The Girl from Widow Hills, page 7
Nina walked slowly around me, her footsteps echoing on the hardwood. I followed behind to each room, still barefoot and dirty, my toes curling on the cool floor. She flicked another light in the hallway. Then the kitchen light, with the faucet left dripping. Next, the office, messy and barely used.
The only place she didn’t search was upstairs, the steps hidden away behind the door in the hall that looked like a coat closet.
She stopped at the entrance to my bedroom, flicking on the last light. “You heard the phone from here? From inside?”
It was colder in here, and I felt a gust before I saw the reason: The window beside the bed was ajar, the sheer shades billowing in. Nina strode across the room, pushing apart the shades—ignoring the unmade bed next to the window, and my phone, faceup on the bedside table.
I didn’t remember opening the window. But I didn’t remember making it out of the house, either. Maybe it was that familiar dream, pushing back against the four walls… maybe I wanted to see a way out.
She leaned closer, her head to the place where a screen should be. “I can hear them talking,” she said, half to herself.
Now that she mentioned it, I could hear it, too, the voices at the crime scene carrying in the wind. I could’ve heard a phone.
My own phone buzzed on the nightstand. Nina saw it first and frowned. “Kind of late for a text,” she said.
And then, just as she reached for it, it started ringing. She picked it up, held it out for me, and I knew from the photo lighting up the display—the call was coming from Jonah’s cell.
I froze, and it rang a second time. Was it one of the officers outside, calling back the last-known number? Would I have to face it right now, with Nina watching?
“Gonna take it?” she asked, practically placing it in my hand. The skin around my knee pulled as I sat on the edge of the bed.
I fumbled the buttons twice before answering, and held the phone to my ear. “Hello?” I held my breath, could hear my heartbeat inside my head.
“Liv, I know it’s late and you were probably sleeping, but I have to say this—”
My breath escaped in a rush, everything unspooling inside me. “Jonah?” I looked up at Nina, who was frowning. His name was on the display. Of course it was Jonah. “Where are you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to say, if you would give me a minute.” His voice was slurred, the words tripping over one another. “In my office, trying to make sense of this shit schedule I’ve been given. Trying to see how I could make it work.”
“Make what work?”
“You. Us. I was stupid to let you go, so stupid, and—”
“Jonah, don’t do this. It was a mistake. I have to go.” I ended the call, my fingers faintly trembling.
I looked to the window again. It wasn’t Jonah out there in the bushes. This had absolutely nothing to do with me.
It was entirely plausible that I heard the phone, and it woke me. It was entirely plausible that I heard it in my sleep, and that was what brought me out there.
I decided something right then. The story was true, and I could believe it. It was as true a story as any: I heard the phone, I woke up, I saw the man, I ran.
The truest stories are the simplest ones.
Nina was still watching me. “What was a mistake?” she asked.
“Responding to a message from my ex last night.”
She nodded, then took in the room again, slowly tallying things one by one. The open window. The bed. The hallway. Back to me, eyes roaming over my clothes, my exposed skin. I followed her gaze to my knee, to the tear in the fabric, the red seeping through the makeshift bandage.
“Let’s get you to the hospital,” she said. “We should really get that checked out.”
I wasn’t sure whether this step was optional. Whether this was a suggestion or a requirement. What the rules were when you found yourself inside the orbit of a dead body. But I didn’t object.
This house would tell a story if she knew what to look for, and I didn’t want her to see some other possibility hidden underneath. I wanted her out of the house.
I wanted us both out, and far away from all of this, as soon as humanly possible.
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEWS COMPILED AT SEARCH HEADQUARTERS
OCTOBER 19, 2000
PAMELA CROUCH: They weren’t doing enough. It was obvious. We know the difference between a rescue and a recovery.
CHARLIE MENDOZA: If we don’t do it, who will? That girl’s mother is watching. That girl is still out there somewhere.
WILLIAM HARRIS: It’s math. Get enough people and divide the area up. We’ve got enough people now. They’re coming in from everywhere.
ANITA LAFAYETTE: I heard there are divers coming.
CHARLIE: Heard they’re gonna drill down in some areas where they think there might be air.
PAMELA: I heard there are even more people coming. Volunteers from other states.
ANITA: The high schools are bringing some of their portable field lights. We’ll keep searching. We’ll keep at it until she’s found.
WILLIAM: They’re using infrared now. Got those from a hunting club, a group of concerned citizens. Like I said, it’s math. Get enough people, enough gear, and it’s just a matter of time.
CHAPTER 8
Saturday, 4 a.m.
I WASN’T ACCUSTOMED TO THE night shift at the hospital—the flip side to my day. There was extra security; a staff I wasn’t completely familiar with. Nina Rigby led me through the ER entrance, not realizing I was an employee.
I filled out the paperwork with the least amount of information possible. My insurance, my name, my date of birth—the usual. Nothing that required a medical professional to dig any deeper into my personal history: I was always aware of where that could lead. I wasn’t sure how much information was tied to my new name, how much had transferred, how much each system was connected—but the less I provided, the less likely anything would be questioned.
It was a cut on my leg. That’s all. Nothing else was relevant.
Except I knew what would be available and easily accessed right now, shared on this very system: my recent visit with Dr. Calvin Royce.
Even without the details, the visit itself would imply something.
I hoped no one saw it and mentioned it. Not in front of the police.
The waiting room was full, with some noticeably sick children ahead of me, including one with an audible wheeze who, thankfully, got called back first. But having the police escort must have bumped me up the list. After I’d checked in, Nina Rigby went up to the reception desk, showed her ID, and said something to the woman that I couldn’t understand—but the woman peered up at me for a split second, and we didn’t have to wait long to be called back, vitals taken by a nurse I vaguely recognized. She must’ve filled in for someone on the day shift in the past.
I was glad for the loose pajama pants, and pulled the material up to my thigh, so the wound could be cleaned and assessed.
The nurse spoke with a soothing smile, and I couldn’t tell whether she recognized me, either—or at least recognized my name. Eventually, she left us in the semi-private curtained area, me in the single bed, Nina sitting in the single visitor chair against the wall.
Nina Rigby was practiced in stillness, it seemed, and it was making me anxious, and restless. All I could do was stare at the gap between the curtains, keeping watch for the doctor and trying not to think of the events that had led us here.
The buzz of Nina’s phone made us both jump, and she distracted herself for a while texting someone on the other end. Her face gave away nothing.
“The body was found on Mr. Aimes’s property,” she said. “That’s the primary crime scene, though they may have to expand it once we get a better look in the daylight. Okay if they need to check over the property line, in your yard?”
She was looking at her phone when she said it, and when I didn’t respond at first, her eyes cut sharply to mine.
“Sure,” I said.
She continued typing, then slid the phone into her bag.
“How long have you known Mr. Aimes?” Nina asked. I wasn’t sure if this was related to her phone conversation or just her personal curiosity. But I erred on the side of caution, assuming they had taken Rick’s statement back at his house already. I needed to be careful to match his story.
“I bought the house from him. Over a year ago. He keeps an eye out for me, and I try to do the same. I don’t think he has any family in town.”
“No,” she said, “he doesn’t.”
I looked her over, with her clean pressed slacks, the boots, the windbreaker. I didn’t know her role in this; Rick had introduced her as Nina, and she’d never clarified whether she was an officer, an investigator, a liaison. She didn’t look old enough to be in charge, but she had the air of authority. Such was the benefit of small towns. Same way I had my position in the hospital so young. “You’ve known him a while?”
She crossed one leg over the other before answering. “I grew up here. I knew his son.”
I had opened my mouth to ask another question when the doctor pulled back the curtain in one swift movement. She said hello absently, eyes to Nina, then to my bare leg, then down to the paperwork in front of her. “Good news is this doesn’t seem to be anything but a surface injury. Bad news, cuts like this over a joint still generally require stitches to heal correctly. And, unrelated, I’m a little concerned about your blood pressure.” She stood closer, sliding on a pair of gloves. “Let’s take a look.”
“Dr. Britton?” I asked. Even though of course it was her. Sydney, with her trademark sleek blond hair and sharp cheekbones, now dressed up in a white lab coat, glasses perched on top of her head. Hadn’t it been just yesterday when she’d been checking out of work, tired and in need of sleep, picking up wine and a microwave meal from the G&M? Yet here she was, fresh-eyed and sharp, with no recognition on her face.
She blinked twice, like she was trying to slide me into context. “Liv?”
“You two know each other?” Nina asked, suddenly standing.
“I work here,” I said, and the tiniest of lines formed in Nina’s forehead. “Not as a doctor…” I pointed to the ceiling. “Upstairs. Administration.”
Nina looked at me closely, as if she could see the potential for all the other things stored inside that I had not offered up. “Nina Rigby,” she said, directing her words to the doctor. “Detective with the police department.”
Detective. The word chilled. Turned this visit into something else. Was I still being questioned here? Was I a suspect? I was cooperating, and I didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to make the wrong move, drag things out that should remain buried.
“Sydney Britton,” the doctor replied. She was looking carefully between the detective and me. Categorizing everything that was not right—from my dirty feet, slipped into flip-flops, to the worn pajama pants. I felt the night, wild and clinging to me.
“What happened to you?” Sydney asked, voice different—not as a doctor but as an acquaintance.
“I hurt my knee outside. I tripped.”
“Well,” Detective Rigby added, letting the word hang in the air. “She tripped over a body she discovered outside. Which probably explains the blood pressure.”
Sydney’s head jerked to the side, taking in what the detective was saying. She slowly turned back to me. “A body, huh? That must’ve given you quite the scare.” But her tone was flat, and I wondered if the detective could hear it, too. We’d all seen bodies here, in various states. Maybe, in her opinion, it was a disconnect I should have perfected by now. How desensitized she must be to trauma and death. Even to me, they were rows on a spreadsheet. Tallies in the day.
But not in the yard. Not around our homes. Not in the middle of the night, when we woke up with no idea how we’d gotten there. I was betting Sydney’s blood pressure would be through the roof, too, if a body were the first thing she saw upon waking.
Sydney took a steady breath, then placed her gloved hands around my kneecap.
Detective Rigby leaned forward and cleared her throat. “The knee, it’s from an impact injury?” she asked.
The doctor’s hands stilled as the two shared a prolonged look, and I suddenly understood. It was the reason she’d brought me here, and why she was still here—to figure out what had happened out there. Whether I had tripped. Whether I had omitted some other details in the lead-up. She might not be questioning me in an official capacity now, but she was gathering information. She was checking out my story—seeing if it held.
The question she never asked that was lingering under the surface: Was there something else I’d neglected to share? Some measure of violence that led to another?
Sydney turned around and pulled the curtain abruptly shut, blocking the view of the nurse who had been standing nearby. Not that it would stop her from hearing.
“You tell me, Liv,” Sydney said, gloved fingers gently pressing into my knee again. “Is that how it happened?”
Three women in the room, understanding what else could’ve been possible out there. The dirt on my clothes. The blood. The fear.
I winced, leaning back on my elbows. “I didn’t know it was a body at first. I heard the phone, and I tripped over it.” A shudder. “Over him.”
Sydney looked into my eyes for a moment before turning to the detective. “Yeah, this sure looks like a hard, uneven impact. A root or a rock, I’m guessing?”
I shook my head. “I think so. It was dark. It all happened so fast.”
I watched as the doctor quickly scanned the rest of my body—the clean shirt, the exposed skin. I’d assessed myself in Rick’s bathroom, and Detective Rigby had done the same when we were in my bedroom. There was nothing to see. No reason to suspect a different version of events.
Detective Rigby went back to her chair, sending messages on her phone, and Sydney got set up to treat the wound.
After numbing the area, she cleaned and stitched me up, her hands fast and practiced. A pattern that was hypnotizing to watch. When she finished, she tore her gloves off quickly, the sound like a snap cutting through the room. “All right. We’ll need to see you back in about ten days to have the stitches taken out. It looks worse than it is, with the localized swelling. Let’s get you an anti-inflammatory. Maybe with something to take the edge off the nerves, yeah?”
“Yes, okay,” I said.
“Any drug allergies or adverse reactions we need to be aware of?”
“None,” I said. One time, when I was a teenager, I was given a medication to calm me before what the doctors claimed was a routine procedure to fix an outstanding issue in my arm, and I had no recollection of anything until hours after the surgery, when the nurse beside my bed finally said, Welcome back, Arden. I wasn’t sure if that counted as an adverse reaction, but at the moment, I welcomed the idea. Of taking a pill and disconnecting.
“Is there someone at home with you?” Sydney asked, eyes on the chart she was filling out.
I couldn’t tell why she was asking, just like with Dr. Cal. Whether she had access to other information that she wasn’t disclosing.
When I didn’t answer, she paused and looked up. “This medicine I’m prescribing is also a pretty decent sedative. Just making sure someone will be around to check in on you.”
I was about to answer that my neighbor would certainly check in when the curtain peeled back, and a wide-eyed Elyse stood on the other side. “Well, shit,” she said. “Hey. You okay?”
Her face was completely clean of makeup, her hair tied up on top of her head. Loose T-shirt, leggings, sneakers. I tried to see the signs of Trevor on her.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
But I knew. The look from the woman behind the desk when I checked in. Or the nurse who had taken my blood pressure. Or the one with her back turned when the curtain was pulled shut. The way information swirled through back channels in a place like this.
“You didn’t call,” Elyse said. Then she looked at the detective, confused. Stuck out her hand. “I’m Elyse, a nurse here.” Waiting for an explanation.
“Nina Rigby. I’m the detective who got the call tonight.” She reached out to shake Elyse’s hand.
Elyse’s handshake paused almost comically. Then she turned to me again. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“It’s not me,” I said. “There was a body, and I tripped.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, and I couldn’t tell whether the unintentional humor was in my delivery, or whether there was something darkly comic at the core of the entire situation.
“Well, if you need a ride home, I’ve got you,” Elyse said. She turned to the detective. “I can take it from here.”
Detective Rigby smiled tightly. Sydney grinned at Elyse. “She’s just about all set,” the doctor said. Then she turned to me. “I can also probably get the paperwork sped up, seeing as none of the departments want to look bad in front of you.” She patted the edge of the bed before leaving. “Glad you have someone here with you.”
Detective Rigby stood and handed me her card. “There’s going to be some activity around your house,” she said. “A team will be at the scene for most of today, at least. And there will probably be some follow-up visits. Some paperwork.”
“Thanks,” I said. It was a relief that she was leaving. A sign that she had gotten what she’d come for. That the story held.
The detective paused at the exit. “I’ve got your initial statement, but it might help if you write down everything you can remember as soon as possible when you’re back at the house, for when the time comes. See if being back home triggers anything else. You’re a witness, and memories have a way of… slipping after too much time.” She stared at me before stepping through the gap in the curtains.
Elyse made an overexaggerated grimace when the detective was out of sight. “Yikes,” she said. “She’s very intense. I didn’t expect that when I first saw her.”
