The Girl from Widow Hills, page 8
“She is investigating a death. That’s probably the required demeanor,” I said.
But Elyse was right. There was something about Detective Rigby that made you focus on the wrong thing. I’d spent the last hours beside her trying to unravel the surface of her and missing what she was actually doing here. I wondered if this was how she worked—letting people underestimate her and seeing what they gave away in the process.
I’d let her into my house, let her look around. Let her sit beside me while the doctor gave an opinion on my injury. It had probably worked out for the best. She’d seen inside both Rick’s home and my own and must’ve realized no crime had taken place inside.
But I’d let her in, not even realizing what she was doing. I’d let her in before I’d had a chance to see it for myself. That could have been a huge mistake. I had to be more careful.
“I’m gonna go check on the paperwork,” Elyse said, squeezing my leg. “Sit tight, okay?”
Separated from me by the curtain, the bustle on the other side fell away—a reality happening somewhere else. A shadow rushing by. A beeping from somewhere down the hall.
A phone started endlessly ringing, and my mind was back in the darkness, struggling for context. I closed my eyes, trying to find it—the memories, before they slipped. Searching, like Detective Rigby had suggested:
Texting Jonah, wineglass in hand. Realizing it was a mistake. Walking to the bedroom… Somewhere in the following hour, I’d gotten changed, climbed into bed, placed the phone beside me on the nightstand. But I couldn’t pull those details to the surface. They were mundane, the minutiae of each day, a subconscious routine. I could picture it but couldn’t be sure the memory was from last night specifically, above any other typical night. Instead, I heard the ringing. Felt the impact of the hard earth. Saw the shadow beside it, and the dirt and blood and—
“Liv?” Elyse was standing in the gap of the curtains but now rushed to my side, hand to my wrist. “You’re breathing too fast. Your pulse is racing.”
She looked to the hall like she was going to call for a doctor, but I gripped her hand. “I just want to get out of here. Please. I want to go home.”
Her large brown eyes searched mine, and she nodded. She placed a hand at my elbow as I stood. “Yeah, we’re getting out of here.”
* * *
EVEN EXPEDITED, IT WAS nearly an hour after Dr. Britton had finished up by the time I had the discharge papers and the prescription from the pharmacy in hand.
Elyse yawned as we walked across the lot for her car. The sky in the distance was lightening with a purple glow. I eased myself carefully into the passenger seat of her white sedan, and I dropped my purse on the floor behind me. She had a small overnight bag, which could’ve been from changing out of her scrubs after work last night, but also could’ve been because of the evening plans that I’d just interrupted.
“Were you with Trevor?” I asked as she slid into the driver’s seat.
“No, no. I didn’t stay out much longer. The music, blah. And Bennett turned all sulky after talking to his ex. What a trip. No offense, I know he’s your good friend, but he can be kind of a mood killer.” She drummed her hands on the wheel. “Did he call you? Last night, I mean.”
I took out my phone, scrolled through, but there had been nothing other than Jonah’s call. Everyone had gone home to a typical night, it seemed. “Nope.”
“He was not too pleased that you left without saying goodbye. I told him you weren’t feeling well, but…” She shrugged. “When he left, I figured he was calling you.” She looked my way, and I shook my head. “I texted him when I found out you were in the hospital,” Elyse continued, “but it didn’t seem to go through. I called and left a message, but it went straight to voicemail. I think his phone was off.” A cut of her eyes in my direction. “Sorry, I didn’t know how else to reach him.”
“No, that’s all right, he’s like that.” The rule follower, silencing his cell for all sleeping hours when he wasn’t on call. Often turned off, for good measure, so people wouldn’t expect a response.
“I’m sorry,” Elyse said, taking a deep breath. “I’m talking too much because I’m nervous. Because I don’t know what to say. Are you okay? You’re obviously not okay. I mean, other than your knee. There was a detective. And a body. I wouldn’t be okay.”
“I’ll be okay,” I said, hoping it was true.
Her grip tightened on the steering wheel. “And he was just… there?”
Looking at her, I thought briefly that she might still be drunk. How many hours had it been since she’d left the bar? She’d had at least two drinks before I went home, and she hadn’t seemed in a rush to leave. “Just lying there.”
“And you found him? In the middle of the night?”
The darkness and the ringing and then the shadow— “I heard a phone.” Trying the story on for size. Getting used to the way it felt, until I could see it myself, what had happened during the gap of my memories.
“I heard it was a box cutter,” she said, voice lowered.
The air kicked in through the vents, a sudden icy blast.
I cracked my knuckles on the side of my leg. Hadn’t thought much about the logistics of what had caused the blood.
“Sorry, I’m doing it again,” she said. “Talking too much.”
“No, it’s okay.” I cleared my throat. “Where’d you hear that?”
“The nurses. Some of us have a group chat. You know, for… keeping the next shift in the loop on things.”
She had stopped herself before she confessed to violating HIPAA privacy rules, for saying that the nurses might share patient information or stories via texts. A fine line, with or without names. The gray area between legality and morality.
But I knew my name must’ve been mentioned. That someone told her a cop had brought me in to the hospital. I guessed it wasn’t technically confidential, as long as my medical history wasn’t shared.
And now, on another floor, a man had likely been brought to the morgue. Another examination happening elsewhere, trying to unspool the story from a different angle.
I knew Central Valley didn’t get a lot of murders. I’d checked what I was getting into before I moved here. Not as quiet as Widow Hills, but the deaths we documented and tallied were mostly illness, or accidental, or expected. It was worse in the winter, with the icy, winding roads and the mountainous terrain. Even then, there weren’t typically police investigations surrounding them.
“What else did you hear?” I asked as she turned onto my street. “Do you know who it is?”
She eased her foot off the gas, seeing the police cars still parked on the side of the road. “No. Not that anyone’s saying. Just that. A man brought to the morgue. And that you were there, too.” Her eyes cut to the side again. “This is scary, Liv.”
One more honest thing, then: “I know.”
TRANSCRIPT OF LIVE REPORT—WPBC CHANNEL 9
OCTOBER 19, 2000, 9:00 A.M.
ALANA COX: We’re going live to Tiffany Lu, who’s joining us from the volunteer headquarters in Widow Hills, Kentucky. Tiffany, can you tell us what it’s like there right now?
TIFFANY LU: Good morning, Alana. The search for six-year-old Arden Maynor is now entering the third day in Widow Hills, Kentucky. What had first been driven by a majority-volunteer outpouring of resources and support has now turned into a massive undertaking on a national level.
At the most recent press conference last night, Captain Morgan Howard was pressed for his thoughts on the status of the search. He said that, quote, “We will find her. That’s what we’re here to do, and we’re going to do it.”
He was then pressed on what the chances were of finding her alive. Captain Howard’s answer was evasive yet firm. He responded, quote, “A child is not a statistic.”
Alana, we’ve been interviewing various residents in the area over the last few days who have told us that locals themselves have organized searches through the easier terrain. But there’s now an experienced rescue operation combing the treacherous terrain in the valley. Helicopters are scanning the area from above with infrared, looking for heat signatures that could match a child’s. And there are teams preparing to explore the system of drainage tunnels wherever they are accessible.
It’s a race against time, and they’re using every hour and every person at their disposal. It may be three days since there’s been any clue or hint to her whereabouts, but the people surrounding the search are undeterred.
For all of us at the volunteer headquarters, it’s becoming easier to believe Captain Howard’s promise. The general feeling on the ground is that they will not stop until the child is found.
ALANA COX: Thank you, Tiffany. And thank you to everyone on the scene for all you’re doing to find her. For the rest of us, we can only watch—and hope.
CHAPTER 9
Saturday, 7:30 a.m.
ELYSE TYPICALLY BRIGHTENED A room or a mood. But there was no helping the situation of my house. It was the crime tape we could see to the left when we pulled up my drive. The voices carrying across the yard as she helped me up the steps, one leg awkwardly following behind, stiff from the stitches. And it was something else when we stepped inside, a scent I couldn’t place—not quite sweat but something that made me imagine a person. A whiff of product. A reminder that a detective had been in here with me, looking around.
I wondered if anyone else had been in while I was away. If Rick had let them in using the key I’d given him. There were probably guidelines against that, but these were all people who knew one another, with a shared history that meant more than protocol. Rick had even introduced the detective as Nina.
The lights had all been left on from the night before, but the house suddenly felt like a stranger. A creak in the hall where I didn’t remember one. An empty nail hole in the wall over the kitchen table. A tear in the window screen over the sink.
Elyse stood beside me, unfolding the directions that came with the prescription. “You’re supposed to take this one with food.” She placed the page faceup on the table. “Sit tight, I’ll get some breakfast going.”
I picked up the paper, reading over the details as Elyse took a carton of eggs from the fridge. I read the description of the medicine to myself, then bit back a laugh.
“You okay over there?”
A sleeping aid. The prescription was for a pain reliever that was also used, at times, as a sleeping aid. “Just realizing how much easier it is to get a prescription for something on the surface. The cut wasn’t even that bad, really.” I shook the amber bottle, tipped a pill into my hand, took it with a sip of water from the sink.
“I think it’s also about how you got it, Liv.”
I plopped down in the chair at the kitchen table, resting my leg on the spare one to keep it straight and elevated, per Dr. Britton’s written suggestions. Elyse cracked an egg over a bowl, then reached for another.
“What’s the worst thing you’ve seen?” I asked.
She froze, the yolk running. “In this hospital?” she asked, staring at the bowl. She shook her head. “I don’t work in the ER, so I don’t see the worst of it, you know? Some of the other nurses, they talk, though. They see a lot more…” She was staring out the window with the torn screen, but her eyes seemed unfocused. “Anyway, it’s best to leave that at work. It’s really the only way.”
“I know, I just, with the texts you mentioned sharing, I thought maybe it helped to talk about it…”
“My job… it’s not what I expected. I don’t know what I expected, really, but I need to shut it off at the end of the day.”
“I get it,” I said. I thought of Sydney and the bottle of wine, the promise of Law & Order reruns waiting for her at home. Me with my glass of wine. We all had our routines.
Elyse crossed to the fridge, pulled out the milk and butter, kept talking as she moved around in my kitchen. “I was in a really bad car accident when I was seventeen. So much of my memory of the recovery was just… pain. The nurses kept me sane, kept me positive and focused. They’re who I remember, those same faces, day after day. I just wanted to be one of those people.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said, my voice softer. I was always surprised by the things I didn’t know about other people, like I was the only one with an unknown past. I’d never been good with sharing, nervous about the past creeping in, giving too much of myself away—so people rarely shared in response. It had kept me guarded, closed off.
I wanted to tell her something now, to cross that divide. Something about last night that I didn’t have to keep hidden—
She stepped back from the stove abruptly, eyes fixed straight ahead. “Liv, someone’s out there.”
I stood, the chair scratching against the floor. “The police?”
“Definitely not. Some old guy in flannel.”
“Oh,” I said, my heart rate slowing. “It’s just my neighbor, Rick.” Elyse must’ve heard me talk about him in the past, but they’d never met.
I opened the back door, Elyse just over my shoulder. Rick was walking through the trees just beyond the edge of the yard, but he didn’t seem like he was heading this way. There wasn’t any place else he could be going, really, not without his truck.
“Rick?” I called.
He changed direction, ambling toward me, and when he came closer, he was normal Rick, in his flannel and work boots—a comforting sight, even now. “Glad to see you’re back home. I had to get out and clear my head.” He peered over his shoulder, like he was checking for someone, then lowered his voice. “They said it’s fine if I come and go as long as I keep off the marked area, but every time I step out front, I feel like I’m being watched.”
I nodded. After my night with Detective Rigby, I understood. I had felt like every word and action was being filed away and assessed. I thought then of the gun under Rick’s sink. The electrical tape. The things he had hidden away. Also: the light on at his house, the bed that was still made when I showed up. All the things the police could’ve found or noticed.
But he had gone to check on the body. He had made sure my hands were clean before the detective showed up. I felt partially guilty—I was the one who had pulled Rick into the nightmare, who had gone straight to him instead of to the police.
“I just got home. This is my friend Elyse.”
“Hi there,” he said, taking one step back. “I see you’re in good hands, then. You just holler if you need anything.”
“Thanks, you know I will.”
He turned back but stopped halfway. “Everything go okay with Nina?”
“Nina?” Elyse cut in. “Wasn’t that the detective?”
I knew Rick had given a statement, just as I had—and I wanted to ask. Wanted to make sure they matched up, wanted to know whether there was anything else the police had mentioned to Rick. But not with Elyse here. Not with the police just on the other side of the walls.
“Yes,” I said, answering them both. “It was fine. She brought me to the hospital for my knee.” I gestured down. “I needed stitches.”
“Oh, good. Good,” Rick said. “I know her family. She was always a good kid.” Then he turned away.
None of us were kids anymore, but I wondered if Rick could only see us that way, so far removed from his own past. “Call if you need anything, Rick,” I said to his back.
I closed the back door, and the silverware drawer rattled, a quirk of the house.
He raised his hand in acknowledgment as he walked away. I watched from the window, standing beside Elyse, as he turned back for his own house, satisfied that I was home and safe.
“That was odd,” Elyse said, the moment between us long gone.
“No. That’s just Rick. He keeps an eye on me.”
“Mm,” she said, turning back to the eggs. “Where do you keep the whisk?”
I pulled out the middle drawer, handed it to her, and as she turned away, beating the eggs over the countertop, I stared at the top drawer.
A box cutter, she’d said. Something sharp and short and efficient. I’d used mine just a few days earlier to open the box of my mother’s things. I held my breath, eased the top drawer open slightly. Pens and scissors and a pad of paper. I moved a few things around with shaking hands, but I didn’t have to. I could already tell: It was gone.
“I should’ve asked,” Elyse said. “You good with scrambled?”
I eased the drawer shut, feeling untethered, a balloon floating away.
“Liv?” she asked. “That pill isn’t working already, is it?”
“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “Yes, scrambled is great.” I heard the click of the gas before the flame caught, the sizzle of butter in the pan on the stovetop.
I didn’t like enclosed places, which was part of the allure of the house: the openness around it; the multiple windows and exits; the rooms that flowed from one straight into another. But now I felt bound by the perimeter, like people were watching; like I shouldn’t leave without reason.
The box cutter wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Something breaking open inside me. All the possibilities of where it might be.
The box had arrived on Wednesday, and I’d used the box cutter to slice through the tape. I’d pulled out the contents, gotten swept away in the moment… I must’ve slid it into a different drawer afterward, my mind unfocused. Or left it inside the box by accident, as I replaced each item.
“Sit,” she said, pointing the whisk at me. What I really wanted to do was ask her to leave so I could go through the drawers one by one. Search the house top to bottom until I found it, and be sure. Because that was the problem: I could never be sure. Not until I had it in my hand.
Elyse slid the dish in front of me, and I continued to surprise myself, scooping up the eggs like I hadn’t eaten in days, practically ravenous. Even after all this.
“You might want to slow down a bit…”
I put the fork down, a memory surfacing.
