But perhaps Leah had turned on her, outed their plan to Alexis and Peyton, and blamed Zara. That would've made Zara incredibly upset. I'd seen in her eyes how desperate she was to be accepted, included, to belong. Her fear of being rejected by the group.
The drill bit finally caught. The vibration ran up my forearm. The mechanical buzz cut through the quiet neighborhood as the bracket finally clicked into place under the eave, and the camera housing settled with a snap.
My stomach clenched. How was I going to tell Camille? How was she going to respond if she thought I was threatening her daughter's freedom? Not well, I knew that much.
And yet, we desperately needed her help.
Apprehension settled in my gut. I needed to talk to Camille. We needed to take this evidence to the police.
Then there were the lorazepam pills. Sleeping pills. Sedatives, prescribed for anxiety. Discarded in Whitney's trash can, but prescribed to Brooke. I wasn't sure what to do about those. What they meant, if they meant anything at all.
Brooke had accused Alexis of stealing her pills that night on their patio. Zara had mentioned something about Taylor Everett taking sleeping pills at Whitney's pool party, which led to the near drowning that left her brain damaged.
Could Alexis be stealing her mother's prescription pills to sell them? Taylor had lived in our neighborhood. If that was the case, Alexis could have sold them to Taylor, and to Peyton, too, for that matter. Maybe Whitney knew nothing about the pills, and it was her daughter who'd bought them and carelessly tossed the bottle in her family's trash.
Of course, I was speculating. Maybe the lorazepam had nothing to do with Leah's death. Simply another of the August family secrets that Brooke was desperate to hide from the world.
Another secret I needed to uncover.
I positioned the drill again and drilled the second, third, and fourth screws into the brackets until the casing held firm against the house. I descended the ladder, wiped my palms on my jeans, and reached for my phone on the railing.
No new notifications except junk mail and spam. I opened messages anyway, then scrolled up to Rowan's last text thread. Nothing new. I checked other conversations. Nothing from Vivienne, of course, which hurt the most. Nothing from Brooke or Whitney, or from Camille, whom I'd texted three times today. Last night, she'd said we would discuss strategy, how to control the narrative and get ahead of the rumor mill. As if that were possible.
Their silence felt louder than any accusation.
I was about to put my phone away and get back to work when a push notification slid across the top of my screen. Detroit Free Press BREAKING NEWS: LOCAL TEEN NAMED SUSPECT IN LAKESHORE DEATH.
Dread and anxiety tangled in my gut. Aghast, I read the rest:Witness Reports "Violent Fight" Before Fatal Fall.
Then two photos, side-by-side. On the left, Mia's school photo, the one we had argued over because she hated her hair parted on the side. Her awkward smile, chin tilted. On the right, Leah in mid-laugh, eyes crinkled, hair caught in motion. Alive.
The text below was clinical, efficient, brutal:Sources close to the investigation confirm DNA evidence and witness testimony place fourteen-year-old Mia Kincaid at the scene. A witness reported a physicalaltercation between Kincaid and victim Leah Cho hours before Cho's fatal fall from the Blackthorn Shores bluff.
It hit me like a gut-punch. Mia had said nothing about a fight. Not even an argument or disagreement. She claimed Leah grabbed her arm when she got dizzy from the nosebleed. That explained the scratches. An accident. A panicked grip.
And who reported this new information? What witness? Which girl?
Panicked heat rose from my chest into my throat. How could I protect her when she was still, even now, lying to me? Any of the girls could still be lying. I couldn't know the truth, not for certain.
It felt like fighting blind. Like the edge of the bluff shifting beneath my feet, unsteady, about to crumble. I imagined social media blowing up with this new salacious tidbit. Mia's harassment would intensify now. And this was the least of our worries.
The sky had gone darker, with thickening clouds stacked over the lake. The air carried that metallic smell that comes right before a storm, the kind that worked under your skin.
Footsteps crunched on the driveway gravel. I looked up.
Camille strode up the street toward my house, her phone in one hand, a manila folder in the other. She wore a silk fuchsia blouse, dark jeans, and low-heeled boots.
Her mouth was a tight line, her lips pressed together. She paused in front of the porch as her gaze locked onto mine. "We need to talk."
Chapter Thirty
I faced Camille at the top step of my porch. "I've been texting you. Come inside, and I'll make some coffee?—"
"Dahlia." Her tone was sharp, clipped. Her courtroom voice.
"Is everything okay?"
She halted with one heel braced on the bottom step. "Brooke's Ring camera caught you. This morning. Going through her trash. Whitney's, too."
