"What time?" Camille asked.
"Um… like 5:35? I set my alarm for 5:30 a.m." Zara swallowed. "When I went outside, I saw her phone in the grass on the edge of the bluff, so I walked over there and looked down. She was just... lying there, halfway down, on her side, half covered by the underbrush. Her body. She looked… she looked so strange. All broken, with her neck turned a weird way. It was—it was awful."
Beside me, Camille's face tightened. She gazed at her daughter but didn't offer comfort.
"Why was she even out there?" Alexis August asked. "I don't get it. Why would she go back outside?"
Peyton took an unsteady sip from her Stanley, then set it between her knees. "She left her phone out on the bluff, where we were taking pictures, so she must've woken up and realized she didn't have it. She probably just went back to get it and got too close to the edge, and she… she must've slipped and fallen in the dark."
A heavy silence settled over the room. Chloe let out a sob andcovered her mouth with her hands. Zara and Peyton sniffled and wiped at their eyes.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Camille glanced toward the front window overlooking the street. "Before the police get here, we need to make sure everyone is on the same page." Her authoritative tone left no room for argument. "Tell us what happened, so there aren't any discrepancies."
The girls blinked as if waking from a nightmare. Zara glanced at Chloe, then Peyton. Alexis and Chloe exchanged another look. Apprehension flickered in their eyes. Mia stared listlessly at nothing.
These were just girls, kids still. They were scared, confused, and hurting. In shock.
Alexis clenched her jaw. Her hands balled into fists. "The cops? Why?"
"The police investigate anytime someone dies," Camille said briskly. Her sharp eyes narrowed as she gazed at each girl. "Just tell them the truth, and you'll be fine."
Zara's breath hitched. "It was an accident. Right?"
"Of course it was." Rowan's voice was calm, warm, soothing. "It was an accident. Not your fault. A terrible accident."
"No one's in trouble," Whitney said.
"You don't know that." Alexis made a sound in the back of her throat and rose to her feet. She circled the sofa, retreated to the archway separating the kitchen and living area, and leaned against the wall. She wore an oversized Nine Inch Nails T-shirt over boxers. Her dyed, purple-black hair hung loose across her face. "Not for sure."
Brooke moved across the living room toward her daughter, skirting the sofas and coffee table. "Oh, honey, you must be devastated. I’m so sorry."
Alexis waved her mother away, her mouth set in a scowl. She'd always been the tough one among the girls. Her gaze locked on Camille. "What if she did it on purpose?"
Everyone stared at her in shock. Brooke's arm dropped limply to her side. She looked at her daughter, aghast. "How can you say that?"
Alexis swiped fiercely at her face with the back of herarm, as if embarrassed to cry in front of her friends, though Chloe, Peyton, and Zara were teary-eyed. Only Mia's eyes were dry. "She'd been acting weird lately, like depressed or something. Maybe she did something to herself…"
A fresh wave of shock washed over me. Not Leah. Not Mia's best friend. Though she had seemed more withdrawn lately when she'd visited my house, so had Mia.
They were eighth-grade girls. Moodiness was par for the course.
Mia had been fine. Leah had been fine. Hadn't she?
Rowan clapped her hands. "Let's not talk like that. This is sad enough. We'll wait for the police. There's no blame on any of you."
The sirens grew louder. A terrible nervous energy rippled through the room.
Peyton pulled her knees up and curled her bare feet beneath her. Her toenails were painted lavender. "What if the police think it's our fault?"
Whitney said, "Just tell the police what you told us. Everything will be fine."
I wished I shared her certainty. I glanced at Mia again. She was so still, so distant. She was in shock.
A chill ran down my spine. A thousand questions swirled in my mind. How could this have happened? Poor Leah. Poor Vivienne. My poor daughter.
The sirens closed in. Several police cars and an ambulance pulled into the driveway. Through the front bay windows, the flashing lights of the police cars bathed the street in stark red and blue.
