The Guilty Ones

Chapter Forty-Four

I faced Whitney's front door. Exhaustion pulled at me but desperation propelled me forward.

Mia was alone, terrified, believing I'd failed her. I had a fragment of a plan with no backup and no evidence that would hold up in court. I was just a desperate mother running on fumes and fury, about to bluff a woman who could afford lawyers that would eviscerate me.

I hit the brass knocker. A light blinked on overhead. Through the frosted glass, a tall shape moved. Whitney, her posture perfect, pace unhurried.

She opened the door an inch and started to close it again the second she saw me. "You again."

"We need to talk. Now."

The door opened slightly. She wore a blush-pink loungewear set, her hair down. Her fluffy Pomeranian Percival yapped shrilly at her ankles until she nudged him back with her foot.

She glanced warily past me to the dark yard, twisted to look behind her up to the staircase, where a soft wash of light glowed at the second-floor landing, then back to me. "It's past eleven. This is harassment."

"I found Mia's camera. The one Peyton buried on the beach, that you tried to keep me from finding."

Whitney stilled. Her grip tightened on the doorframe. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I recovered the corrupted files. Time stamps, metadata, everything."

"You're lying."

"Am I?" I pulled out my phone and held it up. "One call to Detective King. Or I can send the footage to the Detroit Free Press first. Hell, all I have to do is exit the community gates, and there are a hundred reporters who'd love to see this. Your choice."

She glanced up the stairs again, listening for Graham probably, for witnesses. When she looked back, I saw it—the crack in her perfect facade. Her pupils too wide. Her breathing too fast. She was nervous, apprehensive, guarded.

For days, these women had looked at me with pity or contempt, their smiles sharp as scalpels. They'd whispered about Mia at the memorial, clutched their daughters closer as if poverty and trauma were infectious diseases.

An ugly satisfaction unfurled in my stomach. Whitney was afraid of me. Good. Let her know what it felt like. Let her feel a fraction of the agony I'd felt watching the police handcuff my daughter.

"Not here." She grabbed my arm and pulled me inside, her nails digging through my sleeve.

The foyer was all marble and white walls. She steered me through the hallway into the gleaming kitchen. Percival trotted after us, sniffing at my ankles.

Graham sat at the expansive island. He looked up from his phone, a craft beer sweating in one hand. "Hey, Dahlia." His tone was pleasant, distracted. His gaze dropped back to the screen.

He had no clue. Just sitting there with his beer and his phone, living his comfortable, placid, perfect life while his daughter buried evidence of murder. While his wife orchestrated cover-ups.

The obliviousness might've been funny if it weren't so obscene.

Whitney didn't slow down. "We'll be outside."

Before he could respond, she slid open the sliding glass door, ushered me through, and shut it behind us. Percival pressed his nose against the glass, his tiny breath fogging the pane as he watched us intently.

I followed Whitney onto the covered deck.

Cedar beams bracketed the vaulted ceiling overhead.

The deck stretched the length of the house, the glass railings framing the view of the custom pool ringed by a slate stone patio.

Light rain misted the lit pool's surface, turning it a ghostly blue.

Beyond the yard, the bluff dropped to away to endless black water.

Whitney straightened, her chin lifted. "What the hell do you want?"

"The truth. Peyton was on that bluff. She killed Leah."

Whitney sneered. "Your daughter pushed her best friend off a cliff. Chloe saw her. Everyone knows."

"The medical examiner knows Leah didn't die from the fall. She was alive for hours, and not only that, but someone came back and crushed her skull with a rock."

Whitney's features flickered with surprise, then rearranged into wary calculation. Not horror, not grief for Leah, just concern for how it affected her and her family. She sniffed. "That has nothing to do with us."

"Peyton buried the camera because she's in the footage. She panicked. She hid evidence."

"That's absurd." But her voice wavered.

"Here's what's going to happen. You're going to walk into the precinct tomorrow morning with Peyton and you're going to tell Detective King everything, or I send this footage to every media outlet in the country."

Whitney took a step back, closer to the deck furniture, the sleek low-slung sofa and chairs. The rain hissed against the deck. "You can't prove anything."

She was right. I couldn't. I had nothing but a massive bluff, a reckless bet for everything that mattered. If Whitney called the police right now, I'd be the one arrested.

I'd learned something from these mothers, though. Sometimes the threat of exposure was more powerful than proof. That fear was all I had left.

I kept my face carefully blank, my voice steady. This was it, the moment my bluff either worked spectacularly or collapsed around me.

I smiled at Whitney. "I don't have to, the media will do it for me. News vans at your gate. Cameras at the school. They'll arrest her in front of everyone. You know how this works, Whitney. Once the story breaks, it doesn't matter if she's guilty. The damage is done."

Whitney's tense gaze slid past me to the far end of the deck, where the stairs went down to the lawn and the bluff beyond. The glass railings had fogged. Wind lifted the string lights strung over the outdoor dining table and grill.

"Show me the footage, then." She held out her hand. "If you have it, prove it."

"Not until Peyton talks."

"Our lawyers will destroy you. You know that, right?"

"Your lawyers can't stop a media firestorm. Beautiful young Peyton Alistair, swim team captain, privileged Blackthorn Shores princess, who murdered a girl and buried the evidence. That's the headline, that's what Graham reads on his phone over breakfast. How do you think that will play?"

Whitney flinched. For the first time, real fear cracked through her composure. "If you think you can come in here and threaten us, threaten my family, you have another think coming."

The sliding glass doors opened. Peyton stepped out, barefoot in plaid pajama pants and a white tank top. Her hair hung loose and damp around her shoulders. "Mom."

"Go inside," Whitney said sharply. "This is not for you."

Peyton's eyes went hard, her jaw set. The pool lights carved shadows under her cheekbones. She'd lost weight in the last week, just like Mia. "I heard everything."

Whitney took a step toward her. "Go upstairs. Now."

Peyton didn't move. Her gaze locked on mine, unflinching. Angry. "You don't understand anything. You don't know what happened."

"Don't you say anything," Whitney said, her voice rising in restrained panic. "Not a word. We will call Mr. Avery in the morning and deal with this."

"It's not what you think," Peyton said.

"Then tell me." My voice sounded deadly calm but inside, I was shaking. My hands felt numb, fingers tingling from adrenaline. The exhaustion I'd been ignoring crashed over me in waves. I hadn't eaten in hours, hadn't slept properly in days.

I locked my knees and kept my chin up. Peyton was watching me for weakness. So was Whitney. I couldn't afford to retreat an inch or they would pounce. "From where I stand, you're a killer, Peyton."

Peyton's eyes blazed with a hot and reckless outrage, at her mother, at me, at the trap closing around her. "Fine. You want the truth? Let's do this."

Whitney stepped toward Peyton as if to attempt to physically stop her.

"No more." Peyton sidestepped her mother and moved from the doors across the deck toward the glass railings. She stopped a few feet from the edge of the deck and spun to face us. "I didn't kill Leah, and I didn't frame Mia."

"You broke into my house multiple times. You moved things around, stole the notebook from my desk, and slashed Leah's painting and defaced it with spray paint."

I could smell chlorine mixed with rain-soaked wood and Whitney's expensive perfume. A flash of lightning lit up the clouds gathered over the lake. Our shadows stretched long and twisted across the deck.

"My daughter would never do such a thing!" Whitney said.

"Shut up," I snapped at Whitney. "You had your chance. It's Peyton's turn."

Whitney gaped at me, stunned speechless for once. No one spoke to Whitney Alistair like that in her own home. But something in my eyes warned her not to push.

I turned to Peyton. "Just tell me what happened."

Peyton's shoulders were rigid, hands fisted at her sides. Her chin raised, defiant and unapologetic. "Yeah, I did it. The key was hanging on our hook by the door. It was easy."

"You made us feel afraid in our own home."

She sniffed. "It wasn't that deep."

White-hot anger seared my veins. She'd terrorized Mia. Invaded our house. Slashed a dead girl's painting. These girls, they destroyed lives and couldn't be bothered to care.

Peyton was a child, but she was also dangerous. There was nothing childlike in her eyes but cold calculation and years of entitlement. I didn't have time for pity. Child or not, she'd chosen this.

I said, "You planted a bloodied rock in Mia's room to frame her for murder."

Peyton's eyes went wide. "What? No! I didn't plant any rock!"

"Come on, Peyton. You just admitted to breaking in multiple times."

"I moved stuff, yeah. I took the notebook and wrecked the stupid painting. But I didn't plant anything bloody. Why would I?"

"You tell me. Why the hell did you break in?"

She shrugged, defensive. "It was just playing around, okay. We thought it'd be funny. I had the key, so why not?"

I moved closer, backing her toward the glass railing. "When did you plant the rock? Before or after I changed the locks?"

"I don't know anything about any rock!"

I studied her face. The shock in her eyes was too raw, too immediate. Perhaps she truly hadn't known about the rock. If that was the case, it meant my entire theory was somehow wrong, or at least, incomplete.

If Peyton hadn't planted the murder weapon, who had? Chloe? Alexis? Whitney? Someone else entirely? My certainty fractured. I'd been so sure, so desperate to be sure, that I walked into this house ready to burn it down.

Now the ground shifted beneath me again.

I kept pushing Peyton. The evidence still pointed at her. "Then someone's trying to make it look like you did."

"It wasn't me!"

"Then prove it. Who was it?"

"I don't know! The stupid painting was just supposed to remind Mia to keep her mouth shut. That's all I know, okay?"

Thunder rumbled in the distance. My pulse raced. "Keep her mouth shut about what?"

Peyton looked down at her feet. She didn't answer.

Whitney stepped forward. "That's enough! You have no right to interrogate my daughter. Leave now!"

I ignored her, focusing on Peyton. "Did Mia suspect what you did?

Maybe you didn't plan it, but when you saw Mia accidentally push Leah over the edge, you realized you had an opportunity.

Your secrets would be safe. All you had to do was go down the bluff and make sure Leah Cho never climbed back up. "

"I wasn't even out there. I was inside, sleeping!"

"That's why you hid Mia's camera."

"I didn't—"

"Someone saw you on the beach that morning."

Peyton's mouth opened, startled. She hadn't expected that.

"You were seen, Peyton. You buried the camera because you're in the footage. You killed her."

"No! I didn't hurt Leah. I didn't do it."

"Then why did you take the camera?"

She shook her head, hard. "I—I can't."

Lightning forked across the sky, turning everything white for a heartbeat. The thunder that followed vibrated through the deck boards beneath my feet.

I changed tactics. I needed to shake her up while she was still talking, or she'd clam up, and I'd never get the truth out of her. I bluffed again. "I know about Taylor Everett."

Peyton's face paled.

Whitney's head snapped toward her daughter. "Don't you dare say anything."

"That wasn't my fault! She wasn't supposed to get hurt. Nobody was supposed to get hurt." She stopped, her mouth clamped shut.

My pulse hammered. "Did Leah find out? Is that why you killed her?"

"I didn't kill anyone! I took the camera, okay? That's it. Is that what you want to hear? I buried the camera because…" She hesitated, eyes darting to her mother.

"Because why?" I stepped closer, pressing the advantage. I stood three feet from her now. Close enough to see the whites of her eyes, the spray of pimples on her chin. "Why, Peyton?"

"Leverage," she said finally. "I needed leverage."

"Peyton, stop!" Whitney lunged forward, grabbing her daughter's arm. "Not another word. We're calling Mr. Avery right now!"

Peyton wrenched free, spinning to face her mother. Years of resentment blazed in her eyes. "I'm sick of covering for her!"

My breath caught. "Who? Who are you covering for?"

"She holds it over your head. Acts like she's helping you, like she's your friend.

But it's always there—that thing you did because of her, but you'll get blamed for it.

She can tell everyone whenever she wants, and she wants you to know it, every second, that she can ruin your life, that she has that power. "

"Who?"

Thunder cracked overhead. Rain hammered the roof.

Peyton's gaze fixed on mine. "Chloe," she said. "It's all Chloe."