T-shirt that smelled faintly of lavender detergent. Several tampons. A tangled phone charger. Her toiletry bag.
At the bottom, stuffed into the corner, were her pink fuzzy sloth slippers. The ones Marcus had bought her on our Costa Rica vacation two years ago.
I dragged them out.
They were damp. Not soaked, but distinctly wet. Moisture darkened the fuzzy fabric. Sand crusted the soles and clung to the sides in gritty streaks. A few grains scattered onto my palm as I turned them over.
My mouth went dry. Mia had been outside, not just on top of the bluff, for these weren't muddy from dirt or clay. This was beach sand.
Mia had told me they never went down to the beach. They'd gone to bed before midnight. She'd stayed in her sleeping bag all night.
But these slippers told a different story.
The interview at the precinct with the detectives was tomorrow morning, less than twelve hours from now. How could I possibly prepare myself and Mia for something like this?
I looked down at the slippers in my lap, then at Mia sleeping on the bed, her face peaceful in the dim moonlight filtering through the curtains. Perhaps I should toss them in the washing machine, scrub away the crusted sand, the lake water, the potential evidence.
I forced myself to slide the slippers back into the bag. For now.
Icy dread seeped into my veins. The traitorous thoughts kept swirling inside my head, unbidden. Mia had lied about the slippers. But why? And what else could she be lying about?