Chapter Nineteen
The bag with the cake stand nestled inside it banged softly against my knee as I climbed the steps. It had weight. Enough to knock someone out if I swung hard enough. I rang the doorbell. For once, Apollo sat obediently beside me, his tongue lolling.
The sound echoed. For a second, I saw Alexis again—her frightened face, Brooke's fingers digging into the soft skin of her upper arm.
The door swung wide. Jason August filled the frame.
He wore dark joggers and a white T-shirt that looked ironed, probably by Brooke. His hair was mussed, deliberately. He was holding his phone at shoulder height, the screen's glow reflected in his glasses.
He frowned, not at me, but at whatever was on the screen. Then he seemed to register that there was a person in front of him. A neighbor. An intrusion.
"Hey," he said. "Dahlia, right?"
He didn't indicate that he knew I'd been in his house earlier today. "Sorry to bother you so late."
He smiled then. Boyish, handsome. And he knew it, too. He and Brooke both liked pretty things. "What's up?"
I lifted the cake stand carefully. My voice was steadier than my hands. "I borrowed this for the Easter thing a few weeks ago. I figured I'd bring it by."
"Oh. Right. Thanks." His forehead pinched. He took the stand from me as if it might bite him. He stepped back, as if about to retreat without inviting me in. "Uh, Brooke?"
"It goes in the cabinet over the fridge." Brooke's voice came from somewhere down the hall. When she appeared, he handed the stand to her.
"Well, I'll leave you ladies to it." He gave me a wave and a grin before he disappeared deeper into the house. "Good to see you again!"
Brooke rolled her eyes at his back, then turned her attention to me. Her hair was loose around her face. She had a wine flush along her chest, just visible at the edge of her silk camisole. Her feet were bare, her toenails the color of dried blood.
She placed the cake stand on the narrow entry table. "Sorry. He'd lose his own head if it weren't attached to his neck." She glanced at Apollo, then stepped forward and pulled the front door mostly closed behind her until it rested against her hip. The muted sound of the television drifted out.
"I won't keep you." My throat felt tight, head buzzing. "I wanted to talk for a minute."
Her eyes sharpened, scanning my face. In the harsh porch light, the lines around her eyes and mouth were more pronounced. "So, talk."
"I'm worried about Alexis."
Brooke stiffened. "What?"
I kept my voice low, even. "I've seen some bruises on her arms. I just wanted to make sure she's okay. That you're okay."
"What are you talking about?"
"I just know things can get… overwhelming. With kids." I flicked my gaze past her, toward the sound of the TV. "With everything you have going on."
"Overwhelming," she repeated, like it was a foreign word. Her jaw worked. Her face reddened. "You saw a bruise and thought what, exactly? That I'm beating my daughter?"
The neighbor's porch light across the street clicked on. A car rolled down the street, engine low, music a muted pulse.
"No, that's not what I meant."
"Sure, it is." Her face shifted, emotions passing across her features in rapid succession—fear, calculation, embarrassment, fury. Then something hardened. "Falcon has special needs. As you well know. He can be violent during meltdowns. You have no idea what it's like living with that."
"I know it's hard," I allowed. "But those marks on her arm—"
"He choked her, last week." Brooke barreled on, voice low and fast, as if, if she kept talking, she could outrun me.
"He gets into these states, and he's so much stronger than he looks.
He throws things. He hits. He bites. He went after me with a fork the other day, and where was Jason?
At work, again. At the gym. On his phone. Telling me to just stay calm."
A thud sounded from somewhere inside, followed by a burst of high-pitched laughter.
"Alexis—"
"My daughter is fine." The lie sat between us, heavy. Her pupils were blown wide. "You come over here all concerned and judgmental, and you act like you're some kind of authority. Like you're the perfect parent."
For a heartbeat, my anger softened into something like pity. Exhaustion radiated off her like heat from asphalt. The hollows under her eyes looked carved into her flesh.
None of that made what I'd seen okay.
"I saw you," I said, louder, firmer.
She blanched.
"I saw what you did." I took a breath, steeled myself. "Earlier tonight, I was out back with Apollo. I could see your patio. I saw you grab her, Brooke."
Her eyes flared. A flush crawled up her throat. "You were spying on us?"
"I was walking my dog." I held up the leash as evidence. Apollo panted agreeably. "You were out on the patio. You were yelling at Alexis. You told her to keep her mouth shut."
Her words slurred slightly. "You have no idea what you saw."
"Then tell me. Help me to understand. I'm not the enemy here."
"You sure sound like the enemy to me."
"I'm not." I took a breath. "Brooke, listen. If you need help, there are resources. I could give you numbers. I could help."
"Resources. What are you gonna do, give me a pamphlet?"
"If you want to talk to someone—"
"I have a therapist. Two, actually. I have a pediatric neurologist on call, an IEP team, a behaviorist, and an occupational therapist, all for my son's special needs.
And you know what? None of them show up at my door late at night to make me feel terrible about myself. Is that what you want, Dahlia?"
"I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm trying to make sure your daughter is safe."
"I don't need your advice. Or your pity."
"I'm not offering pity. Just support."
Her mouth twisted, teeth flashing. "You think you're better than me, don't you?"
I blinked, taken aback. "No, I just—"
"I see it in your eyes," she snarled. "Judging me, my children. Well, newsflash, Dahlia—we're not all perfect."
"I'm not judging."
"Save it for someone who cares."
"Let me help you."
She recoiled. "I don't need help. Certainly not from you."
"Brooke, please. I'm just trying to be a friend."
She laughed hollowly. "Friend? We were never friends."
Her words stung more than I cared to admit. I took a step back, aghast. "You don't mean that."
"Don't I? You're Rowan's little pet project, that's all. She loves to adopt lost birds with broken wings, or haven't you noticed?"
I flinched. The insult landed, and she knew it. Brooke's sharp gaze raked over my face, cataloguing the damage. She almost smiled. "Hit a nerve?"
"I'm not your enemy," I said again, quieter now. "And I'm not Alexis’s. Alexis has a right to be safe in her own home. And you are obligated to keep her safe."
"I said she's fine." Each word was bitten off, final.
Something crashed inside, loud and metallic. A child's shriek followed an instant later, high and piercing and wordless. Falcon.
Brooke winced like someone had fired a gun next to her ear. Her hand moved behind her instinctively, catching the door as if trying to keep the whole house from bursting open.
Falcon's wordless wail tore down the hall, ragged with distress. "No! No no no—"
"Let me help," I said. "I can stay with Alexis. Or with Falcon. Whatever I can do. I want to help."
"Stay away from my family. I'm warning you, Dahlia."
"Brooke—"
Another wail echoed from inside again, shrill, hitting a frequency that made my teeth ache. Something hit a wall with a hollow bang.
Apollo tensed, a low whine of apprehension in his throat.
"Falcon, honey, it's okay," Brooke called over her shoulder.
She spun to face me, fury in her face. "Leave us alone.
Or I'll call the cops and have you arrested for harassment and trespassing.
Don't think I won't. And Alexis will back up her family, every word.
So will Rowan and Whitney and everyone else, everyone but you. Get off my property."
Brooke slammed the door in my face.
The house swallowed Falcon's cries.
Apollo whined again. He pressed his shoulder to my leg, restless. His panting breath fogged the cool night air.
Across the street, a second-story curtain lifted an inch. Someone was watching. Someone was always watching.
I stood rooted under the porch light. I pressed my palm against the door. For half a second, I imagined shoving it open anyway, walking down that hallway, scooping Alexis up if she were the one crying. Standing between her and whatever rage lived in this house.
When I pushed, the door didn't give. It was locked.
I let my hand drop.
The law wouldn't care about bruises I couldn't photograph.
About something I'd glimpsed in the dark, from a distance.
Brooke's excuses about Falcon's meltdowns would sound reasonable if written up in a report.
A wealthy, beautiful, loving mother struggling with a neurodivergent child.
Doing spectacular considering the circumstances.
Plus, the August family had the resources to bury me in court if they thought I was doing anything to tarnish their spotless reputation.
I backed away from the door. The porch light hummed overhead. The night pressed in at the corners of the yard, thick and watchful.
I closed my eyes, feeling physically sick. The Brooke I'd just witnessed wasn't the friend who'd shown up on my birthday with homemade cookies, who made me laugh until I cried at book club, who texted the perfect meme at exactly the right moment.
Was that Brooke even real? I wanted to believe she was. But then, so was the one who grabbed Alexis behind closed doors.
Brooke was straining under the burden of living a double life. One glossy, perfect, alluring. The other, not so much.
I thought of Brooke snatching the photocopied diary pages from my hands before I could keep reading, then stuffing them into a drawer and slamming it shut.
How she'd told Viv about the scratches on Mia's arms and Leah's blood on Mia's dress, as if she'd been planting suspicions in Vivienne's mind, even then.
Painting Mia as the villain, rather than her own daughter.
The August family had secrets. Mother and daughter, together. How far would they go to protect those secrets if someone threatened them?
Tomorrow, Alexis would walk Falcon to the bus stop like she did most mornings. I'd try to get her alone then. If she wasn't there, I'd make a plan B, find another way.
I just needed a crack in the armor. A moment without Brooke's watchful eye.
I would find her in that moment.
"If the mothers won't tell the truth," I said to Apollo, my voice carried away by the wind, "the daughters will."