But Whitney should’ve been paying more attention to what Amelia was up to. When Amelia started pulling away, Natalie told Whitney that meant she was being a good mom. Doing her job.

Kids aren’t supposed to like their parents, she’d said.

Whitney had believed her. That’s why, as much as the wall between them hurt Whitney, she didn’t back down. She stuck to her guns. Her job wasn’t to be Amelia’s friend. It was to protect her. Keep her safe.

That’s what she thought she’d been doing.

Now she worried that by saying no all the time, she’d caused this. If she’d been more open, less protective, would Amelia still be here?

Her daughter had been keeping so many secrets, going behind Whitney’s back. And because of that Whitney didn’t even know where to look for her. She may have technically lost Amelia on Friday night, but in reality, she’d lost her months ago.

These thoughts propelled her back to Amelia’s desk, her fingers greedy as they sifted through the remaining papers. Her vision blurred, the pinprick of a headache forming above her eyes. Setting down the papers in her hand, she headed back to her room to grab her reading glasses. She didn’t need them all the time, usually just in the evenings when her eyes got tired or when she was on the computer for too long, working. They had blue light lenses, so that helped with the glare of the screen.

In her bedroom, she located them on her nightstand. Turning to leave, the corner of her big toe scraped against something flimsy, movable. Familiar. A piece of paper? Bending down, she felt under her bed until she located it.

An ivory sheet of paper, jagged edges. It looked like it had been torn out of a diary, the press of a pen showing through the backside of the page.

Whitney had never kept one. So, what was this doing under her bed? She was grateful for her reading glasses as she slipped them on.

When she flipped the paper over in her palm, she instantly recognized the handwriting, even though she hadn’t seen it in years. Her blood ran cold as her gaze darted down to her own name, written multiple times in the diary entry.

Where had this come from, and why was it here?

She stood up, carefully pried her glasses off and tucked them into the palm of her free hand. The diary page fluttered in the other. She thought about the picture in Amelia’s room. About the money missing from both Amelia’s account and her drawer. And about the photos that had vanished from Amelia’s Instagram page.

This entire time she’d been looking for someone to blame. Someone to pin this on. She’d been chasing after Dan, Jay and random boys. But what if the real culprit was Whitney?