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.
