"You couldn't have that. You couldn't allow your perfect life to blow up. Everyone would know. You'd be the one ostracized. Whispered about. Laughed at. You'd be canceled. You couldn't allow it."
Rowan blinked rapidly. A blue vein pulsed at her temple. "I think you should leave."
"What happened?" I asked. "After Leah fell and Mia went inside crying, thinking she'd killed her best friend, did Chloe climb down the bluff and realize Leah was still alive? She went to you for help, didn't she?"
"You're projecting. Imagining things. You're clearly unwell, Dahlia."
"Peyton was awake. She saw you and took pictures. She hid the camera. I found it."
Rowan went rigid. "How dare you come here and make vile accusations against my daughter and me? How dare you!"
My throat was dry, but my voice held. "They aren't accusations. They're the truth. Each is photo is time-stamped. At 3:32 a.m.,someone went down the bluff. At 3:36 a.m., the same person came back up with a rock in her hand. It was you."
"A few blurry shots at night?" she asked, shaking her head as if disappointed in me. "That could be anyone."
"The photos are clear. So is the video."
"Grief does strange things to the mind. First Marcus, now Mia's situation. Of course, you're creating stories to shift your own blame."
"Admit it," I said. "Give up the lies. You've been found out."
Something rippled across her face: a calculation, a pivot, a new mask. She leaned toward me, her voice was softer now, like velvet over sharp teeth. "It doesn't have to be this way."
I stiffened. "What way?"
"We can figure this out, you and me. Mother to mother." She smiled the dazzling gala smile, the one that used to make me want to be her. "Give me the camera. I'll destroy it. I'll have Chloe alter her statement. Leah slipped, Mia didn't push her. Chloe's testimony is the key to the prosecution's case. Memory can be faulty. It can change, clarify."
She moved a step closer. The fog wrapped around us in a thick blanket. Her voice turned intimate, conspiratorial. "We can make this go away. I'll retain Radcliffe & Simon, the best criminal defense attorneys in Michigan. Mia never sees a cell. Not for murder, not for manslaughter, not for anything."
The world narrowed to her voice. "I'll put two million in a trust for you and Mia. You will never worry about bills again. I'll have my accountant clear your debt by Friday, with a substantial college fund for Mia. You will be comfortable. Safe. One of us."
Numbers gleamed like lures. I saw tuition bills vanish, a new sea wall, the crumbling bluff shored up. I saw Mia in a sunny dorm room, laughing with girls who didn't look past her to what we lacked. I saw us not drowning. I saw us living, free and happy.
For one terrible heartbeat, I felt myself tipping toward yes. How easy it would be to capitulate. How simple.
Rowan knew exactly what she was offering. Not just money but belonging. The shining thing I'd chased my wholelife.
I imagined what it might be like if I handed over the camera and the rock. If I let the fog swallow Leah's last hours as she bled and suffered, her desperate hope that someone would come to save her.
If I let Rowan make it disappear, let Mia walk free while Leah stayed buried in lies.
Vivienne's face surfaced in my mind. Her hollowed, flayed grief. And me, years from now, looking at Mia across the dinner table, knowing what I'd done, what I'd taught her about truth and consequence and the cost of loving someone.
The weight in my chest turned hard as the rock in my hand. I straightened my spine and met her eyes as I felt something settle inside me. Not peace, but certainty. Resolution. "No."
Her lip curled in disdain. In a blink, her whole face turned ugly. The speed of the transformation chilled me to the bone. "She'll go to prison. You'd do that to her? What kind of mother are you?"
The kind who tried to do the right thing. Who didn't always succeed, but who kept trying anyway. "Mia did push Leah. She did cause harm, though she didn't mean to. She'll accept the consequences, and I'll be there beside her, every step of the way. We won't hide. We won't lie."
Her mouth flattened. "How much do you want? Name your price. I'll write a check now."
"I don't want your blood money."
"You're throwing away your daughter's future. And your own."
"Chloe is going to watch you go to jail for thirty years," I said. "She's going to see you for exactly what you are. A killer."
"You think you have the high ground, Dahlia? Please. Spare me." She took a step, then another, closing the space between us. "You walk around with your nose in the air like you're better than us. You think you wouldn't do anything to protect your daughter?"
