By Saturday morning, the laundromat smells like warm cotton, frying oil, and somebody’s aggressively floral dryer sheets.
I balance my basket on one hip, hip-check the machine door closed, and feed in quarters while my laptop buffers audio from last night’s edit. My headphones hang around my neck, leaking the faint echo of my own voice narrating Juliet’s last confirmed sightings. Theo’s soccer hoodie—red, not navy—spins behind the glass, a small comet in a galaxy of towels.
The other parents stake out their usual territory: two PTA moms perched on orange plastic chairs, scrolling their phones; a dad in a regatta windbreaker folding tiny polo shirts; a teenager with wet hair bouncing a toddler on her knee near the vending machine. Crescent Bay’s power structure distilled into chipped linoleum and humming metal.
The front door swings open, letting in a gust of salt air and a faint trace of hairspray from the salon next door.
“Mara Lane?” a male voice calls.
I look up from my laptop. A man in a navy blazer and scuffed dress shoes stands just inside, holding a thick manila envelope. He has the apologetic expression of someone who lives on other people’s bad days.
“Depends who’s asking,” I say, because sarcasm is easier than bracing.
“Mark Dillon, state marshal,” he says, crossing the room. The PTA moms’ heads snap up in unison. “I have legal papers for you. Are you Mara Lane?”
He’s close enough now that I can see the embossed seal on the corner of the envelope.
My fingers tighten on the edge of the washer. “Yeah,” I say. “That’s me.”
He offers the envelope. “You’ve been served.”
The words land with a weight that has nothing to do with cheap paper. I take the envelope, accidently brushing his fingers, which feel cold despite the humid room.
“Thank you,” I say, because I was raised to be polite even while the floor tips under my feet.
One of the PTA moms pretends to adjust her sunglasses, eyes flicking between the envelope and my face. The dad in the regatta jacket folds his kid’s T-shirt with a little more care than strictly necessary, giving me the gift of pointed non-attention.
“Have a good day,” the marshal says, already backing toward the door. He knows nobody ever does after he leaves.
The door swings shut behind him. The bell’s jangle settles back into the rhythm of tumbling washers and dryer thumps.
“Court papers?” one of the moms asks lightly, the way someone might ask if I’ve tried the new café on Harbor Road.
“Coupon book,” I say. My voice comes out too bright. “They’re really stepping up the marketing.”
Her laugh is thin. The other mom leans over to whisper in her ear. I imagine words: podcast, police, that death threat thing.
My laptop screen flashes another notification from a national outlet mentioning my “viral investigation.” I flip it shut.
I drag the basket to an empty table and drop into the plastic chair. The envelope’s texture feels rough under my thumb, like cheap napkins at a waterfront clam shack. My name sits on the front in thick black type. Superior Court, Family Division.
I slide my finger under the flap and tear it open.
The first page hits me in bold: Motion to Modify Custody.
For a second, the words jitter. I blink them into focus and read the next line.
Grounds: Material change in circumstances, including Respondent’s public involvement in a dangerous true-crime enterprise, exposure of minor child to instability and potential violence, and failure to protect minor child from documented threats.
Someone drops a detergent bottle nearby. Blue liquid glugs out, the scent of “Ocean Breeze” flooding the air. I swallow hard against the sudden urge to throw up.
At the bottom of the page, in neat legal script: Petitioner: Jared Morse.
“Of course,” I whisper.
My thumb traces his name, the ghost of the boy who once wrote lyrics on my calf in eyeliner backstage after a gig, the man who left me a voicemail about “needing to find himself” while I was eight months pregnant. The father who sends birthday texts three days late and child support three weeks late.
Apparently, he reads the news on time.
My washer beeps finished. I don’t move.
The PTA moms’ conversation picks up again, voices low and choppy. I catch “podcast” for real this time, “cliffs,” “poor kid.” I fold the papers carefully back into the envelope, like neat edges will keep anything contained.
A tumble of thoughts rushes my skull: the photo of Theo at the bus stop, the sentence about ivory and navy, the forwarded email to Luz. The way the court’s boilerplate language grabs all of it and translates it into a story about an unstable mother, too in love with a dead girl’s tragedy to keep her living child safe.
I stand abruptly, the chair squealing across the floor.
“Everything all right?” the regatta dad asks, eyes still on his careful stacks.
“Perfect,” I say, balancing the basket on my hip with one hand and the envelope under my arm with the other. “Just living the dream.”
I carry my laundry and my new life sentence upstairs, each step echoing with the sound of the marshal saying you’ve been served.
Jared picks up on the second ring.
“I was in a meeting,” he says by way of hello. Voices murmur in the background, tinny through my speaker. “I stepped out. Is Theo okay?”
I stare at the custody papers spread across my kitchen table. Crumbs cling to the edges, stubborn glitter from Theo’s last school project shining in the afternoon light.
“Theo is at your precious stable school,” I say. “I’m the one who just got served. Nice surprise, by the way.”
He exhales sharply. “I’m not doing this to surprise you, Mara. I’m doing this because I had to read about a death threat against my son’s mother in a news article.”
“They threatened me,” I snap. “Not him.”
“Don’t insult me,” he says. His voice doesn’t rise, which makes it worse. “The email referenced his hoodie and his route to school. You think a judge is going to see a distinction?”
I pace between the stove and the sink, the cord of the charger trailing from my phone like a leash. Outside, faint bass throbs from some waterfront party, proof that other people’s Saturdays still revolve around cocktails and yacht playlists, not legal strategy.
“You’ve been following Juliet’s murder closer than you ever followed my pregnancy,” I say. “Glad the headlines finally moved you.”
“I have been following my son,” he says. “You’re the one who dragged him back to a town with a cliff famous for kids sneaking cigarettes after dances and landing on rocks instead of sand.”
The mention of the rock shelf slides under my skin like ice. “You never cared about Crescent Bay until there was a podcast hashtag,” I say.
“That’s not true.” A door closes on his end, cutting off the background voices. “Listen, I read the local piece. The one with the cliffs photo and the screencap of your cover art. The journalist quoted you calling the case ‘a story that still bleeds into this town.’ They quoted the threat. They mentioned the bus stop picture. That’s not normal, Mara.”
“None of this is normal,” I say. “That’s kind of the point.”
“You don’t get points for putting our kid in the blast radius,” he says. “What did you think would happen when you crowdsourced an unsolved murder to the whole internet?”
I bite down on my thumbnail until it hurts. “So your solution is to sue for custody because I’m trying to get justice for a murdered girl and protect our son at the same time?”
“My solution is to make sure Theo has one parent whose first priority isn’t their download chart,” he says quietly.
The words land harder than any shout.
“That’s bullshit,” I say. “You think this is about clout? I lived through this town burying Juliet once. I’m not doing it again.”
“The judge isn’t Juliet’s judge,” he says. “The judge is going to look at risk factors. Armed break-ins. Stalking. Police involvement. Viral attention. You’re building a file for my lawyer every time you release a new episode with some stunt at midnight.”
The mention of the cliffs settles into my chest like a stone. I picture that broken glass rose under the safety fence, the way Luz’s flashlight caught it. I picture the death threat email sitting in a folder labeled Threats like a time bomb.
“You could have called me,” I say. “Before filing. You could have talked to me like a partner, not an opponent.”
“You made yourself a public figure,” he says. “I’m responding in the only language the people who can protect Theo speak. I’m not trying to take him away. I’m asking for partial custody. More weekends. Some weekdays. A say in where he lives.”
“So he can learn guitar in your Brooklyn loft in between your tour dates?” I ask. “Or hang out with your girlfriend who posts thirst traps from rooftop bars?”
“Leave Harper out of this,” he says, annoyed. “She’s the one who freaked out when she saw the death threat article in my feed. She said, ‘Isn’t this your kid’s mom?’ She cares, Mara.”
“I care,” I hiss. “I’m the one here making sure he eats something besides cereal and doesn’t fall off the literal cliff behind his school.”
Silence crackles between us, full of all the things we never said when he walked away.
He breaks it first. “Get a lawyer,” he says. “Please. Don’t try to wing this. The papers outline the hearing date. I’m not doing this to punish you.”
“You’re doing it because it’s easier to call me unstable than admit this town protects its golden boys,” I say.
“I’m doing it,” he says, voice flattening, “because I don’t want to wake up to another article about ‘Glass Roses host receives threat’ and wonder if Theo was standing next to you when some man decided to keep his promise.”
My throat closes around any comeback I might have.
“I have to go back in,” he says after a beat. “I’ll see you in court.”
The line goes dead.
I stand in the kitchen, phone pressed to my ear, until the kettle whistles dry and the smell of singed metal cuts through the bacon from the downstairs deli.
On the table, the custody papers stare up at me. Dangerous true-crime enterprise. That phrase will live forever now, etched into a court record where Juliet’s name barely appears.
Nisha’s office sits above a sail-and-tackle shop on the harbor, squeezed between a boutique selling anchor-patterned baby clothes and a wine bar hosting “Regatta Recovery Brunch.”
I climb the narrow stairs, each step echoing with muffled bass from some daytime party on a docked yacht. Through the window on the landing, I can see the postcard cliffs in the distance, white against the gray-green water, the hidden rock shelf below invisible from here.
Inside, the office smells like coffee, printer ink, and lemon cleaner. Maritime prints decorate the walls: sailboats racing, a sepia-toned photo of Crescent Bay’s prom-throwback fundraiser where adults grin in recycled taffeta under paper lanterns.
“I’m a big fan, by the way,” Nisha says, after we sit. “Glass Roses. I binged the whole thing last weekend.”
“Does that help or hurt me?” I ask.
She smiles, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Depends how we frame it.”
The custody papers lie between us. She has already marked them up with sticky notes, little neon flags on each page.
“Jared’s attorney is smart,” she says, tapping a paragraph. “They’re hitting the right buttons: stability, safety, media exposure. Judges in this county live on the school board minutes and regatta programs. They like tidy narratives. You’re giving them a messy one.”
“I didn’t invite the stalker,” I say. “And I told the cops about the threat. I forwarded the email to Detective Navarro right away. That’s responsible.”
“It is,” Nisha says. “And we’ll argue that. But from a optics standpoint, every police visit, every article about ‘podcaster under threat’ builds Jared’s case that your life is chaos.”
I pick at a peeling corner of her desk’s veneer. “So what, I stop telling the truth because a judge might not like the soundtrack?”
“I’m not asking you to stop telling the truth,” she says. “I’m asking you to think very carefully about platform and timing. The court doesn’t care about Juliet’s case, Mara. The court cares about Theo’s day-to-day life.”
“Theo’s life is safer if people know what this town did to Juliet,” I say. “If the man who killed her is still out there, and someone is stalking my family because I’m talking, then the story is the safety plan.”
“That’s a powerful argument,” she says. “Unfortunately, judges rarely buy ‘podcast as public service’ when there’s a photo of your kid in a death threat email.”
My hands tighten into fists on my knees. “So what do you want me to do?”
Nisha steeples her fingers. Her nails are short, practical. “My advice, purely strategic, is this: tone down anything that looks like spectacle until the hearing. No more midnight recording trips to the cliffs. No live call-in episodes with unpredictable strangers. No dramatic reveals that might invite more threats.”
“You listened to the cliff episode,” I say.
“Yes,” she says. “It was gripping. It also reads in a legal brief as ‘mother voluntarily goes to notorious suicide-and-accident spot in the middle of the night with a microphone after explicit police warnings.’”
I exhale sharply. “So you’re saying take a break.”
“I’m saying consider announcing a short hiatus,” she says. “Frame it as respecting law enforcement’s work, giving the town room to process. Show the court you can hit pause when your son’s safety is at stake.”
I stare at the maritime prints on the wall. In one, a sailboat leans at a sharp angle, foam streaking past its hull. Locked in that frame, it will never capsize. In real life, I know one bad gust can flip anything.
“If I stop now,” I say slowly, “I signal to whoever sent that threat that they hit the target. They moved me. They get veto power over the story.”
“This isn’t about letting a stalker win,” Nisha says. “This is about not handing Jared’s attorney more ammunition. Every new incident between now and the hearing is a bullet point under ‘pattern of endangerment.’”
“What if something breaks in the case?” I ask. “What if a source comes forward, or Oracle drops another clue that needs daylight right away?”
Nisha meets my eyes. “Then you have a harder decision. I can only tell you how a judge thinks. I can’t tell you what matters most to you.”
The muffled bass from the harbor swells for a moment, the echo of someone’s private party bleeding into the office. I picture adults in 90s prom outfits clinking champagne glasses under fairy lights, fundraising off nostalgia while Juliet’s real prom ended on wet rock and police tape.
“Do you think I’m a bad mother?” I ask quietly.
Nisha’s face softens. “I think you’re a mother in an impossible situation,” she says. “And I think you’re going to have to decide where the line is between doing right by Juliet and doing right by Theo. My job is to help make sure the court doesn’t draw that line for you in a way you can’t live with.”
Heat prickles behind my eyes. I blink it away.
“So we prepare,” she says briskly. “We gather character references, school records, any documentation that shows Theo is thriving with you. We document the steps you take to keep him safe. And you, in the meantime, think hard about how you want to use that microphone.”
I nod, the motion small and stiff. “Okay.”
“And Mara?” she adds. “One more thing. Stay off social media fights. No subtweeting your ex. No responding to trolls. Screenshots live forever.”
A humorless laugh escapes me. “You mean I shouldn’t post ‘hey stalker, thanks for the content’?”
“Please don’t,” she says. “At least not until after the hearing.”
I gather the papers into a lopsided stack and tuck them back into the envelope. It feels heavier than when the marshal handed it to me.
Walking back down the stairs, I catch a glimpse of the cliffs again through the landing window. The sun hits them at a sharp angle, making them glow. Somewhere below that white edge, the rock shelf waits, patient and uncaring.
Back in my apartment, I drop the envelope next to my microphone.
The glass rose cover art fills my laptop screen when I wake it, crystal petals suspended in a black void. The same image that sold sponsors and seduced listeners now looks like evidence in a case I never intended to open.
I rest my fingers lightly on the mic, not pressing the button yet.
If I keep broadcasting at full volume, I could hand Jared exactly what he needs to pry Theo away from me. If I go quiet, I hand this town—and whoever is watching my kid from across the street—the power to scare me into silence.
“Where’s the line, Juliet?” I whisper.
The question hangs in the air between the mic and the manila envelope, waiting for an answer I know the court won’t give me.