"Okay, that's good. Very good." That was something. Mia and I were finally on the same page for a moment. "Thank you."
She pulled away from me, her shoulders sagging, her gaze fixed on the floor as if she couldn't bear to look at me. "I wasn't supposed to tell."
"You did the right thing, honey." I hoped with all my heart that the diary pointed to someone else, to anyone but Mia. Guilt wormed its way inside me, but I brushed it aside. Mia was my priority.
The roses Rowan had brought sat on the coffee table in my living room, bright and cheerful. I thought of Rowan's hand over mine, the grounded certainty in her voice.
I set my phone on the island, then picked it up again. My thumb hovered for a second over Vivienne's name before I opened our thread and told Viv where Mia thought the diary might be located, then I hit send.
Chapter Fourteen
At noon, I stepped into Brooke's sleek, modern black farmhouse. The door had been left open. Brooke had texted me an hour earlier:Just come on in.No response to my text regarding the spare key, though.
The entryway was decorated in neutral shades of charcoal and cream. Black-framed windows lined the far wall, facing several acres of woods where the HOA had constructed walking paths for the community's enjoyment.
The house was huge, ten thousand square feet at least. Twice the size of Rowan's and somehow half as impressive, though it made my tiny cottage look like a dilapidated shed in comparison.
Brooke had money. Everyone knew that. Her husband Jason managed hedge funds and made upwards of seven figures a year, Whitney had informed me once. But they'd bought late, after all the lakefront lots were gone. Whitney had said it like an insult.
"Dahlia!" Rowan's voice carried from deeper inside. "We're in the great room."
Everyone had arrived ahead of me, like I'd been added as an afterthought. Again.
I checked my phone one last time. No response from Vivienneyet about the diary location. A frisson of concern passed through me. I would check on her after this meeting.
I followed the sound of voices through a hallway lined with family portraits: professional, posed, everyone's perfect teeth showing. Except for Falcon, who was nine or ten. He wasn't smiling in any of the family photos. He looked blankly off camera, if he showed up in the photos at all.
In one spot, a pale rectangle marked the wall, edges faint but sharper than the rest, as if a larger frame had recently been removed. A large portrait of Brooke and Jason at their wedding in the Maldives used to hang here. It wasn't there anymore.
The state of Brooke's marriage was none of my business. I hurried down the hall and entered the great room, a huge open-concept space that was all sharp angles. White marble countertops. Matte black fixtures. An expensive chandelier made of geometric brushed brass shapes. It felt modern and expensive.
Brooke stood near the kitchen island, holding a wine glass half-full of dark liquid.
Rowan sat on the corner of the linen sectional, the seat with the best view of the room. She patted the cushion beside her. "Dahlia, sit. We were just getting started."
Whitney perched on the other end of the sectional, her back straight, ankles crossed. Her white Stanley stood on a marble coaster. Her right foot tapped the white oak hardwood flooring.
Camille stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows in a bold African-print blazer over a sapphire-toned blouse. Her gold chandelier earrings caught the light as she turned from the window, her arms folded and her lips pursed as if she'd rather be anywhere else.
She gave me a grim nod. "I'm just here on my lunch break. I've got court at 2 p.m."
I sat between Rowan and Whitney. "Thanks for having us," I told Brooke.
She waved it off, almost sloshing her drink. "Of course." The words blurred at the edges. "How are you doing, Dahlia?"
"One day at a time," I said.
"I was just saying how Chloe keeps having nightmares," Rowan said. "She won't talk about them, but I hear her crying through the walls at two, three in the morning. It's like she's afraid to go to sleep."
Brooke took a long drink. "Alexis wakes up screaming. Which wakes Falcon up, and then he's impossible to get down again. His schedule is absolutely ruined." She pressed her fingers to her temple, as if the thought physically hurt. "He doesn't do well without a rigid schedule. It's been hell."
Camille stared out the window at a cardinal pecking at the birdfeeder in Brooke's backyard. "Zara wants to move away. She says she can't stand the sight of the bluff anymore. She won't go down to the beach, either."
Whitney sighed. "Peyton's been going to school, but as soon as she gets home, she disappears. Three days now. I checked the nanny cam yesterday—" She caught herself, glanced at me, then kept going. "She was in the same spot on her bed for four hours. Just staring at the TV. That's not like my Peyton. She's always doing something, either homework, practicing the piano, exercising or training. She's usually so driven."
"You have a nanny cam?" I asked.
"Doesn't everyone?" Whitney looked genuinely surprised. "How else do you know what your kids are really doing?"
