In a way, it was.
Camille pulled a paper from the folder. "I'm withdrawing as Mia's attorney."
The ground shifted beneath my feet. Nausea churned in my stomach. I thought I might vomit. "What?"
She held the form out. "There's a conflict of interest. My daughter is a potential witness. I believed it was manageable until you started contaminating the witness pool. This is my notice of withdrawal. I'm filing it on Monday morning."
I didn't take it. "You can't do this now. Not to Mia. Be mad at me, but don't make Mia suffer."
"Dahlia, please. Let's not make things harder than they already are. I'm giving you names of attorneys who can step in. You'll need to call them soon if you want someone at the station with Mia when they bring her in again."
She thrust the paper at me. I took it with numb hands.
"Please, Camille." My voice came out high, panicked. "This is when we need you most. I can't. I won't be able to…" I couldn't bear to say the words aloud. I could barely afford groceries, let alone an experienced, high-cost criminal defense attorney to defend my daughter against murder charges.
"Then the state will appoint one for you," she said crisply. She looked somewhere over my shoulder, avoiding eye contact. Pretending Mia was just another client, that we hadn't shared coffee dozens of times.
"The system will eat Mia alive."
"That is no longer my concern."
The paper in my hand crinkled. I couldn't keep the sarcasm from lacing my voice. "And what is your concern, then?"
"My concern is my child."
I wanted to ask her whose version she believed at night when she closed her eyes, when the house went quiet, and she could hear her own thoughts. Had she stood at the foot of Zara's bed and watched her ribcage rise and fall as I did with Mia. Had she felt that absolute clawing terror that you were losing the flesh of your flesh, that there was nothing you could do to protect them?
Perhaps she had, which was why she was doing this to me, to us.
"I am sorry about Leah," Camille said. "I am sorry for Vivienne. And I am sorry for you. Truly, Dahlia. I hope someday you believe me."
Before I could respond, she was moving. Down the steps, down the gravel drive, to the street. Then she was gone. And with her, our last ally.
I looked at the paper in my hand. Three names, neatly printed. With fancy firms whose retainers probably cost more than I made in a year. Beside one, in Camille's slanting script:Try her first.
I let out a bitter laugh. Like I could afford any of them. I set the paper flat on the console table next to the photo of Mia at seven with her cheeks stuffed with marshmallows, laughing and wriggling in Marcus's arms.
I put my hand flat against the glass and felt its coolness leech into my skin. I rubbed my thumb over the ridge of the frame.
I thought of Vivienne, the devastation etching her face. I thought of Rowan, Whitney, and Brooke, of the gleam of their countertops and the tidy way they'd closed ranks, united against a perceived enemy.
They would protect their children at any cost.
They weren't the only ones.
Chapter Thirty-One
I boiled the pasta too long.
The timer had gone off three minutes earlier, but I stood there, fingers pressed to the edge of the counter, staring at the list of attorneys and their rates that might as well have been ransom notes. Hundreds of dollars an hour. Eye-watering retainer fees, more than the cost of a new car.
The pot hissed and rattled on the burner. I turned off the gas.
The only sound was the low roar of waves against the shoreline at the bottom of the bluff, muffled through the double-paned glass windows. The waves had always soothed me before. Not tonight.
I drained the pasta, then stirred the hot Marinara sauce, the scent of garlic and tomatoes filling my nostrils. My mind wandered to the headline I'd seen before Camille blew up our lives.
The fight between Leah and Mia. A detail Mia had never mentioned.
