The Night Olivia Fell

9

ABI

november

November arrived abruptly in Portage Point. The sky was gray and wet; the wind tossed leaves across the ground in angry flurries. I scurried across the parking lot toward the hospital. By the time I reached the front, my hair clung to my forehead in damp tendrils.

Inside I headed for the elevators while dialing the numbers on the business card Samson had left me. It was the third time that day, but still it went to voicemail. I knew there were budget cuts; I knew other cases were important too, that the investigative process took time; but surely, surely Olivia’s case would take priority.

Even on the rare occasion when a detective answered, they just told me to be patient, they’d let me know if anything new came up. They were always fobbing me off like that. And I didn’t have time for it. Four weeks had passed since Olivia’s fall. Only four-teen weeks until the baby would be born. And that was if we were lucky. I needed answers sooner, not later.

I took the elevator to the floor Olivia had been moved to last week. Now that she was out of the ICU, the baby had a better chance at surviving; but seeing the ventilator and feeding tube was no less of a shock each time I arrived.

I steeled myself against the pain and pushed open the door. Sarah was slumped over the edge of Olivia’s bed, her mouth hung open in sleep, a deep crease denting the middle of her forehead.

‘Sarah,’ I whispered. My sister jumped when I touched her shoulder. ‘You should go home. Go see Dylan and Brad.’

She rubbed her arm over her eyes. ‘I couldn’t sleep. What time is it?’

‘Six.’

‘They’re sleeping. You should be too.’

I put my purse down and slipped out of my coat, sitting in the chair next to her as the pale light edged the darkness from the room. I picked up Olivia’s hand and inspected her wrist. The bruises had faded, the broken skin mostly healed; her skin renewed itself, even though her brain never would.

‘I’m thinking of going back to work,’ I told Sarah.

I realized with some surprise that I missed the rhythm of my job. The predictability. At least I knew what I was doing in accounting, what to expect. There was no guesswork, only right or wrong. Right now I was just waiting through my days, but for what? The police rarely responded to my calls. Olivia’s case was still open, but it felt like they weren’t really investigating.

The last four weeks had passed in a slow, nauseating spin. I slept and ate little, sobbed a lot. I shoved fistfuls of sedatives in my mouth, washing them down with red wine and vodka until I’d drunk everything in my house and had no pills left to take.

The dull lethargy that had plagued me immediately after Olivia fell was being replaced by a crazed adrenaline and an urge to know the truth. People throughout Portage Point had heard the news. They wanted to ask questions, to know what had happened, but I had no answers and no energy to explain that the police had yet to piece together any intelligible reason for Olivia’s fall.

At least Samson had been right about the reporters – they’d eventually trickled away, in search of more urgent stories.

The cost of caring for Olivia was mounting. My insurance was already balking and I knew I’d have to find a way to pay for everything for another three months at least. And then there was the baby. . .

‘I can’t lose my insurance,’ I said.

Sarah nodded. She, of all people, knew that the weight of unexpected responsibility could be as heavy as water.

I looked at Olivia in the hospital bed, a pale, shriveled version of herself. Eyes closed. Intubated. The incessant mechanized hush of the machines keeping her alive.

‘I don’t understand why the police aren’t working harder on this,’ I said, anger and frustration simmering inside me.

‘I’m sure they are,’ Sarah reassured me. She stood and rolled her neck in slow circles. ‘Investigations take time.’

‘They said the bruises were probably from the fall. But you saw them, right? They were fingerprints. Somebody did this to her.’

Sarah looked away, and I could tell she didn’t really agree.

I didn’t like everything I said second-guessed, my emotions and my sanity questioned. I knew what I’d seen. I just had no way to prove it meant what I thought it did.

‘They’re still investigating,’ she repeated. ‘We have to let them do their job.’

I glared at her. ‘I know you don’t understand, but I need to know what happened.’

Flames of anger curled in my stomach, and the air between us tightened. After our mother died, it was me who acted out and raged. Sarah had stayed calm and composed. She’d organized the funeral, taken care of the will, boxed up all my things and moved me in with her.

I was a basket case in comparison. I wailed and wept, wanted to know why Mom was dead, who I could blame. When I didn’t get answers I wallowed, sinking into the grief and letting it hold me like a warm bath. That’s what losing your only parent when you’re ten does – it makes it so you can’t ever let go.

Sarah didn’t want to talk about Mom at all. She wasn’t interested in remembering and certainly didn’t want me talking about that day. Her emotionless, brisk efficiency made me doubt my feelings. I wondered why I cared so much, but she didn’t.

Over time I’d learned to hide my emotions. But on the inside I was still just a wreck, barely keeping it together.

‘Of course I understand,’ Sarah said, her forehead creasing with hurt. ‘I get it. I want to help. I know people at the Seattle Police Department through work. I’ll call around. See if anybody there can help.’

‘I don’t need a shrink picking my brain apart.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘I need to know what happened to Olivia. Besides, I can’t pay for it.’

‘I don’t mean a counselor. And I don’t mean in an official capacity, just as a favor. Maybe they can ask around, get some insight into what the Portage Point police are doing, what they’re thinking.’

My pulse raced through my clenched muscles. I looked away, wanting her to stop talking.

‘The baby’s doing well,’ she said, changing the subject.

She reached over and touched Olivia’s stomach. Somehow, despite so many tests, drugs, and X-rays, the baby was healthy. It was growing at a normal rate, swimming in the space beneath where my daughter’s heart pumped blood around her body.

I dug my fingernails into the skin of my upper arms until they left pale, moon-shaped dents, then raked them across my upper arms, scratching at the invisible itch. The pain was sharp, intense, but in a way that felt good.

‘Abi, stop!’ Sarah exclaimed, her voice sharp as a ragged hangnail.

‘Then stop talking about the baby!’

‘Why?’ Her brow puckered.

‘Don’t you get it?’ I exploded. The spark of anger lit and consumed my insides, suddenly so bulky that I couldn’t sit still. I launched out of my chair and crossed the room to stare out the window. The maple trees that lined the park across the street were nearly bare, slowly losing the last of their crimson and gold leaves.

‘Get what?’

I whirled to face her. ‘When the baby’s born, Olivia will die! So stop harping on about the baby, because that deadline means my daughter fucking dies!’

I didn’t wait for her reply. I pushed past her and ran out the door, down the stairs, back into the driving rain.

× × ×

Back at home, I felt a deep, dark self-loathing stealing over me. I shouldn’t have blown up at Sarah.

Whatever problems I’d had with my sister, whatever resentment I’d held in my heart, Sarah had always been my rock. Even when my mom was alive, it was Sarah my teachers called if I was sick, Sarah who helped me with my homework. When I was five and got lost when we were picnicking at the beach, it was Sarah I howled for under the hot white sun. I was alone and she ran to me, shouting my name, and I knew I was safe. I never felt that way with my mom.

A sudden, vivid memory of my mother the day she died flashed through me: the blood, the screaming – was it Sarah or me? – the gun still hanging from her finger. I’d lost my mother and my childhood in one cruel day. I guess being angry and blaming Sarah was easier than moving on.

Fuck. I scrubbed my hands over my eyes. I was such a mess.

I crossed the living room to the small oak desk in the corner next to the fireplace and sat down. Once my old laptop had booted up, I opened my e-mail, prepared to send a request for another leave of absence to my boss.

I had thirty-four new e-mails: a mix of junk mail, persistent interview requests, well-wishers at work, friends and acquaintances in the community who were too scared to talk to me face-to-face. And then my eye fell on something else.

Your invoice from Apple – Invoice APPLE ID

olivialouiseknight@gmail.com.

Tears sprang to my eyes. It was yet another reminder that Olivia wasn’t here anymore. I didn’t need to pay this bill anymore, but I didn’t want to stop because that would be an admission that my daughter wasn’t coming back.

I wanted to drop my head to the desk and let my broken heart overwhelm me. Instead I took a deep breath and typed iCloud.com into the browser. I logged in with her e-mail and password, which I’d insisted she give me when I bought us both the iPhones, and a number of brightly colored icons filled my screen: e-mail, contacts, calendar, photos. The guts of Olivia’s life were here.

I clicked the Mail icon, but the mailbox was empty except for a welcome e-mail. I shut it and moved on to Contacts. There were hundreds of people listed. Some I knew, but a lot I didn’t. I scrolled slowly down the page, staring hard at each name. Who were they? Had one of these people hurt Olivia? Next I opened Photos.

At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Horror stole over me like a mist, uncurling deep within. And then a fiery knot began to burn in my stomach.

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, then opened them again. The pictures were still there. The first one was slightly blurry, as if it had been zoomed in from far away. Olivia was standing outside her school staring at something in the distance. Somebody had drawn devil horns over her head and a red line across her throat with what looked like drops of blood below.

Die bitch! was written across the bottom.

In the second one, Olivia’s face was colored over in hard, angry scribbles, a red noose twisted around her throat. But I could tell it was Olivia by the clothes she wore, her favorite swim-team shirt. I leaned closer to read the red text.

Kill!

And another: a knife drawn plunged into Olivia’s heart, blood dripping down her chest. The words U die! were scrawled on the picture.

Shock rippled through me.

There were a handful more, all variations of the first three: pictures of Olivia with her neck slit, blood dripping down the image, her eyes whited out, bloody intestines vomiting from her mouth. All with die, kill, and fuck you scribbled across them.

‘Oh my God,’ I whispered. A rush of adrenaline thumped hot and silent in my blood.

Someone had been cyberbullying Olivia.

10

ABI

november

I started to shake all over, a shocked and angry vibration that started at the very core of me and radiated out.

Why would somebody send these to Olivia? And who?

I scrolled down through the rest of the photos, but there was nothing else there. Nothing threatening, anyway.

I rested my head on the desk and thumped it softly against the edge, as if that would knock loose rational thoughts that might solve this puzzle.

‘Think, Abi. Think!’

Her phone. I bolted upright. Maybe there were more on her actual phone. I racked my mind, trying to think where I’d put it. I barely remembered what had happened since Olivia fell. It felt like I’d been sleepwalking since then.

I ran to the kitchen and grabbed Olivia’s phone from the coun ter I’d thrown it on after the detectives left. The fact that the police hadn’t even asked for or looked for Olivia’s cell was further proof they weren’t taking the investigation seriously.

I plugged the phone in to charge, and after a few seconds it chimed and burst to life.

There were two unread text messages.

The most recent was from someone Olivia had saved as K at 10:42 a.m. later the same morning Olivia was found: You ok? I’m so sorry. I seriously didn’t know. Anyway, he’s a dick. If you’re like me you’ll cut him out for good!

I brushed a hand over my face, more baffled than ever. I scrolled down and read the other text.

It was from Tyler at 11:20 p.m. the night Olivia fell.

I scrolled up to read the whole thread.

Olivia: You’re right. We need to talk. You still at bbq? Meet in 15?

Tyler: Yep. See you in a few.

I paused, letting the part of my brain that allowed me to analyze numbers so well take over. I latched on to something as my mind anchored and examined it. The thought crystallized into something cold and hard.

‘Fuck,’ I whispered out loud. Tyler had told me Olivia left at 10:45 p.m. and he hadn’t seen her after that. But according to this text, they’d met up at around 11:30 p.m. ‘Tyler lied to me.’

I scrolled back through some of Olivia’s old texts. The most recent ones were from K and a string of texts from somebody called only D. As I read, I realized they were sweet, some rather romantic, and I remembered Tyler telling me the baby wasn’t his. Perhaps this D was the baby’s father.

The shock of finding the disturbing images in Olivia’s iCloud account and the texts from Tyler had begun to dissipate, leaving behind a completely clear view.

This was the proof I needed. Somebody had hurt Olivia on purpose. I had to go to the police.

× × ×

The Portage Point Police Department was situated in a miniature antebellum-style brick building on the far side of town, nestled under tall pine trees and fronted by a series of low boxwood shrubs.

I drove too quickly up Main Street, flying past the white, steepled church, a handful of indie coffee shops, a yoga studio, and the small town square, then turned right past a children’s playground and baseball diamond. I parked outside the station, between a police SUV and an American flag flapping aggressively in the wind.

Carol-Ann, the police station receptionist, recognized me as soon as I walked in.

‘Abi!’ She came around the desk and reached for me, folding me against her massive, doughy bosom. She smelled of lavender and soap, which made me suddenly aware of how long it had been since I’d showered. When Carol-Ann pulled away, her soft brown eyes sparkled with tears.

Carol-Ann was like the police department’s built-in grandma, complete with thick glasses and permed graying hair that poufed around her face. She’d run the front office as long as I could remember, helping the town’s four police officers and two detec tives organize legal paperwork, answer the phones, and comfort victims.

‘Carol-Ann, I need to see Detective Samson or McNally. Are they here?’

I took a step toward the half-open inner door and caught a glimpse of Samson sitting in a small kitchen, a sandwich in front of her as she stared at her cell phone. The murmur of police radios floated out to me.

Carol-Ann stepped in front of me and put her hand on my elbow, gently guiding me to a chair by her desk. ‘Let me see if they’re free. I’ll be right back.’

A few minutes later she returned with Detective Samson.

I jumped up, anger flaring in me. ‘Where have you been?’ I snapped. ‘I’ve left a thousand messages for you guys, and nothing! No wonder you haven’t solved Olivia’s case if you’re sitting here eating lunch and checking your phone all day!’

Samson’s ice-blue eyes flashed something I couldn’t immediately recognize. Not anger, exactly. Surprise.

She nodded at Carol-Ann, then jerked her head toward the door. ‘Please come with me.’

I followed her down the hallway past the kitchen to a characterless room painted a cold gray. There were no pictures on the walls, no decorations, nothing except a window to the hallway with half-closed blinds and a table like the kind you’d find in a cafeteria with a handful of folding chairs around it.

I pulled Olivia’s phone out of my purse, set it on the table with a loud thunk, then glared at her as she sat down.

‘You didn’t take Olivia’s phone.’

Samson crossed one leg over her knee and studied me for a long minute. ‘Didn’t Detective McNally ask you for it?’

‘No.’ I started to shake my head, then stopped. I couldn’t actually remember. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘We are pursuing a number of leads, Miss Knight.’

I gritted my teeth, knowing that was code for We haven’t found anything.

‘Olivia’s boyfriend, Tyler, he lied to me. He told me they didn’t see each other after she left the barbecue, but there’s a text here.’ I clicked into the text thread and handed the phone to her. ‘See? She says she’s going back to the barbecue. She would’ve met him at eleven thirty. And . . .’ I dug in my purse for the threatening pictures I’d printed from Olivia’s iCloud account and laid them on the table. ‘Somebody sent her these.’

Samson scrolled through the phone for a moment, then picked up the pictures, her face a cold, hard mask. She studied them for a long moment. ‘Were these on her phone?’

I shook my head. ‘No, they were in her iCloud account, which was synced with her phone. They must’ve been deleted from her phone.’

‘Any idea who sent these?’

‘No. None at all.’

Samson leaned forward and handed me her notebook and a pen. ‘Can you write down her log-in details for me?’

I did, then started to ask if she believed me now, but a knock at the door interrupted me. McNally’s head poked in, his flabby jowls stretched into what I assumed was meant to be a smile. He looked as exhausted and unkempt as usual, but this time there was something else I hadn’t noticed before: an unmistakable edge of animosity.

‘If I could just borrow Detective Samson for a minute.’

Samson carefully folded the printed pages and slipped them into her blazer pocket, along with Olivia’s phone and her notebook. The door closed with a sharp snap behind her.

I sat on one of the metal chairs and watched them through the slats of the cheap metal blinds. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. McNally was speaking forcefully to Samson. He looked angry. Samson gestured with both hands, more animated than normal. She lifted Olivia’s phone, but he shook his head and batted it away. Samson glanced at me, gave me a small tight smile, but something tilted inside of me when I saw it. I felt a sense of foreboding. Of time running out.

And right then I knew, with a dark certainty, that if I left it to them, I would never know the truth about what had happened to Olivia.

I’d spent my whole life hiding, just existing behind the walls I’d built around myself. I never got the answers I needed when my mother died. I was powerless to stop my mom killing herself. Powerless to make Olivia’s father choose me. Powerless to stop my daughter from – the pain of reality hit me in the stomach.

But I couldn’t afford to feel that way now. Self-pity was fine when you were ten, but in a few months I’d have Olivia’s baby to take care of. Wallowing was an indulgence I didn’t have. I needed answers now.

What do you do when you know something and nobody will listen? When you need answers and nobody will provide them? When you can’t trust anybody to help you?

I stood at a crossroads, half aware that my choice now would send me down a path from which there would be no turning back. The decision wasn’t a hard one. I didn’t want to be powerless anymore. I wanted answers.

I slammed the interview room door open, and Samson and McNally turned to me, eyes wide with surprise.

‘Something’s wrong,’ I said, a crazed fury surging through my body. Rage had hijacked the rational part of my brain, the part that never stood up to people, that sat back while others told me what to do. ‘I know something’s wrong. And you both know it. Whether you help me or not, I’m going to find out what happened to my daughter.’