Chapter Sixteen
I stared at the photocopied pages scattered across Brooke's coffee table and rug. Dates. Names. Splotches of ink like bruises.
No one moved. No one spoke.
The dark ink. Leah's careful handwriting. Mia's name, over and over.
My eyes focused on a page with a name circled several times in dark ink: Taylor Everett. The Everetts had lived in the now empty house several lots down from mine. A tragedy had occurred, and they'd moved away. That's all I knew.
Whitney paced toward the bay window. Her movements were sharp and anxious, all elbows and angles. Her gaze shot to Rowan. "What do we do?"
"Whitney, sweetheart," Rowan said. "For Heaven's sake, sit down. All that nervous energy isn't helping anyone."
Whitney paced faster. "She's gone to the police with that thing, that pack of lies—" She cut herself off as her gaze slid to me. Her jaw snapped shut.
"No one can find out about this," Brooke said. Her voice rose an octave. She could barely contain her alarm. "We have to stop it. How do we stop it?"
"Let's not panic," Rowan said. "This is one perspective. That's all." She didn't say Leah was lying. She didn't have to.
My throat tightened. One perspective. As if Leah's handwritten words, her documented terror, were just an opinion to be debated. I reached for the diary pages. I wanted to read the rest, to see if there were more clues hidden within it.
"I'll take those." Abruptly, Brooke stood, wobbled across the room, and started gathering them up, clutching them haphazardly against her chest. She snatched the last pages from my hand. "Give those to me."
"I'd like to read them," I said.
"I can't have copies of this garbage floating around.
" Brooke crumpled the photocopies in her hand and stumbled to a glass curio cabinet against the wall.
She jerked open a drawer and stuffed them inside.
"Can you imagine if the press got hold of this?
Or another influencer? They'd use it to destroy my whole brand. "
She didn't want the details about Alexis getting out. Out of all the girls, Leah's damning words had painted Alexis in the worst light.
It didn't matter where she tried to hide the pages; the police already had the diary. It was getting out, every ugly detail, no matter what she did.
"But I want to read it," I said again.
"What for?" Brooke narrowed her eyes at me. "I'm putting it through the shredder as soon as I can."
"Reading the diary will only serve to upset us further," Rowan said. "It's not helpful."
I pressed my lips together, resigned. Brooke wasn't giving me those pages. The detectives would figure out whether anything in it was relevant to the case.
"The detectives will blame the girls," Whitney said. "This is not good."
Rowan shook her head. "Let's not work ourselves up unnecessarily.
The girls were all friends. They've known each other for years.
They loved each other in their way. And Leah was…
sensitive. We're all upset, Vivienne most of all.
It's understandable. Of course, she's going to react.
But that doesn't mean the police will just take it as gospel. "
"Won't they?" Whitney finally sank into an oversized armchair, but her leg bounced so hard the cushion moved. "How could they not?"
"We'll talk to the girls." Brooke stared at us with her wide, darting eyes. Her chest heaved. She looked on the verge of a panic attack. "We need to minimize the fallout."
There it was. The pivot to self-protection mode. My throat went dry. Was Brooke only worried about her influencer status, or was there a darker element at play? What else was she trying to hide?
Brooke must have seen something on my face because she added, "Not because we have anything to hide.
But you know how these things go, people hear what they want to hear.
They love any excuse to tear someone apart.
They'll judge and condemn the girls, and not just the girls, but us, too.
We're the mothers. We're always the ones to blame. "
I thought of that damn reporter's words. What kind of mother are you?
Camille uncrossed her arms and rose to her feet. "I can't be involved in this conversation. Not ethically."
Rowan inclined her head. "Of course. We understand."
"I represent Mia," Camille continued, looking at a spot between us instead of at any one of us directly. "And by extension, I'm concerned about exposure for all of the girls, but I can't be part of a joint strategy session."
"You make it sound like a PR crisis," I muttered.
Camille didn't take the bait. "The police have the diary now. They may subpoena the girls' phones, start poring through their social media. Be prepared."
Brooke looked taken aback. "But that's so invasive."
Camille shrugged. "I suggest you contact your lawyers."
"I'll call Mr. Avery today," Whitney said. "We have to protect our girls."
At the doorway, Camille adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder without meeting my gaze. "I'll call you later, Dahlia. We'll go over everything. In detail."
I wanted to reach for her, to ask her to stay. I had a million questions regarding Mia's case, but she was already halfway out the door. She was protecting herself. Protecting Zara, as any good mother would do.
Then she was gone. The door clicked behind her.
"This is bad. This is really bad." Brooke returned to the corner of the sectional and slumped into her seat. She grasped her wine glass from the end table and cradled it in both hands like it was the only thing keeping her from sliding onto the floor. Her lipstick smeared the rim.
"I'll lose tens of thousands of followers," she said, her face tight with panic. "Once this gets out, it'll ruin everything. Everyone will know. Our friends. Jason's boss, the school…"
"We'll handle it," Rowan said. "Girls letting off some steam online is a far cry from pushing a girl over a cliff. They weren't physically violent, ever." Her sympathetic gaze flicked to Brooke. "Except for Alexis."
Brooke looked like she was about to faint. "It was one time."
"How did Vivienne even find that damn diary?" Whitney asked suddenly. "Viv said the police looked through Leah's room and didn't find anything. Nothing on her phone, either."
Rowan lowered herself back onto the loveseat, smoothing her pants of wrinkles. "Someone must have told her where to look."
Heat surged under my skin, prickling along my arms and the back of my neck. As one, the others shifted, a collective recalibration, as if they were turning toward a noise I'd made without realizing it. The room felt smaller, airless.
"I texted her," I heard myself say, already wishing I'd kept my damn mouth shut. "About the diary. Viv asked me to see if Mia knew where Leah hid it."
Whitney's head tilted, as if confused. She rubbed her thumb along the diamonds in her tennis bracelet. "You told her?"
"Why the hell would you do that?" Brooke's eyes had an angry glint to them, the first spark breaking through her worry. "That was a stupid thing to do."
My heart pounded too fast. It vibrated inside my ribs. "She's Leah's mother. She deserved to know."
"Of course she did," Rowan said after a pause. "No one's blaming you."
Brooke's taut expression suggested otherwise. I felt myself shrinking from their disapproval. Shame heated my cheeks, even though I didn't have anything to be ashamed of.
The clock on Brooke's mantel ticked. My breath sounded too loud in my ears. Too fast, too shallow. The air had changed. The molecules were rearranging themselves. Blame in Whitney's face, anger in Brooke's scowl.
"I should get home," Whitney said abruptly. She rechecked her phone as if some emergency had materialized in the last thirty seconds. "Peyton has swim practice from four to six, then piano, and her personal trainer comes by after dinner."
I thought of the circled name in the diary. "Who's Taylor Everett?"
Whitney froze mid-step. Her hand tightened on her phone. "What?"
"The name is in the diary. Circled multiple times."
Whitney waved a hand dismissively. "A girl from the neighborhood. She got high on something and went swimming at a pool party. Nearly drowned. It was terrible. The family moved across the country within weeks of the accident."
Rowan and Brooke exchanged a weighted glance. Another look between Rowan and Whitney, and between Rowan and Brooke. Tiny, invisible messages I wasn't a part of. My stomach lurched.
"It was such a shame," Rowan said. "They were a lovely family. But that has nothing to do with Leah."
Before I could say anything else, the rumble of a car engine sounded outside. Brooke's head snapped toward the window. Her body went rigid. "Oh, that'll be Jason. I didn't realize he'd be stopping by for lunch."
A moment later, the garage side door opened.
Jason stepped in, phone already in hand, thumbs moving.
In his early fifties, several years older than Brooke, he was lean and rangy, his linen shirt rumpled at the elbows, his square, black-framed glasses slightly skewed.
He was handsome in a disheveled professor sort of way.
Brooke slid her wine glass behind the lamp on the end table and stood, smoothing her already glossy hair.
Her smile appeared, bright and practiced.
She went to Jason and kissed his stubbled cheek.
"Hey, babe. You didn't tell me you'd be home for lunch.
I would've made avocado toast or a smoothie for you. "
He didn't look up. "Just looking for my hunter green tie. The Hermès one. I've got the Dearborn meeting at 2:00 p.m."
"It's at the cleaners, remember? I told you this morning." Her voice was light and cheerful. "I can grab the navy striped one from your closet."
"Never mind, I'll find something." He finally glanced up, seeming to register the room for the first time. His gaze swept over the other mothers, landed briefly on me, then returned to his wife. "Oh hey, ladies. Everything okay?"
Rowan's smile matched Brooke's. "We're fine, Jason. Nice to see you."