Chapter Thirty-Three
That night, I didn't sleep. The house was too quiet. That grotesque rock sat on the windowsill, ever present in my mind, slick with rust-dark blood among Mia's beautiful sea glass.
Now, in the darkness of the middle of the night, I baked. Butter and eggs from the fridge. Boxes of double fudge brownie mix along with an extra bag of chocolate chips from the back of the pantry.
I set a mixing bowl on the counter and poured in the ingredients. While I worked, I made a mental list inside my head of the people who could have accessed our home in the last week.
Before the locks had been changed, Rowan had been here. And Chloe. Wednesday morning, with those roses. Chloe disappeared upstairs to use the bathroom. How long had she been up there? Three minutes? Five? Long enough.
Had I heard the floorboards squeak in Mia's bedroom? I couldn't remember.
And last night, Whitney and Peyton were standing in my living room while the police photographed the slashed painting. I'd been watching the officers, watching King. Had one of them slipped upstairs? Could I swear they hadn't?
If they'd used the spare key, which was the most likely scenario, it could have been Brooke or Alexis, or Zara and Chloe. Or any of the mothers, for that matter.
I thought of Zara with the scarlet spray paint can in her trash. My skin prickled. Had Camille's daughter done all of this? If she vandalized Leah's painting, it made the most sense that she also planted the bloody rock. Which made her the killer. Didn't it?
My phone sat face up on the counter. I wanted so badly to call Detective King to report the planted evidence, but I couldn't. I already knew how it would go and who would be blamed. I couldn't risk it.
I scraped the batter into a parchment-lined pan, smoothed it with the spatula, and scattered dark chocolate chips across the top so it would be rich and gooey.
As I slid the brownies into the oven, my phone buzzed on the counter. I grabbed it, desperate for something, anything. A text from Viv, or Rowan, maybe, even though it was the middle of the night. Anything solid to hold onto.
Instead, X notifications flooded the lock screen. Facebook. Instagram. Reddit. Dozens of them. I shouldn't have opened it. I knew better. But my thumb moved anyway.
The case was trending everywhere, and there were hundreds, thousands of comments:
These rich suburban moms always think their kids are special. Wake up—your daughter's a murderer.
She raised a killer. Lock them both up.
That lady needs to be investigated, too. Covering for her kid. Disgusting.
The mother knew. She had to know. It's always the mother’s fault.
My chest tightened. My breath came fast and shallow. My thumb hovered over the reply button. I could tell them Mia wasn't like that, that I wasn't like that. But who would believe me?
The comments kept multiplying, refreshing faster than I could read. I locked the screen, dropped the phone onto the counter like it had burned me. My vision blurred.
It's always the mother's fault.
Were they right?
I had pushed Mia toward those girls. I had wanted to belong so badly I'd ignored every warning sign. Now Leah was dead. And my daughter was in serious trouble.
I forced myself to focus. To think. To act. Just breathe.
The rock waited for me. That was what was important. That's what I had to focus on, not random strangers who'd already condemned Mia and me.
While the brownies baked, I collected a Zip-top freezer bag from the drawer along with paper towels and a pair of dishwashing gloves from a box under the sink, not perfect but better than using my bare hands.
I checked the doors one last time. Then I went upstairs to look in on my daughter. Apollo lay curled in a furry ball at the foot of her bed. He raised his head when I entered, then chuffed and settled back to sleep.
Mia had kicked the comforter downward, one leg out, the other tucked beneath a pillow. A strand of hair stuck to her mouth. The glow from her charger made a blue square on the wall. She clutched the stuffed sloth in both arms. She was fourteen and also four, soft and unguarded.
I fixed the blanket. She stirred and settled.
I stayed until my own breathing matched hers. My chest ached. This child came from me. She was my flesh, my beating heart. She was everything.
I watched her, my hand pressed against my chest, Marcus's ring warm beneath my fingers. He'd have known what to do. He'd have had answers. I let the ring drop back beneath my shirt. I had work to do.
Moving to the windowsill, I used the gloves to carefully lift the rock and place it within the freezer bag. I stepped back, careful where I set my feet. The windowsill was bare now except for the beach stones and sea glass. The gap where the rock had been like a missing tooth.
Back in the kitchen, I opened the cleaning cabinet, filled with bleach, vinegar, and old sponges crammed into a plastic caddy. I could hide the rock behind the tall bottle of ammonia or the roll of extra trash liners wedged at the very back.
A police search would find it within minutes.
I closed the cabinet. No, not here. Not anywhere they'd look.
When the timer dinged, I removed the brownies from the oven and set them to cool on the cooktop. The kitchen filled with their rich, decadent scent. It turned my stomach. I had no appetite, only a grim resolve.
I thought of the other mothers and how quickly they closed ranks to protect their daughters. How I'd judged them for it, felt superior in my pursuit of truth.
Now here I stood, evidence held in my hand.
The hypocrisy burned in my throat like acid.
I was becoming exactly what I condemned in the other mothers. The realization sat heavy in my chest. I hated it. Despised myself.
Did I have a choice?
I couldn't go to the police, not knowing someone was actively plotting against us. What did it matter if we had truth on our side if no one believed us?
I was Mia's mother. I would do this to protect my child.
I couldn't leave it here to be discovered. I couldn't destroy it, either. It might be the only thing that could prove someone else had harmed Leah. How could I ever face Vivienne and Daniel, or Mia, or myself, for that matter, if I did that?
I couldn't get rid of evidence. That's what criminals did. That's what monsters did.
My hands moved before I'd fully formed the plan. I pulled on my jean jacket, grabbed a flashlight and Apollo's leash. The dog came bounding down the stairs, his tail wagging hopefully.
"Come on, boy. We're going for a walk."
The chilly night air bit my face as we slipped out the back door. The neighborhood slept around us, houses dark and silent, as I locked the door and headed down Wyld Wood Lane toward Cliff Harbor Drive. The streetlamps cast their orange glow across empty sidewalks.
I'd walked these streets hundreds of times since we'd moved here, Apollo pulling me along on his explorations.
I knew every path, every shortcut, every nook and cranny, including the massive oak at the edge of the community playground, the one with the hollow halfway up its trunk that I'd noticed days ago when Falcon had played fetch with Apollo.
The playground loomed ahead. The swings hung motionless in the still air.
I clicked off my flashlight as we approached, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness.
The oak stood at the far edge, its branches spread wide.
The streetlamp glow was enough light to pick out the trunk, the hollow a darker shadow against the gnarled bark.
I reached into my jacket pocket, feeling the weight of the double-bagged rock. Even through the plastic, it seemed to pulse with accusation.
This was temporary. Just until I understood what it meant, what it proved. Just until I could be certain that turning it over wouldn't destroy Mia.
Leah deserved justice. I fully intended to get it for her.
The hollow gaped dark and deep, exactly as I remembered. I wedged the bag inside, pushing it back as far as my arm could reach, then covered the opening with a clump of dried leaves.
This wouldn't hold forever. The next storm might dislodge it. Some kid exploring might find it. But it bought me time. Time to think, to understand, to figure out who had really killed Leah Cho.
Apollo and I walked home through the sleeping streets. In the east, the sky became a pale smear as darker shapes began to separate into familiar objects: the trees, the blocky houses, the ghostly lake beyond.
The Everett house sat dark as I passed. The For Sale sign was gone. A white pickup truck sat in the driveway. Contractors, probably. Someone had finally bought it. A family starting fresh. Perhaps they'd never know what happened here, what drove the last family out in the middle of the night.
Blackthorn Shores was good at that, erasing the inconvenient, replanting over the rot.
I glanced at my phone. The memorial was scheduled for 5 p.m. tonight.
The memorial would draw them all into one place. I didn't have leverage yet, but I had the object they thought would bury us. And while the mothers had warned me to stay away from their daughters, at the service, they would be distracted.
That was my chance, possibly my best and only chance, to finally get answers.
I would look each girl in the eye and watch for the flinch, the tell.
Starting with Zara Hayward.