At home, Mia carried in the grocery bags, then paused at the door. "Want help with the cameras?"
I looked at her, really looked at her. She was exhausted, stressed, despondent, but trying, making an effort. After the interrogation on Friday, followed by the disaster at Viv and Daniel's house, Mia seemed diminished. Of course, she was. I just wished I knew how to help her.
I forced a smile. "I've got it. But thank you, honey. Why don't you relax? Read a book or draw something. And stay off social media."
She nodded and headed upstairs. Before she disappeared, she glanced back. "You're terrible at anything involving a drill, just so you know."
I managed to wink at her. "Have some faith in your mom."
She rolled her eyes at me.
It felt almost normal. Almost.
I set the cameras on the kitchen island, lining them up like equipment before a mission, examining the instructions, spreading out screws and mounting brackets.
Something I could control. Something I could do.
Outside, I hauled the aluminum ladder from the garage and set it against the siding by the front door. One leg caught on the uneven strip of concrete where winter had heaved the slab.
I wore Marcus's U of M sweatshirt, the navy one with the cracked maize M on the chest, the cuffs frayed. I needed something of his near me right now.
The first step flexed under my weight. My hands shook from lack of sleep and adrenaline. The April air bit through the sweatshirt, my fingers stiff around the cordless drill.
The instructions might as well have been in another language. Diagram A to Diagram B, arrows pointing at screws that did notexist. The bracket refused to line up with the predrilled holes on the camera's base. I flipped it. Rotated it. Still no dice.
"Marcus would have had this done in ten minutes," I muttered.
The ladder wobbled when I shifted my weight to reach the eave. I tightened my core, leaned in, and pressed my shoulder against the siding to create a counterbalance.
The drill whirred when I squeezed the trigger. It slipped off the screw head twice, jerking, the bit skittering across white paint. I let out a frustrated curse.
Grief was not abstract. It pressed into my sternum like a blade. Marcus should have been the one up here, one foot braced, forearm steady, teaching Mia how to do this with some corny dad joke.
Instead, it was up to me alone. I measured my breathing against the distant crash of waves from the lake. The sky was overcast; gray light flattened everything.
I rechecked the screws and adjusted my grip. I forced the bracket to line up, but I couldn't focus on what was right in front of me. I kept thinking about my conversation with Whitney last night. What Alexis had told me, and Zara, what I'd discovered this morning in the trash.
Zara had been in our house during sleepovers, group projects, movie nights. She could easily have stolen the key from Whitney's house, or just asked Peyton to borrow it, or hell, maybe she'd made a copy back when Brooke still had it.
The spray paint meant Zara was guilty of entering my home, taking Leah's painting from Mia's bedroom, and slashing it with a knife, then painting GUILTY in dripping scarlet letters.
She wanted to scare us. Or she wanted to frame Mia. Or she wanted to shut me up before I uncovered something worse.
But for what reason?
It only made sense if she had pushed Leah herself.
But did it? Zara had seemed genuinely remorseful. She'd claimed she wanted to help Leah expose whoever ran the cyberbullying account. She'd confirmed the scream Alexis had mentioned, then revealed the sounds she'd heard at 3:30 a.m.
Unless she was lying, deflecting. Manipulating.
Or someone else had put the spray paint can in their trash. But if so, who? And why? It wasn't like anyone expected their trash to be rummaged through by a frantic, half-crazed mother before the crack of dawn.
Zara still made the most sense.
Mrs. Atkins had seen Zara on the beach at 12:30 a.m. in her bright yellow hoodie. She would've had ten minutes to reach the top of the stairs and head over to Rowan's bluff. She'd been at the right place, at the right time.
I had difficulty envisioning bright, vivacious Zara shoving Leah over a cliff. She'd always been so outgoing, kind, and sweet-natured.
