I set the slippers on top of the dryer and stared at them, warm, clean, and innocuous. She wasn't wrong. I couldn't tell if I was relieved or appalled, or both.
Apollo sat between us, looking from me to Mia and back again with concern. He hated it when we argued.
"Go take your shower," I said.
Mia lurked in the doorway, her expression hesitant, uncertain. "Mom, are you mad at me?"
I sighed. "I don’t know."
After she left, I stood alone in the laundry room, staring at those slippers. I didn't know what I was doing anymore. I didn't know who to trust. Not the mothers. Not the police. Not even my own daughter.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
I sat at the kitchen table and watched the clock tick to 5:36 a.m. My eyes burned. My head ached. One week ago, in the early hours of Saturday morning, Leah had been pushed, had suffered, had died not two thousand feet from where I now sat.
The house pressed in around me. Too quiet. Mia's door at the top of the stairs had been shut since we got back from the beach last night, since I confronted her about the washed slippers.
I looked out the window at the predawn street. The trash bins lined the curbs like obedient soldiers under the weak halo of the streetlights. Collection day. Blackthorn Shores paid extra for Saturday pickup so no one's trash ever overflowed.
An electric current snapped through me. People tossed incriminating evidence in their garbage all the time. This was my slim window of opportunity, while the neighborhood slept.
I had to do something before they arrested my daughter.
If Mia was telling the truth, something out there could exonerate her. If she wasn't, something out there might prove that, too.
My oversized faux leather purse hung on the back of the chair. Before I could think better of it, I grabbed the purse and crossed to the hook where Apollo's leash hung.
Apollo trotted over, his tail wagging in anticipation. "Need to go out, buddy?"
I opened the front door quietly so as not to wake Mia, then we slipped out into the predawn dark. I locked the door behind us.
The air had a wet chill that seeped under my clothes. A streetlight hummed overhead. Insects whirred in the grass.
Apollo tugged at his leash. I turned off Wyld Wood Lane and headed southeast on Driftwood Terrace.
Vivienne Cho's grand sage-green Craftsman sat silently ahead. My stomach knotted. I stopped on the sidewalk. My hand tightened around Apollo's leash.
I couldn't do this one. There was a line even my desperation couldn't cross.
Apollo whined softly, tugging toward home. "Not this one, buddy."
The next stop was Brooke August.
My heart hammered as I crouched by the black bin. The lid was gritty under my hand. I glanced over my shoulder at the dark windows facing me, then lifted.
The smell hit me first. Sour wine, rotting food, fermented sweetness. I kept my jaw clenched, breathing shallowly through my nose. Empty wine bottles rolled against each other inside, along with greasy pizza boxes, takeout containers with congealed orange sauce, and wadded tissues speckled with mascara smears.
Nothing that said murder. Nothing that said Mia.
I closed the lid. The plasticthunkechoed too loud in the sleeping street. I held my breath, waiting for a light to flick on.
Nothing happened.
Apollo and I continued on Driftwood Terrace until it intersected with Cliff Harbor Drive, then turned west and headed up the road back toward Wyld Wood Lane, making a circle. At the top of Cliff Harbor Drive, I decided to hit Camille's on the way back to my house after Whitney's.
I approached Whitney's house on high alert. The white house gleamed even in the predawn dark, its porcelain floorsvisible through the windows, the multi-tiered deck overlooking the pool stretching behind it.
I flipped back the blue recycling lid. Sephora bags with black-and-white stripes, Lululemon packaging, and tissue paper folded into neat squares greeted me.
