Vivienne turned to Camille. "Your daughter was there, too, Camille."
Camille stiffened. Something flickered in her eyes, not quite guilt, not quite fear. She took a breath. "I understand you’re upset."
"Upset? You don’t know the meaning of upset." Vivienne sneered. "Your daughter was complicit. And so was Mia."
The words slammed into me. Shame flooded my face. Pure, scalding shame. Because Vivienne was right, I'd been so focused on protecting Mia, on believing in her innocence, that I'd never asked harder questions.
"She watched. She didn't stop them." Vivienne's eyes found mine. The fury had burned out, leaving only grief. "I thought you were different, Dahlia."
"Viv—"
"You're just like them. You'd rather believe your daughter is innocent than face what she did. Or what she watched and did nothing to stop."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?"
The realization settled like lead in my chest. I thought of Mia's silences. Her withdrawn behavior. Her refusal to meet my eyes. Not just grief. Could it be guilt? For what? For not stopping the bullying? Participating in it? Or something far worse?
What if the girl living in my house was someone I didn't know at all?
I wanted to say something, to defend my daughter the way theother mothers had defended theirs, while also acknowledging Vivienne's pain and any part my child may have played in it.
But no words came. I was in shock, blindsided. Horrified and appalled and sickened. I didn't know what to do or what to say. I said the only woefully inadequate thing I could think of. “I’m so sorry.”
Vivienne watched me, then nodded slowly to herself. As if I'd confirmed every terrible suspicion she’d held about me.
"They're not bullies," Brooke said, her voice shaking, gesturing wildly as if she were desperate for any scrap of evidence to defend her daughter from guilt she knew she deserved. "They're just teenage girls. They screw up. They'll grow out of it. You can't brand them for life because one girl couldn't handle it..."
She stopped. Too late.
Vivienne's voice went hard and quiet. "Because one girl couldn't handle it? Leah couldn't handle it? And now she’s dead? Is that what you just said to me?"
Brooke's mouth worked, but no sound came out. Her face had gone bright red, whether in anger or shame, I couldn’t tell.
"Have you gone to the police with this information?" Camille asked.
"Of course." Vivienne spun and stalked back to the foyer. At the front door, she paused, looking back at each of us with loathing, like we were her mortal enemies. "My daughter is dead. And one of yours killed her."
The door slammed shut behind her.
Chapter Sixteen
I stared at the photocopied pages scattered across Brooke's coffee table and rug. Dates. Names. Splotches of ink like bruises.
No one moved. No one spoke.
The dark ink. Leah's careful handwriting. Mia's name, over and over.
My eyes focused on a page with a name circled several times in dark ink: Taylor Everett. The Everetts had lived in the now empty house several lots down from mine. A tragedy had occurred, and they'd moved away. That's all I knew.
Whitney paced toward the bay window. Her movements were sharp and anxious, all elbows and angles. Her gaze shot to Rowan. "What do we do?"
"Whitney, sweetheart," Rowan said. "For Heaven's sake, sit down. All that nervous energy isn't helping anyone."
Whitney paced faster. "She's gone to the police with that thing, that pack of lies—" She cut herself off as her gaze slid to me. Her jaw snapped shut.
"No one can find out about this," Brooke said. Her voice rose an octave. She could barely contain her alarm. "We have to stop it. How do we stop it?"
