The house seemed to shift around me. The old floorboards creaked. The wind rattled the loose windowpane above the sink.
I raced out the door, slammed it shut, and turned the key, then double-checked the house was locked tight against the possible terrors lurking outside the walls.
Panic clawed at my throat. Was she hurt? If so, how badly?
I ran down the pitted gravel driveway and turned north onto Wyld Wood Lane. My breath came in short, uneven bursts as the cold April morning air stung my cheeks.
The homes of Blackthorn Shores loomed like silent sentinels in the gray half-light of predawn. Their massive windows stared downat me, cold and unblinking, as if they were watching. As though they knew I didn't belong.
My pulse roared in my ears. I ran past house after house. My feet thudded against the pavement.
Everything was eerily still, quiet but for the dull roar of the wind, the waves crashing against the shoreline far below the bluff. No cleaners arriving, no cars moving, no rumbling lawn mowers, and no joggers on the sidewalks yet.
Something awful had happened. I was certain of it. Not again. Not my child. I couldn't endure another tragedy tearing my world asunder.
I wouldn't survive the loss of Mia. I couldn't. My brain whirred with all the ways something might have happened to her. A slip in the shower, a sudden heart attack, a fall down the stairs.
I sprinted past my friend Camille's house, then Whitney's. Rowan's house appeared ahead of me. My breath was ragged, my stomach twisted into knots.
There were no police cars in the driveway. Maybe that meant everything was okay. It wasn't as bad as I feared, as Whitney's stricken voice had implied.
I was exaggerating. Mia was fine. Everything was fine. I was the overprotective mother, imagining all sorts of horrors when my daughter had only scraped her knee, or come down with the flu, or had a nasty nightmare and wanted her mother again.
Something easy. Simple. Safe.
I ran through the open wrought-iron gates and up the cobblestone drive, barely registering the grand stone and cedar façade as my focus lasered on the wide front porch.
Several women stood huddled together, their heads bent, murmuring intently. As I approached, they fell silent. Their faces were pale and drawn.
A sick feeling twisted in my gut. My instincts weren't off. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Whitney's tense gaze flicked to me and then away. Whitney Alistair, the picture of athletic prowess with her lean, yoga-tonedbody encased in Lululemon leggings and matching jacket, her sleek white-blonde ponytail pulled tight. Her usually tanned skin was ashen.
I halted at the bottom of the porch steps. My lungs burned. I felt faint. "What happened?"
Rowan Westinghouse stood tall and composed on the top step of her porch, her arms crossed over her chest. Even at this ungodly hour, she wore a charcoal pencil skirt and a cashmere pink sweater, with her honey-blonde hair falling in shining waves around her shoulders. Only her manicured hands trembled slightly.
"Where's Mia?" My voice came out too sharp, too raw.
Rowan didn't move from the top step. "Dahlia, keep your voice down, please. We don't want to alarm the neighbors."
I was plenty alarmed. I started up the steps. "Where is she?"
Whitney still didn't make eye contact. "She's inside. She's not hurt, Dahlia. It's not her."
Pure relief flooded my body. My legs went weak. I could have collapsed right there on the bluestone slate steps.
I forced myself to remain upright. If it wasn't Mia… "Then who?—?"
Rowan's lips parted. "It's Leah."
For a moment, the words barely registered.
My stomach dropped. Leah Cho. My daughter's best friend. "Is Leah okay?"
No one responded.
"What happened?"
