"Should we hide it?" Mia asked. "Or, like, get rid of it?"
"No." Although that was my first instinct. To destroy evidence would make us culpable. It was a dangerous step in a direction I did not want to go, taking us to a place we could never return from. I thought of the sandy slippers that Mia had washed. "I'll think of something."
Mia started to cry.
"Oh, honey." I sat on the edge of the bed, opened my arms, and pulled Mia to me. She crumpled against my chest. I held her there on the bed, leaning against the peeling headboard I'd meant to paint sage-green but hadn't yet. Her body curled over my thighs as I stroked her tear-damp hair back from her face.
Apollo gazed at us with concern, his snout on his paws. His tail thumped on the comforter. He raised his head and nudged my hand with his wet nose, but I barely felt it.
What was I going to do? The bloodied rock might have evidence that pointed to the real killer. Or the real killer might have tainted it, implicating Mia even further.
My options were limited, the choices narrowing like we were trapped in a tunnel with a train racing toward us at the other end.
"Do you believe me?" Mia whispered, her breath warm against my neck. "Say you believe me."
I stroked her hair, feeling each silky strand between my fingers. "I believe you."
ChapterThirty-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.
At 2:11 a.m., I went downstairs.
The floor was chilly beneath my feet. The refrigerator hummed steadily. I flipped the oven to 350 and pulled the mixing bowls from the cabinet, the ritual my hands knew when my brain went static.
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 beenwatching 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?
