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.
Chapter Forty-Three
I sat in the passenger seat as Camille eased the Mercedes out of the precinct parking lot. My hands clenched and unclenched helplessly in my lap. I'd never felt so impotent in my life.
I kept my eyes on the smear of our headlights in the darkness. If I looked at her, I might break. "What happens next?"
"They booked Mia," Camille said. "Juvenile intake. They'll hold her in detention overnight. Tomorrow, at the earliest, they'll bring her before a juvenile court judge for a detention hearing. It could take up to forty-eight hours. The DA will review the interrogation transcript, the evidence, and consult with the homicide unit. They'll file formal charges after that."
I pictured Mia spending the night in a cold alien place far from home. Stricken and devastated, curled on a thin mattress in some institutional room, lying alone, replaying Leah's scream, imagining the horrific last hours of her life, how she’d failed to save her best friend, leaving her out there to be killed. How it had started with Mia, with that one terrible push.
I couldn't be there for her. Couldn't hold her. Couldn't promise it would be okay or mop up her tears. My chest constricted with a pain so visceral it felt like a physical wound.
"With that second skull fracture, we're not talking involuntarymanslaughter. They'll argue felony murder or possibly first-degree if they can show deliberation and malice, and they'll charge her as an adult. If they try to transfer, we'll fight it, but given the publicity and the nature of the homicide, we need to be prepared for a murder charge against Mia."
I saw Callahan's predatory gaze in my mind's eye. "Mia will have to face the consequences for the part she played, I know that. But I do not believe that she should be locked away for the rest of her life for this. Someone else went back down the bluff that night, someone who wanted to make dead certain that Leah never came back up."
"Yes," Camille said.
The terrible implications were still sinking in, reshaping everything I thought I'd known. During the interrogation, the shock had numbed me. I wasn't numb anymore. It felt like being flayed alive.
I pictured it. Someone creeping down the bluff in the darkness. Finding Leah broken and bleeding. Picking up that rock. Raising it. Bringing it down. The sound it would make. The deliberateness of it.
The same rock planted in Mia's room with Leah's hair stuck in dried blood.
The rock wasn't just evidence of Leah's tragic fall. It was proof of premeditated murder. Someone had gone back to that bluff, picked up a rock, crushed Leah's skull, and then carried that bloody rock into our home and placed it in Mia's room.
And I'd hidden it. Moved it. Contaminated it.
My vision tunneled. My hands shook. I pressed them flat against my thighs, trying to steady myself. If the detectives found out what I did, if they knew I’d discovered potential murder evidence and buried it in a hollow tree like some kind of criminal…
Camille's hands tightened on the wheel. The dashboard cast her tensed features in a ghastly blue wash. "We have another problem. The camera. The chain of custody is broken. You took a piece of physical evidence from the scene of a suspicious death. You brought it to my home. Zara, a civilian minor, handled it and attempted toaccess it. If the prosecution learns that, they will argue tampering, contamination, and fruit of the poisonous tree. Best case, a judge excludes it. If the judge finds out I sat on this camera for even twelve hours, I could be disbarred. I'm already on the line, Dahlia."
My stomach dropped. I'd thought finding the camera was a victory. Instead, I'd contaminated the one piece of evidence that might be able to save Mia.
I was supposed to keep Mia safe. That was the only job that mattered. And I was failing.
Guilt burned beneath my ribs. I had to tell Camille everything. She would hate me, but I had to come clean. First, I told her about the sandy slippers, my worry that Mia had been lying about where she'd been that night, how she'd washed them without telling me.
"That doesn't prove anything," Camille said. "There's no evidence the girls were on the beach at any point."
Her words were meant to reassure me. They didn't. I had to keep going. I had to say everything. "There's more."
