Chapter Thirty-One
I boiled the pasta too long.
The timer had gone off three minutes earlier, but I stood there, fingers pressed to the edge of the counter, staring at the list of attorneys and their rates that might as well have been ransom notes. Hundreds of dollars an hour. Eye-watering retainer fees, more than the cost of a new car.
The pot hissed and rattled on the burner. I turned off the gas.
The only sound was the low roar of waves against the shoreline at the bottom of the bluff, muffled through the double-paned glass windows. The waves had always soothed me before. Not tonight.
I drained the pasta, then stirred the hot Marinara sauce, the scent of garlic and tomatoes filling my nostrils. My mind wandered to the headline I'd seen before Camille blew up our lives.
The fight between Leah and Mia. A detail Mia had never mentioned.
I needed to ask. I had to ask. I had been waiting all afternoon for the right moment, as if such a thing existed anymore. The silence between us had turned into something with mass, something alive, something dangerous.
Footsteps creaked on the stairs. I set the spoon down, wiped my hands on a dish towel, and watched the kitchen doorway.
Mia appeared. Her hair was in a knot that had mostly escaped, strands dark against her too-pale face. She hovered at the threshold, as if checking for danger, then crossed to the table.
"I made pasta."
"Thanks." She dropped into her chair. Apollo trotted in from the living room and slunk under the table, where Mia would secretly feed him, and we'd all pretend nothing was going on.
I plated the food. Spoonfuls of pasta. Ladles of sauce. Grated Parmesan snowing down over both plates. A small salad neither of us wanted.
"You have schoolwork?"
She shrugged. "They emailed some stuff. I'll look at it later."
She twirled pasta, lifted it, let it slide back down her fork. She hadn't taken more than two bites.
I took a sip of water. My throat felt tight, as if I had swallowed a stone. "I, ah, need to let you know. We don't have Camille anymore."
Her gaze snapped up at Camille's name. Her face went white. "We don't? Mom, I'm freaking out right now."
"I know, and I'm sorry."
"What happened?"
"It doesn't matter, don't worry about it." I hated the look on her face, the panic, the betrayal. "I'll figure something out, okay? I promise."
We ate for another few minutes, both of us listless, moving food around on our plates.
"I saw another article today." I kept my eyes on the spaghetti, on a stray basil leaf stuck to one of the noodles. "About Leah. About what happened."
Her fork stilled. "Okay."
"It mentioned a fight." I made my tone neutral, exploratory. "Between you and Leah. That night."
"They're lying."
"They said a witness confirmed it."
"They're making stuff up, Mom. That's what they do. They twist everything." Her eyes were fixed on the table, not me. Her hand had gone white-knuckled around her fork.
"I just need to hear it from you. Did you and Leah fight? On the bluff?"
Her lips thinned. She moved a piece of salad around her plate with the fork tine, not eating it. "It was just… it was nothing, okay? I don't want to talk about it."
"I think we need to, honey. I can't help you if I don't know everything. I must understand what really happened."
"I already told you what happened." The words came out sharp and pointed. "You don't believe me."
"Mia." I forced my hands to stay flat on the table, to keep my fingers from curling into fists. "If there was a fight, if someone saw something, we need to know what they're saying. To protect you."
"It doesn't even matter!" She shoved her chair back.
Apollo yelped under the table. "It's everywhere.
On Instagram and TikTok. On the news. On X.
Everyone has already decided. What happened.
What I am. That I'm violent. I'm a psycho.
I plotted to murder my best friend at a slumber party.
I'm unstable. I should be locked up for life.
I should be beheaded, strangled, shot in the heart.
It doesn't matter what I say. They don't care what I have to say. "
"I care." My own voice had an edge now. I was weary, exhausted, frustrated, and scared. "I need you to tell me the truth."
She stared at me, breathing faster. A flush rose from her throat to her cheeks. "I already did! I don't want to talk about it anymore."
"Mia, listen—"
"No!" Her voice rose. "I said everything already. Why doesn't anyone believe me!"
She stood too quickly. Her fork clattered onto the plate. Sauce splattered the table.
We looked at each other over plates of half-eaten pasta, over the roses Rowan had brought over a few days earlier, already drooping in their vase. The silence had gone brittle. One more wrong word and it would shatter.
Mia spun and marched from the kitchen, up the stairs, to her room, where her door slammed shut. Beneath the table, Apollo whined and sniffed at my feet, seeking reassurance.
I sat for a few seconds, pulses of anger and fear beating under my skin like a second heart. Then I forced myself to move. I cleared her plate first and scraped it into the trash. I rinsed plates, loaded the dishwasher, and wiped the table.
My body ran through the motions while anxiety curdled in my stomach.
We needed a lawyer, a strategy, the truth—and none of them were coming. I checked my phone on reflex. No messages. No Viv, No Camille, No Rowan. It hurt more than I wanted to admit.
Outside the kitchen window, the sun sank toward Lake Michigan in a blaze of copper, rose, and crimson, staining the water below in streaks of molten gold. Ribbons of clouds drifted along the horizon, their edges lit from within as if they'd been set afire.
I dried my hands and stood in the middle of the kitchen, listening. I could feel her upstairs, sealed off, her walls up. Press harder, and she retreated.
I couldn't keep interrogating her. Not tonight. I had to stop pushing before I lost her completely.
Right now, I just wanted to be with my daughter.
I stepped to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. "Mia?"
No answer. A faint creak as she moved, or sat, or lay down. Impossible to tell.
"The sunset looks nice," I called, pitching my voice lighter than I felt. "Do you want to walk on the beach for a little? Just to get out of the house?"
The silence stretched. I let it. The clock in the hall ticked. From somewhere down the block, a dog barked twice, then stopped.
"I guess." Muffled, from behind her door. "Whatever."
Relief made me weak in the knees. I took the stairs two at a time, Apollo right behind me. Her door was half open. She must have opened it after slamming it shut a half-hour ago.
I knocked on the jamb anyway as I stepped in. Mia's room was dim, the curtains drawn. A mess, as usual. Mia lay on her stomach on the bed, scrolling through her phone. She glanced up as I entered.
Something caught at the edge of my vision.
The curtains ruffled in the breeze. A cool draft blew into the room, raising goosebumps on my skin. Mia had left the window open again.
I crossed her room, sidestepping a pair of dirty sweatpants piled on the floor, and reached the window.
I pushed the ruffled sage curtain back, about to close the window, and stopped.
My gaze dropped to the windowsill. Her beach stone and sea glass collection lined the sill. She kept them in careful order, everything organized by color and shape like a tiny museum. Nothing random. Nothing out of place.
Except something was out of place.
The usual treasures were there, catching the last weak light. The sea glass glowed softly in translucent blues and greens. Polished agates, granite, limestone, sandstone, and Petoskey stones lay in their usual rows, sorted by size and color.
In the midst of them sat a rock that did not belong.
It was fist sized. Grayish brown, the color of old concrete. The surface was rough, not polished by waves, its edges still sharp. It squatted among the gleaming glass and smooth pebbles like something ugly, grotesque.
I stepped closer.
"Mom?" Mia said from behind me. Her voice sounded like it was coming from a great distance. Ice water flooded my chest. I forgot how to breathe.
Dark spots mottled one side of it. Not uniform, not part of the stone. Irregular splatters and crescents dried into the porous surface. Rust-colored. Brownish red. Matte.
Like paint. Dried paint.
Only it wasn't paint.
It was blood.