Chapter Forty-Two #2
"It was dark. Everyone was asleep. I mean, I thought they were.
I couldn't really see. Except Alexis's sleeping bag was empty.
Peyton was on my other side. She rolled over.
I remember being afraid that she'd seen me.
I lay down in my sleeping bag and put the pillow over my head.
I… I wanted everything to go away, to erase it all, what happened. "
"Did you hear or see anything else that night?" King asked.
Mia looked at her hands. "I think I heard footsteps, maybe, like someone going out into the hall and up the stairs, but I don't know. I had the pillow pressed over my ears, trying to block everything out. It could've been earlier, or later. I wasn't keeping track."
"Did you go back outside after that?"
Mia shook her head mutely.
"Why didn't you tell us this before?" King asked.
"I thought if I told the truth, you would think I was a murderer." Mia's hands curled into fists. "I didn't mean it. I swear, I didn't want her to fall."
Detective King let Mia's last sentence sit in the air. Then he leaned back. The chair creaked. He steepled his fingers and looked at Callahan. She looked back. Something passed between them.
"Here's the problem with your story, Mia," he said. "The ME found evidence of two injuries."
Mia blinked slowly. The color leeched from her face. "I don't…" She looked at Camille, then at me, then back at King in bewilderment. "What?"
My stomach dropped as if I had missed a step and kept falling. My blood roared in my ears. "What do you mean?"
King pulled a folder from beneath his notebook, one I hadn't noticed before. He opened it and scanned the top page. "The medical examiner's report came back this afternoon. Leah sustained two separate skull fractures. At two different times."
The room seemed to contract. I couldn't breathe. My brain couldn't decipher the words he was speaking. Everything went tinny and far away.
"The first wound is consistent with the fall you described.
A linear fracture at the back of the skull, caused by impact against a fallen log on the bluff.
" He paused, letting that sink in. "The second wound is a depressed fracture on the left temporal region.
The ME determined it was caused by a separate blow, a blunt object striking her head with considerable force.
Based on the injury pattern, blood evidence, rigor progression, and the difference in hemorrhaging around each wound site, these injuries occurred hours apart. "
"Someone returned to the scene between 3 and 4 a.m.," Callahan said. "They crushed Leah Cho's skull with a blunt object. Someone who knew exactly where Leah fell. Someone who had a motive to silence her."
The temperature dropped ten degrees in a heartbeat. Aghast, I glanced at Camille. Her eyes held a horror that matched my own. Two injuries. Hours apart. My brain tried to reject the information, to reorder it into something less terrible.
Mia made a strangled sound, raw and primitive, something between a sob and a scream.
Her hands flew to her mouth. "Wait—what?
No. No, that's not… Someone went back? Someone actually…
I thought—I thought she died from the fall.
From my… that's what I thought happened.
" Her chest heaved. "Someone went back down there?
While she was still—while she was still alive? "
"Mia," Camille said sharply. But Mia wasn't listening.
"Who would do that?" She choked out, the words barely intelligible.
"Who would go back and—and—" She couldn't say it aloud.
She shoved her chair back and doubled over, arms wrapped around her stomach like she'd been gutted.
"Leah was down there alone, and someone killed her? Murdered her on purpose?"
"Yes." Callahan's sharp eyes never left Mia's face. "And the evidence points to you."
Mia broke down completely. Her body shook with great wracking sobs. Her hands clawed at her hair, her face. Her breath came in ragged, panicked gasps as she curled into herself, rocking back and forth.
I couldn't bear it any longer. I leaned over and gathered her into my arms. She crumpled into me, weeping in a keening, wordless grief. I stroked her trembling back, held her as close as I could. As if I could protect her from all this, save her somehow.
Camille shot to her feet. "My client has admitted to an accidental push during an argument.
She was emotionally distraught and following instructions from another minor who told her calling 911 would destroy her life.
She attempted to render aid. She believed Leah was already dead.
You have zero evidence placing her back on that bluff during the window for the second injury.
If you want to charge her with manslaughter for the push, do it.
But if you're building a murder case on speculation and intimidation, I'll rip it apart in court. This interview is over."
King nodded. "Fair enough, Counselor."
"Let me take her home. Please," I begged. My heart shattered inside the cage of my ribs. I couldn't bear the thought of leaving her here in this awful place. It felt like dying. "Please."
"I'm sorry, but not at this time." King's expression softened. "Mia, you'll be held in juvenile detention pending arraignment. That will happen within forty-eight hours. At that hearing, the DA will formally charge you based on everything we've discussed tonight."
Mia just clung to me, her fingers digging into my arms like she was drowning and I was the only solid thing left in the world.
In hours, she'd be in juvenile detention, surrounded by strangers, facing charges that could destroy her entire future.
The injustice of it felt like being torn in half.
I wanted to fight, to scream, to tear these ugly walls down with my bare hands.
Everything inside me was shattering all at once, jagged edges pressing against the inside of my skin. My bones no longer supported me. I held her close and kissed her forehead. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
King stepped forward. I was forced to let her go.
Then I watched them take my baby away.